A Turkish Girls' Day!

Last Saturday, 3 CIEE girls and I set out for the ultimate Turkish girls' day. We all slept in and then "dressed classily" and headed to lunch in Sarıyer. We finished and took the dolmuş and metro to Sultanahmet to go to a hamam - a traditional Turkish bath. We went to the Çemberlitaş Hamamı (http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/), by the Vezirhan monument. As it is a bath, I felt weird taking photos inside - so I grabbed some online (credits are below the photos). The Çemberlitaş Hamamı was built for Sultan Selim II's wife, Nurbanu by a famous Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan. There are two baths, one for men and one for women. Apparently some hamams have mixed baths, but this one was separated. Here is the entrance.

http://lamchingfu.blogspot.com/2009/08/turkish-bath-istanbul-turkey.html

You walk in (no appointments) and pay for whatever treatment you'd like to receive. It is really well priced, as it's 69tl (about $40) for the traditional bath, when an attendant helps you. You can also have a self-service bath, but we decided to go for the whole experience and do a traditional bath and a clay mask (15tl). 

You are brought to the lounge part of the hamam where you change and are given a wrap to wear to the bathing room. You can wear just underwear, but we decided that we weren't quite confident enough with the whole situation yet, so decided to bring bathing suits. When you enter, the entire room is done in marble with a beautiful dome above. There is a large, heated marble slab in the middle, with people lying all around. It is incredibly hot and you immediately begin to sweat. Luckily, that is the whole point of the hamam! The heat and steam opens your pores and gets it ready for a scrub. An attendant then comes over and (without warning) strips off your bathing suit and begins to scrub your arms, legs and body. It feels really good and you can see all of the impurities leaving your skin. 

http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/gallery 

Here is a photo from the hamam website of some women sitting on the slab in the middle of the hamam. First they scrub your skin with soap, then with this bubble bath that is sitting around in large vats. As they scrub you, brown and black stuff just starts to come off your skin - all the dead skin, lotion, etc... that has lodged itself in your pores. It's gross, but makes you feel really great about how clean your skin is getting! 

http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/gallery

When you're done being scrubbed, they bring you to one of the smaller side rooms and wash your hair then rinse you off. After, you go to this room with a few hot tubs and can relax until you're ready to leave. We stayed for a while, then continued to the spa part to get our clay masks. You just sit and this woman comes over and paints clay on your face and neck. It didn't smell that great, but it felt amazing. After we rinsed off in the shower and went back to the lounge to change back into our clothes. Here's the lounge:

http://www.cemberlitashamami.com/gallery

After you're done with everything you can get a drink and relax in the lounge area. We all decided to get some fresh-squeezed orange juice (only 3tl!) and sit for a while. It was the best orange juice I've ever had, and very replenishing after you've sweat for 2 hours. If you're ever in Turkey, I would definitely recommend the hamam - even if it seems intimidating at first. I can't get over how clean your skin feels afterward -it's absolutely worth it!

After we had finished at the hamam, we took the metro back to Taksim, a district of Istanbul, to do some shopping and get dinner. First we had tea and waffles at a little cafe. As always, they were amazing! Here's one:

We walked around Taksim for a bit before going to a wine bar, called Rouge, for dinner and drinks. It was a great find (thanks, Hallie!), because it was really nice and well priced. The waitstaff was really helpful, too! We wanted to try a few Turkish wines, and they recommended two really good and well-priced bottles.

Akshata and I

We spent about 3 hours there and tried a bunch of different appetizers. The waiter kept trying to take the menu away, and we kept saying we'd keep it. They probably thought we were really odd... In any case, they were delicious. Here are some samples:

This was a selection of local cheeses, and bread with local olive oil

These were ricotta-stuffed eggplant rolls, and cheese croquettes

Spiced chicken with yoghurt and salad, and cheese tortellini with pesto

There was also live jazz for part of the evening. It was lovely!

After Rouge, we went to a film that was part of the !f Istanbul 2012 Film Festival. The film was called "Circumstance" and was an Iranian piece about two women who were in love in modern Tehran, but not allowed to be together publicly. It was great, but a bit hard to follow. As we were waiting for the movie to start, we became really nervous that there would only be Turkish subtitles (as the film is in Farsi). However, we were in luck! There were both English subtitles on screen, and Turkish subtitles projected below. 

All in all it was a great girls' day - relaxing and full of new experiences!