The Hensarlings: January 2012

With a few battlefield tours under their belts, DJ and Justin returned to Brussels, and our group hit the road once again. This time, we had Hellas in mind. We boarded our plane amidst daily news reports of protests against European austerity measures and the strikes and mobs that go hand in hand with that sort of social unrest, but more than anything we were just hoping not to get arrested, stranded by a shutdown transport system, or worse.
We only had two days in Athens, so once we got checked into our hotel we hit the ground running. We arrived at night, and from the hotel's rooftop bar we had a great view of the Acropolis, which helped us get the lay of the land. The next morning we made the rounds of the incredible, millennia old ruins throughout the city; the Parthenon, perched on top of the Acropolis with it's majestic white marble columns; the incredibly well preserved Temple of Hephaestus and the rest of the old agora, and many more. Despite all the unrest and the social upheaval, the Greeks certainly have done a good job of preserving their heritage.
As it does for all our trips, the planning for our Athenian excursion consisted about 50 percent of tripadvisor.com reviews and 50% from guidebooks, and it didn't steer us wrong. During her research, Jen found a hammam in Athens that had great reviews. Jen and Cara thought it sounded like a great idea. None of us guys had ever been to a hammam. We didn't really know what a hamman was. And, frankly, we weren't all that interested. But as often happens in situations like these, the ladies won out. And I'm glad they did.
If you've never been, a hammam is a Turkish bathhouse, and traditionally all the stinky people of the city would come to these hammams to clean themselves. Prior to the advent of running water, going to the hammam was a big deal, helping to reduce the chances of sickness and providing a social gathering place. Our hammam was located on the site of an original ottoman bathhouse and it consisted of two main rooms. The first, the hot room, was exactly what it sounded like; a large, circular room with marble seating surfaces around the edges. Next to each seat were two spouts, one for cold water and one for hot water, and there were copper bowls spread throughout. The idea is that you sit on your towel on the hot marble, in a room that's heated to about 100 degrees F, and you pour a mixture of hot and cold water into your bowl, then pour it on yourself. We started by pouring it on ourselves, then moved on to throwing it at each other. Luckily we were the only ones there. The other room, the cool room, was a normal ambient temperature, but leaving the hot room it cooled you down fairly quickly. It was very relaxing (except for the water fight part) and it was a really unique experience. Good work Jen and Cara.