Wednesday, September 2nd
Ever since I got off my 11-hour flight from San Francisco to Madrid, wedged in a narrow seat over the wing in cattle class, barely getting up or moving, my knees have been bothering me. They’re not a body part I’m generally aware of, no chronic problems that I know of, but they’ve been aching ever since I arrived in Berlin. A whole week walking for hours on hard city pavement hasn’t helped. I’m the one who’s chosen to walk all those miles. I’ve enjoyed it, but my knees have paid the price. I’m missing my nightly access to Epsom salts and hot, steamy water in my deep soaker tub at home. Going cold turkey without my bathtub makes me realize just how much I rely on it to ease my aches and pains.
I tried the arnica cream and another herbal ointment I’d brought from home, but they were useless. On the recommendation of one of my Camino students, I purchased Voltaren ointment, used for arthritis, at a neighborhood apotheke (pharmacy). It’s better than the herbal stuff and has given me some relief, but my sore, achy knees have persisted.
My body was definitely needing heat and hot water. There was no doubt about it. I sensed another mission coming on.
I went on Trip Advisor and typed in “hammams in Berlin.” Hammams, also known as Turkish or Moroccan baths, are traditional communal steam bathhouses that use ritualized cleansing practices for purification and rejuvenation. The hammam tradition is rooted in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Islamic world. I’d been introduced to hammams while traveling through Turkey with my wife and daughter years ago. I’ve always been a huge fan of saunas, steam baths, hot tubs, and spas, but I love hammams the most.
Trip Advisor listed a number of possibility hammams, but the reviews were mixed or terrible. One spa, Sultan Hammam Berlin, rated higher than the others. I decided to go there. But then I hit a wall. I could translate their webpage from German to English at the click of a button, but only certain pages on the site translated. The rest, including the “how to book” and the registration form, remained German only.
I brought my dilemma to Michaela during my last visit with her at the hospital. From her hospital bed, she studied their website on her laptop and reported that their booking system was crazy. You had to propose a time to come in, give them a phone number and then wait for them to call you back to tell you if you had an appointment or not. Since I didn’t have a German phone number, couldn’t make or receive a call, and didn’t speak German, this was definitely not a viable option for me.
Michaela did a bit more searching. A couple of minutes later, she handed her laptop to me. “What about this place?” she asked.
She’d hit the jackpot.
Michaela had discovered a true gem in the middle of Berlin: Hamam Berlin Kreuzberg: The Turkish Bath for Women. Billed as “Germany’s first hammam, a special feminist space for bathing, community and care since 1988.” 1988 was a LONG time ago—I know because it was the year Ellen Bass and I first published The Courage to Heal.
As I read through their website, I knew right away that this was the right place:
“You decide how you want to spend your time in the hammam—for yourself, with friends or in community with others. Spread over two floors, you will find space to arrive and unwind in the warm hammam, in the sauna and infared cabin, in our relaxation rooms or outside in our courtyard.”
That all sounded great. I couldn’t wait to indulge in all that “cleansing, personal care and relaxation.”
The website continued: Women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans and agender people (FLINTA*) are welcome.”
That list sent me right to Google. I’d never heard the terms “agender” or “FLINTA*” before.
Here’s what I learned:
“Agender means having no gender identity or feeling neutral about the concept of gender.”
I wasn’t exactly sure how that differed from being non-binary. So, I looked that up, too:
Non-binary: Describes anyone whose gender falls outside the strict male/female binary. It includes many different experiences, such as being both a man and a woman, moving between genders, or feeling a connection to a specific gender.
Agender: Describes a complete lack of gender, feeling genderless, or being entirely neutral. An agender person does not feel like they belong to any gender category at all.
Most people view agender as falling under the larger non-binary umbrella because being genderless is not strictly male or female.
And FLINTA?
FLINTA* is an acronym that stands for Frauen (women), Lesben (lesbians), Intergeschlechtliche (intersex), Nicht-binäre (non-binary), Trans (transgender), and Agender people. The asterisk (*) at the end acts as a placeholder for any other gender identities that do not fit traditional societal norms.
I’m glad I got clear about all of that.
Clearly, I was going to walk into a safe, inclusive space.
On their website, I learned that you pay for a block of time at the hammam and pay separately if you want a massage or a traditional soaping and skin peel (called a kese). I know that a skin peel may sound awful, but it’s heavenly.
I could book online for the following day.
I was about to go ahead when I realized I’d prefer an English-speaking practitioner, so I could talk about what I wanted, but there was no way to indicate that in their online booking system. So, I asked Michaela to use her German phone to call and book an appointment for me. Five minutes later, after listening to her converse in German, I was set. She’d booked me a 40-minute massage and a combination kese and sabunlama treatment, and both my practitioners would speak English. All I had to do was show up at 5:00 the next day, wearing shower sandals (my waterproof hiking sandals would do), bringing my own shampoo.
Thank you, Michaela!
Arrival
The next day, I checked in at the desk, paid 25 euros for three hours at the hammam, and an extra eight for a towel and a checkered wrap called a pestemal. I’d already paid ahead for my treatments.
I readily sloughed off my clothes, put them in a locker, and wrapped the red and white cloth around my waist. I was completely comfortable. This was definitely my cup of tea.
When I first arrived at five, there were only a couple of other people using the facilities. An attendant, who relied primarily on sign language to communicate with me, gave me a tour of the facilities. As promised, the hammam spanned two stories. All the rooms were spacious, inviting, and incredibly clean. After her initial tour, the attendant brought me into the hararet, a humid, steamy, heated chamber that was softly lit. Its centerpiece was a huge octagonal heated marble platform, called the göbektaşı, filling the middle of the room.
Along the walls were seven stations, each with a tiled bench, a sink with hot and cold running water, and a drain plug, that when pulled, poured the used hot water, not into a pipe, but right out onto the floor. That made me laugh. Two shallow metal bowls, called tas, sat atop the sink. Through gestures, the attendant demonstrated that I was to fill the shallow pans with hot water from the tap and pour it all over body. Then I was to spread my pestemal out on theheated göbektaşı, lie down on it, and relax.
I had no problem complying. The hot water and the warm stone felt marvelous.
Fifteen minutes later, relaxed as a wet noodle already, I slowly stood, wrapped the pestemal around my waist and found my way to the large wooden sauna. I was the only person inside. There was a small wooden hourglass on the wall that I could flip over to time my stay in the extreme heat. The maximum length of time was fifteen minutes. I only lasted for half that time. I took a cold shower, drank a bunch of water, then returned to the hararet for another round of hot water rinsing and hot stone relaxing. Luxuriating on the warm marble, my whole body melted into the heat. I repeated this cycle several times.
I wanted to move in to Hamam Berlin Kreuzberg forever.
After I’d been lounging at the hammam for about an hour, Nick, my first practitioner, poked her head in the door and called my name. She had very short hair, wore shower shoes and a tank top, and had a pestemal wrapped around her waist. Working in very wet, steamy conditions, she wore as little as possible.
Nick’s English was great (Thank you, Michaela!) She had me take off my shoes and hang up my soaking wet towel. She asked if I had any injuries. I told her no, but that my knees were hurting. She asked me lie face down on a very hard table made of some kind of polished stone. Then she began pouring buckets of delicious hot water up and down my body. “How’s this temperature?” she asked.
“Perfect,” I replied.
After many pours, Nick pulled out a fluffy spongelike ball and began squeezing out a special sudsy olive oil soap, savon beldi, up and down the length of my body. The creamy soap felt luscious. Then she put a kese mitt, a rough fabric glove, on her right hand. Then she methodically scrubbed the entire back of my body to remove every single bit of dead skin. There was a lot of it!
I surrendered to her expert ministration. Her touch felt fantastic.
Nick rinsed the dead skin off with multiple pours of hot water. Then she had me turn over on my back kand repeated the process. She washed and scrubbed every inch of me, except my face and genitals.
When the ritual scrubbing was finished, my skin felt vibrant and alive. I’m sure I was glowing.
But that was only the first half of the treatment.
Now it was time for the sabunlama.
Once I was fully rinsed, and all the dead skin had been removed, Nick reached for her Köpük Torbası, a long, pillowcase-like sack made of loose-weave breathable silk. She dipped the empty sack into a special solution of hot soapy water to fully saturate the fibers. With an expert touch, she grabbed the open mouth of the bag and swung it through the air in a rapid circular motion. The scooping motion trapped a huge amount of air inside, instantly inflating the bag like a ballon. She twisted the opening shut, locking the trapped air inside. Then Nick kneaded and squeezed the ballooned fabric, creating a massive chain reaction, transforming the liquid soap into a dense, thick foam inside the bag.
All this happened in just a few moments.
Then Nick milked the bag from top to bottom, releasing a heavy, warm airy avalanche of foam all over me from head to toe. She repeated this dipping, swinging, and squeezing process several times until I was completely blanketed in a massive cloud of warm, airy foam.
This was my favorite part of the ritual.
She did it on my back. Then she did it on my front.
And if that wasn’t enough, she gave me a wonderful, deep tissue massage through the foam.
After she rinsed my body multiple times, she asked, “Do you want me to pour water over your head?”
“Oh, yes,” I replied, laughing with delight.
Fully rinsed, I thanked Nick, slid of the table, and staggered out of the room, my body languid, cleaner and more alive than it had been in a long time. Fully sated and naked, I laid down on one of the welcoming couches in the resting room to relax. I sipped a cup of tea and jotted a few lines in my little travel notebook before setting it aside. I sighed with pleasure. Several other women were sprawling there, too. A pair of lovers cuddled across the room. A mother and daughter laughed quietly. I closed my eyes, savoring the deep sense of safety and relaxation.
I couldn’t imagine being any more relaxed.
Forty-five minutes later, I was called in for my massage.
My masseuse’s name was Swan. She was strong, young and muscular, her English fluent. Her hands, capable, well-trained, and strong. Swan focused on my knees, feet and legs, as requested. The cranial sacral work she did at the end completely relaxed me. I only wish I’d booked a longer massage.
By the time I dressed and turned in my locker key, more than four hours had passed since I first passed through those welcoming doors. As I tipped my practitioners, said goodbye, and walked out into the night, all I could think was, “When can I come back here? When can I do this again?”
