As promised, here is the experience of a lifetime, in blog post form. Send all your love and appreciation to Cadi. So basically I'm describing my experience of a lifetime, in a blog post. If reading this is your experience of a lifetime, then we need to get you out more.
Anyway, this is a post about that two hour lapse that I promised to tell you about in my Tuscany part 2 post. Ready? Here goes nothing (which is the basic sentiment of the entire experience).
So since we were staying at the hot spring/spa place right? And because we could get discounts on the spa treatments, we decided, hey, why not? This is going to be magical anyway, and it'll never happen again.
We ask for a list of spa options and begin going over the list. Now I don't know what you think of when you hear "mud bath," but we definitely thought of sitting in a bathtub of mud. You know, just a girls' weekend soaking up some mud and good times, sitting in a hot tub of mud with cucumbers on our eyes and giggling about how ridiculous the Jones's are as we speak in pretentious accents.
None of the above happened.
We had just finished with the tour of the surrounding towns, and ran back to the residence to pay for our assumed memorable spa treatments (there was a discount) then sprinted to the actual spa place. Winded, but prepared to relax we were all taken to different rooms. So here goes nothing.
First thing to note is that none of the masseuses spoke English. And considering that my grasp of Italian is pretty much limited to what I can find on a menu, various arias, and the last names of artists (which isn't all that much Italian)-this was going to be interesting. I walk into the room (no, this is not one of those "so this guy walks into a bar" jokes) and she puts this thing wrapped in plastic on the table. From here forward we will call her "Carmela."
Carmela: Face *points to part of table*.
Kelsey: Ok...
Carmela: Stomach *points to another part of table*.
Kelsey: Ok....
And Carmela left the room. I'm envisioning at this point that whole idea of hot tub full of mud literally evaporating before my eyes. *poof* So I open up the thing wrapped in plastic that she had placed on the table. Any guesses as to what it was? A fork? No. A spork? No. A happy meal toy? No sir. If you guessed "disposable thong," you are correct.
I'm guessing that less than 2% of you guessed that.
Well, this is real life. This is Italy. And this is going to be blog worthy. Fact.
So strip down, suit up, and on to the table. This is going to be nothing like that tub o mud I had envisioned maybe 5 minutes earlier. Carmela comes back in the room and I start hearing the mixing of mud. *suitable mud mixing noise here* and on goes the mud. Up one leg, up the other leg. All the way up. Back, shoulders, arms, hands- everything. Not a joke.
By this point I'm starting to relax. Thinking, hey, this isn't quite so bad. Then, like a bolt of lightening, those dreaded words.
"Face up."
Wait. What? No. She didn't say that. That's not real life. Trying to ignore the obvious, I decided that she meant turn my head the other direction, so I put my other cheek down on the table (don't get cheeky with me here) (Ah, puntabulous).
"No, uh, face up."
Oh. Oh. OH. She for sure didn't mean "just turn your head" she mean literally, 'face up'. Heavens be. Hello world, hello Europe. Face up indeed.
On goes the mud part two. All up, all down, all everywhere. Errwhere. After that she wrapped me in a plastic sheet (think human mud tortilla), threw a towel over me, and left.
At this point I began to notice the dulcet tones of the pan flute coming over the intercom. This included renditions of "Let It Be," "Sound of Silence," "House of the Rising Sun," and "Que Sera." Now if you haven't heard all of these being played on the pan flute, you need to jump on that ASAP and raid my father's music library. Totally worth it. (Note only slight sarcasm.)
After about 20 minutes, Carmela came back and asked me how much Italian I knew. Honestly? My vocal training for "Caro Mio Ben" doesn't quite cut it here. Recognizing my silence and confused facial expression as a 'No,' she proceeded to attempt to explain the next process to me with short words and hand gestures. Welcome to my world.
Carmela: Uh, doccia. Only water. Uh, *points to towel* *makes vigorous scrubbing noise/gesture*
Kelsey: Ok... (I just assumed that met 'dry')
She also helped me to detangle myself from the plastic sheet (no easy task when you stick to everything) and handed me another disposable thong. Yipee!
Scrub off the mud, suit up again, back on the table. This time round two is the same process, except with massage oils. At this point, bring it. The little shame I did have, has been washed down the Italian drain with the rest of the mud. Ciao.
After that, Carmela said goodbye and left. I put real, non-disposible clothing back on, and went to find my roommates who had hopefully survived the same experience. Once we saw each other, we just started laughing and pretty much sprinted back to the room to relive the entire awkward, soon-to-be-infamous story one at a time.
And now, 3 days later, we are still reliving that one time that we thought we were going to go sit in a vat of mud. My personal vote is that next time we try something like this, we should make sure it is the kind of mud bath where you just have and epic mud fight/battle until you are exhausted enough to collapse in the sunshine and rinse it off in the conveniently located waterfall. Maybe that isn't quite the same thing, but it'd be just as much fun, and the story would probably be just as much fun to tell.
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