How I spent my Tour Vacation...

I had an adventure today, and I feel compelled to write about it. Part of me doesn't want to make a bigger deal about it than it deserves. On the other hand, it was a significant rite of passage, and deserves a word or two.

I went to a German spa today, and I was publically naked in broad daylight !

We're here in Bremen, performaces over, with a 3 days of vacation before we head to Cologne. A few of us wanted to go to the spa, and began to loosely talk about it last week. I used to go to the spa in Paris--a Moroccan-style hammam. I loved it, and have always kept my eye out for similar bath houses in other cities. Truly, you never ever feel as clean as you do after a day in the Hammam. It was like being reborn. I always went in the middle of the week, on a ladies' day. I was naked, but it was a controlled nakedness. Besides, the splendour of the experience overwhelmed any fears I had about being naked in front of two or three other women whom I would never see again.

I figured it would be a similar experience here. All women. Mood lighting. Totally doable. Then, this morning at breakfast, I found out that the "good" spa wasn't having ladies' day today. My first reaction was, "Oh well, nevermind. Count me out." But then, I began to wonder if my knee-jerk self-consciousness was going to keep me from a truly wonderful experience. Thousands of German people do it every year! Why shouldn't I be able to? Besides, my colleagues assured me, you can wear a swimsuit if you simply must. Oh, well, I thought, that changes things. With a swimsuit, anything is possible.

So, six of us from the troupe (which six will forever be a mystery; all I am willing to confirm is that I was there!) headed off on the tram (and then the bus), an hour on the other side of town, to Oase. When we got in the door and began discussing fees, the lovely woman behind the counter quickly informed us that not only was this a mixed-gender day, it was also a "textile-free" day. No swimsuits. No clothes of any kind. Nakedness as far as the eye could see.

There was an audible groan from the group. Pretty quickly though, we all put on our big girl panties (or, rather, took them off), paid our money, and went in.

I am here to tell you that it was pretty wonderful. This place was a big compound, with indoor and outdoor pools and saunas, all at different temperatures. There were also steam rooms of varying strengths. Each treatment offered you a slightly different cure--rejuvenation, healing, relaxation, detoxification--I'm not really sure of the specifics because I had no pocket to carry around my little German-to-English dictionary! After a while, I stopped trying to read the signs and just wandered around aimlessly. My favorite was the indoor pool with the sprinkler that rained cool raindrops down on you as you swam. The outdoor pool was lovely too and had these super strong massage jets at one end, but the indoor pool was warm, so I spent more time in there. There was also a heavenly steam room that had real Eucalyptus oil being pumped in with the steam. It smelled wonderful, and I could feel my sinuses rejoicing with every inhale.

About halfway through, I had a 20 minute upper-body massage with Fabian, who pummeled me mercilessly. It was wonderful, but I found myself grateful that I had only reserved 20 minutes. I'm not sure I could have survived an hour!

We steamed and bathed, slept and read. We ate lunch there at a restaurant overlooking the pool and started up again. All told, we spent 4 hours at Oase.

People are always saying that after 5 minutes of everybody being naked in a room together, the nakedness loses its shock value, and is forgotten. In fact, people said that to me just this morning in an attempt to make me feel better about going!

Now that I've experienced it firsthand, I don't agree that we forget about nakedness. I will admit to you, dear and tolerant reader, that I spent a fair amount of my time this afternoon looking at the one hundred or so naked German people around me, and I felt people also looking at me. The thing that was refreshing, though, was that neither in the looking or the being looked at did I feel any discomfort. I was looking because I was curious, and they were looking at me because they were curious. There wasn't any leering, or inappropriate attention being given. We were just people, in our most natural form, acknowledging the proximity of other people. In this case, nakedness is not exciting sexually, but it is still a little exciting in a vague, anthropological way.

I'm proud of myself for pushing past my inhibitions and actually allowing myself to enjoy the experience. What a liberating way to spend a day off!

Which begs the question: what will I do with the rest of my vacation?