Eleven days until we're out of here for a month and a half. I can't say it won't be a relief. Sometimes you just need to get out in order to appreciate something.
Wrapping up loose ends is taking up plenty of time...figuring out where to work next year, where to live next year, little things like that.
Really, it's not so bad. Nothing to really complain about. We're moving into a villa next year (i.e. house) rather than an apartment, we're debating job leads in Muscat. Odd to admit, however, that the boonies of Oman where we live do have a certain appeal that I don't want to give up for half-a-real-city life in Muscat. These are exciting prospects for next year. More space, more money, more freedom.
Nevertheless.
I'm excited beyond words to go to Paris and to see another culture. A whole nother world of social frustrations and cultural inadequacies to experience. It's too easy to start to pick on the culture that you are constantly immersed in...creating a false demon from the bludgeoning and buffeting that you undergo every day in a particular place (even if it's a particularly difficult place to live.)
It's strange to be not only excited to see the wonders and great new things of a society that you have never seen before, but also to be (perhaps almost equally) as excited to see the glitches and aggravating nuances of the society as well. Perhaps these are just the perverse mental musings of a traveler who has spent too long trying to work within an extremely difficult culture for the exacting and organized modern mind....Maybe some day I will have the pleasure of traveling without the sick desire to see how other cultures are annoying too.
Don't get me wrong though. I'm excited about the positive things too. I have been pouring over my new Lonely Planet France guide while I sip on my coffee every morning. Day dreaming about sitting in cafes and people watching. Picking out romantic places to stroll with my lover. Salivating at the thought of eating a 5 course rustic French dish washed down with too much vin rouge. Loosing hours on GoogleStreet virtually walking though the neighborhood around our apartment.
It will be great.
Still though. Still. It will make my heart warm to see the French being obnoxious in a totally different way from the Omanis (and from me!)
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Heat and Lies
Just for the record, the Gulf is much hotter than reported on CNN.
Yesterday I was watching the news, and the weather lady read a message she had received from a fellow Gulf viewer. I said "It is already so hot here and it's only early June! Can it really get much hotter??" She respond, blithely if I may say so myself, that he should pipe down because it's going to get much hotter. It's only 38 C, she said.
Ha.
It was 53 C in Muscat 2 days ago. That 127 F, people.
In Bahrain, it's actually a government policy that newspapers and journals are not allowed to report temperatures above 50 C, because at that temperature it is also a policy that laborers do not have to work. So, of course, it never gets that hot.
Don't worry, I'm not bitter though. I'm just a little toasty.
Yesterday I was watching the news, and the weather lady read a message she had received from a fellow Gulf viewer. I said "It is already so hot here and it's only early June! Can it really get much hotter??" She respond, blithely if I may say so myself, that he should pipe down because it's going to get much hotter. It's only 38 C, she said.
Ha.
It was 53 C in Muscat 2 days ago. That 127 F, people.
In Bahrain, it's actually a government policy that newspapers and journals are not allowed to report temperatures above 50 C, because at that temperature it is also a policy that laborers do not have to work. So, of course, it never gets that hot.
Don't worry, I'm not bitter though. I'm just a little toasty.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Snorkeling Adventures and DWS
It is already 120 farheheit here during the day. That means no more running, mountain bikes, or hiking that extends much past the wee hours of the morning.
But there is always the ocean. Oman has utterly stunning beaches and ocean waters. I have recently been initiated into the world water sports. Although I have yet to surf, I can now call myself a very amateur snorkeler and slightly better Deep Water Solo-er.
Snorkeling for those of you (like me) who have never spent much of any time around an ocean before is basically floating on top of the water with your head down, so that you can see clearly all the fish, eels and coral and other very strange and beautiful sea creatures.
Fully equipted with all my own mask and snorkel now, I can now stay face down in the water for a solid 15 minutes before freaking out about not being able to breath through my nose, or because of some terrifying yet known sea species, or even more so because of a very scary and very unknown sea species.
I never knew or appreciated what was under me when I was swimming. Although now that I know, I'm a little more wary about swimming. I have seen a shark, a massive sting ray (coming right at me!), a sea turtle, a bizarre pencil fish, and many other creatures that I can't identify. For a look at some of the fantastic sights, check out my friend's (and fellow snorkeler's) blog here. He has a video up of an average day under the water.
Deep Water Soloing is my other new past time in this grueling heat. The coastal waters of Oman are full of small, rocky islands. Some of them really beautiful, complete with secluded and pristine white beaches that look like they were made just for you.
DWS is rock climbing on the part of these island cliffs that are over hung over deep water (so that you can fall 20 meters and be fine!...that is, if the sea creatures don't get you). It's an intense experience and a whole new kind of climbing. You have to hop from a boat (ours being luckily driven by an incredibly good-looking Omani man) onto the rock. I'm not going to lie, it can be pretty scary dropping into the sometimes pretty serious ocean waves from 1, 5, 10, 20 meters. But the feeling of climbing free, with no ropes, is exhilarating. Total connection with nature and total reliance on the waters to protect you from falling. It was a new experience of trusting and really feeling one with nature.
I am proud to say that I made it to the top of a 20 meter climb, and not so proud to say that I screamed like a little girl jumping off. Despite the fact that I've gone sky diving, that jump in the ravenous and consuming ocean waves from so high made me more scared than I've been in a while. But again, as I said, it is a fantastic experience of letting nature take care of you. While the ocean (and what's inside it) can be rather intimidating, you are "caught" by it so to speak. No ropes, no parachutes, nothing but you and it. I'm bruised and scratched and really sore, but it was an unusually intense and awareness (of both nature and of yourself) building experience. It was great.
But there is always the ocean. Oman has utterly stunning beaches and ocean waters. I have recently been initiated into the world water sports. Although I have yet to surf, I can now call myself a very amateur snorkeler and slightly better Deep Water Solo-er.
Snorkeling for those of you (like me) who have never spent much of any time around an ocean before is basically floating on top of the water with your head down, so that you can see clearly all the fish, eels and coral and other very strange and beautiful sea creatures.
Fully equipted with all my own mask and snorkel now, I can now stay face down in the water for a solid 15 minutes before freaking out about not being able to breath through my nose, or because of some terrifying yet known sea species, or even more so because of a very scary and very unknown sea species.
I never knew or appreciated what was under me when I was swimming. Although now that I know, I'm a little more wary about swimming. I have seen a shark, a massive sting ray (coming right at me!), a sea turtle, a bizarre pencil fish, and many other creatures that I can't identify. For a look at some of the fantastic sights, check out my friend's (and fellow snorkeler's) blog here. He has a video up of an average day under the water.
Deep Water Soloing is my other new past time in this grueling heat. The coastal waters of Oman are full of small, rocky islands. Some of them really beautiful, complete with secluded and pristine white beaches that look like they were made just for you.
DWS is rock climbing on the part of these island cliffs that are over hung over deep water (so that you can fall 20 meters and be fine!...that is, if the sea creatures don't get you). It's an intense experience and a whole new kind of climbing. You have to hop from a boat (ours being luckily driven by an incredibly good-looking Omani man) onto the rock. I'm not going to lie, it can be pretty scary dropping into the sometimes pretty serious ocean waves from 1, 5, 10, 20 meters. But the feeling of climbing free, with no ropes, is exhilarating. Total connection with nature and total reliance on the waters to protect you from falling. It was a new experience of trusting and really feeling one with nature.
I am proud to say that I made it to the top of a 20 meter climb, and not so proud to say that I screamed like a little girl jumping off. Despite the fact that I've gone sky diving, that jump in the ravenous and consuming ocean waves from so high made me more scared than I've been in a while. But again, as I said, it is a fantastic experience of letting nature take care of you. While the ocean (and what's inside it) can be rather intimidating, you are "caught" by it so to speak. No ropes, no parachutes, nothing but you and it. I'm bruised and scratched and really sore, but it was an unusually intense and awareness (of both nature and of yourself) building experience. It was great.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Aboard the TEFL Ship
This is the last week of final exams. Everyone has been in an utter panic over exams, grading, absent students, and office relationships. I have stayed away, as I have learned to do throughout my year hear. At first I was a hopeful beginner—unable to grasp that being in a tizzy will affect nothing at all. No amount of fussing or yelling or arguing will get you anywhere here. All the hectic running about has led me to reflect on who we’ve actually got here in this esteemed bastion of academic excellence.
TEFL faculty are a crazy bunch, attracting the weirdest from across the globe. Terrifyingly Eccentric Forgotten Losers. It's a sorry sight most of the time. Nevertheless, much can be learned from them.
If I have learned anything so far here, it’s how to deal with irrational people and situations. There is very little room for logical argument and calm chronological thought. It’s something of a binding element, an emulsifier of sorts, for this heterogeneous and diverse group of people here at the college. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to—my attitude is usually the same. It could be the Omani Islamic extremist with a long chin beard, the Alabama girl turned conservative Muslim, the schizophrenic British man who hides in the dark recesses of locked classrooms, the slimy former Bath Party informer who likes to chillingly flirt with me, the quirky Iraqi man who never has anything to say except that he was fine in Iraq and the Omani environment is killing him, or the rail-thin disease ridden British zombie who got deporting within a week (I actually didn’t talk to that one). Or last but not least the incomprehensible Irish woman, who doesn’t comb her hair, wears lipstick on her teeth and regularly gets irate with the very nice guards. Oh, or the “Parisian” woman who speaks to everyone in French, students and teachers alike, at staff meeting and while proctoring exams. I could go on, really, I could, for a long time. But now I will mention a few of the gems in the bunch.
And then there are the ones that, though thoroughly bizarre in their own right, I actually enjoy talking to. We have a flamboyantly gay Brit who we all lovingly call Papa Bear and who wears magenta corduroys to work, a deceptively sane and hard-working South African woman who wears a different ethnic costume everyday just to mix it up, a Southern gay guy who wears really pointy shoes and has a little crush on my husband, and the talkative young Omani man who is head of students affairs and the theatre director who gets harassed by the other Arab staff for fraternizing with the hell-bound westerners. He couldn’t care less.
I have grown here. If only in my ability to not laugh at inappropriate times, to not try to reason with the insane, and to calmly sit in my little bubble while the office goes to hell around me.
It’s an interesting world, friends. I do feel a little bit sorry for the lifers though, even if they did get themselves where they are.
TEFL faculty are a crazy bunch, attracting the weirdest from across the globe. Terrifyingly Eccentric Forgotten Losers. It's a sorry sight most of the time. Nevertheless, much can be learned from them.
If I have learned anything so far here, it’s how to deal with irrational people and situations. There is very little room for logical argument and calm chronological thought. It’s something of a binding element, an emulsifier of sorts, for this heterogeneous and diverse group of people here at the college. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to—my attitude is usually the same. It could be the Omani Islamic extremist with a long chin beard, the Alabama girl turned conservative Muslim, the schizophrenic British man who hides in the dark recesses of locked classrooms, the slimy former Bath Party informer who likes to chillingly flirt with me, the quirky Iraqi man who never has anything to say except that he was fine in Iraq and the Omani environment is killing him, or the rail-thin disease ridden British zombie who got deporting within a week (I actually didn’t talk to that one). Or last but not least the incomprehensible Irish woman, who doesn’t comb her hair, wears lipstick on her teeth and regularly gets irate with the very nice guards. Oh, or the “Parisian” woman who speaks to everyone in French, students and teachers alike, at staff meeting and while proctoring exams. I could go on, really, I could, for a long time. But now I will mention a few of the gems in the bunch.
And then there are the ones that, though thoroughly bizarre in their own right, I actually enjoy talking to. We have a flamboyantly gay Brit who we all lovingly call Papa Bear and who wears magenta corduroys to work, a deceptively sane and hard-working South African woman who wears a different ethnic costume everyday just to mix it up, a Southern gay guy who wears really pointy shoes and has a little crush on my husband, and the talkative young Omani man who is head of students affairs and the theatre director who gets harassed by the other Arab staff for fraternizing with the hell-bound westerners. He couldn’t care less.
I have grown here. If only in my ability to not laugh at inappropriate times, to not try to reason with the insane, and to calmly sit in my little bubble while the office goes to hell around me.
It’s an interesting world, friends. I do feel a little bit sorry for the lifers though, even if they did get themselves where they are.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Off with her hair!
In the midst of May madness here at the college, I finally decided to do something I've been planning on for a while. Cut my hair super short, a la Audrey Hepburn or Natalie Portman (post V for Vendetta).
I'm sending my long pony-tail to Locks of Love, an American company that makes wigs for children who have lost their hair due chemotherapy. That really wasn't the main reason why I did it though.
A woman's hair is highly regarded in the Middle East. Obviously, it's covered here all the time (except when exclusively and positively only in front of one's immediate family). They do this because of tradition and religion, but also because constantly covering the hair has fetishized women's hair (which cyclically makes the religious codes even stricter).
It is supposed to be the most beautiful feature of a woman. Having secretly beautiful hair is the key to attracting men. Even while I was in Palestine, some female Arab friends told me that no man would even love me until I started waxing my hairy southern Italian arms. Cutting off my long hair was antithetical to all things feminine here. I already wear pants, so this might just cause me to start sprouting male genitals, or at least get cancer. I have been told as well that if I do not start having children, like now, then I will get cancer. Special cancer for women who don't fulfill their female duties.
Most of the students are not here now (they all skip out the week before final exams). But just the response from the Arab staff has been telling. Lots of tisk-tisking, and "Haram-ing".
I guess I'm not a woman anymore, or maybe I'll die from feminist cancer.
I think it looks fierce. Nothing like causing a little cultural turmoil:)
I'm sending my long pony-tail to Locks of Love, an American company that makes wigs for children who have lost their hair due chemotherapy. That really wasn't the main reason why I did it though.
A woman's hair is highly regarded in the Middle East. Obviously, it's covered here all the time (except when exclusively and positively only in front of one's immediate family). They do this because of tradition and religion, but also because constantly covering the hair has fetishized women's hair (which cyclically makes the religious codes even stricter).
It is supposed to be the most beautiful feature of a woman. Having secretly beautiful hair is the key to attracting men. Even while I was in Palestine, some female Arab friends told me that no man would even love me until I started waxing my hairy southern Italian arms. Cutting off my long hair was antithetical to all things feminine here. I already wear pants, so this might just cause me to start sprouting male genitals, or at least get cancer. I have been told as well that if I do not start having children, like now, then I will get cancer. Special cancer for women who don't fulfill their female duties.
Most of the students are not here now (they all skip out the week before final exams). But just the response from the Arab staff has been telling. Lots of tisk-tisking, and "Haram-ing".
I guess I'm not a woman anymore, or maybe I'll die from feminist cancer.
I think it looks fierce. Nothing like causing a little cultural turmoil:)
Monday, April 27, 2009
End of the Semester
This past month has held in store some serious excitement and challenges. The week at the college was both utterly maddening and inspiring as well. As work winds down, I'll be back blogging more often again. Keep reading!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Naked Truth:My Ayurvedic Experience
I’ve had lots of massages in my time. Swedish massages, Thai massages, Balinese massages, massages from straight men, massages from lesbian women. All of them professional and pleasant.
I had never had an Ayurvedic massage before though. Ayurveda is a kind of Indian massage and yoga. It’s really a medicinal practice and is supposed to be able to heal your body of all its ailments. However, all I knew was that my mother does Ayurvedic yoga and loves it, that it’s a hip word in urban America, and that my back sorely needed some treatment. So I signed up.
First, a little background. Since coming to Oman, my massages have gotten progressively more “personal” shall we say. Americans are a modest people. We like our privacy. We like to be alone when we undress…of course, unless we are in one type of situation. Even then lots of ladies like the lights off and covers up. At the doctors, we cling to our little blue robe-sheets.
Everywhere else (in my experience) that is not the case. The Brits strip down in front of you in the locker room. Tribal women dance topless. Supermodels pose naked for European billboards. Nude beaches are a catching phenomenon. This we know. But what about cultures that insist on a strict segregation of the sexes? The same situation exists there. Although men never see women and vice versa, women mingle unembarrassed. The men do as well. In conservative societies, male bath houses are de rigueur, while in the West they are labeled as “gay.”
Well, to say the least, I have been getting more and more comfortable in my own skin lately.
As I walked into the dingy building, feeling disappointed at the lack of luxury, I felt a wash of a smell that I recognized from my childhood—that of a traditional Chinese medicinal shop, full of weird roots and dried herbs to heal the ailments of some very ancient Chinese man. It’s a very distinct smell, and somehow, I knew the massage experience would match.
Abandoned for 10 minutes in a small and scant Indian doctor’s examination room, George and I perused the faded wall posters of gastro-intestinal diseases and wondered if we were in the right place. Soon enough, however, we were prodded into separate men’s and women’s treatment rooms and left to our own devices. The room was bare and very third-world. I felt transported to Calcutta instead of Muscat. A plump 40-something Indian woman moved her head back and forth in that distinctly Indian/Pakistani way. Not a nod, not a shake, and can mean anything. Hello, No, Yes, Of course, Shame on you! Beautiful! And more…
She said in English that I had to strain to understand: “Take of clothes. Just panties.”
Okay, standard massage attire. That’s cool. I wait for her to turn and leave, giving me a few minutes to disrobe and drape myself modestly in a sheet or something. She doesn’t leave. She just wobbles her head again. Hmm. After an awkward moment, I figured she wasn’t going anywhere. I strip down to my bra and panties. And she says, “Take off! Take off!” I obey her oddly commanding tone, and take off my bra. I feel very exposed, sitting on a chair in a barren room with only my underwear on. She, however, doesn’t seem like she could care less.
She pours hot, dark oil on my head. I guess that’s the first thing done in an ayurvedic massage. I watch the dried-blood colored oil drip down my body, feeling less than at ease, but somehow the more it seemed that she didn’t care, the less I did too.
She shoos me on to the table. Very utilitarian-like; this was not a massage to be messed with. She had her routine down. First my back. This is pretty standard, except the hot oil dripping down my sides and onto the flimsy replaceable plastic sheet covering the table. The plastic gets slipperier and stickier as the massage goes on. A little unnerving, I will admit.
She took it up a notch when she yanked down my panties and gave me quite the non-embarrassed glut massage. I wasn’t quite expecting that. I think this would have been the point that many people would have walked out. I thought I had my panties on to cover something…not to give you something to uncover.
Well, you can imagine what the front side was like. I can’t say I have ever had a professional boob massage before. Now, the interesting thing is that she did all of these unusual (from my prudish western standards) and up-close moves with total panache. No awkwardness, no feelings of inappropriateness, no creepy caresses, nothing to arouse suspicion. It was all totally professional. Albeit third-world/old-world professional, but professional nonetheless.
My brush with ayurvedia medicinal healing ended being closed up in a wooden steam box. This actually would have been quite relaxing if she hadn’t perched herself on a stool about 3 feet from my face. She proceeded to ask me lots of questions that I couldn’t understand with a disarming sincerity and interest. I tried talking slowly, but with good grammar. That didn’t work. I decided that perhaps there are not two languages, English and Bengali, but rather a third, Benglish. It worked.
“This,” I say pointing to the box hiding all but my head, “hot box.”
“Yeeess…” Head wobble. “Hot box. Good box. Good body box.”
I smile and try out a little wobble. She wobbles back. Wow! Major bonding with the head wobble. She seemed to understand what I meant…even if I’m not sure what I meant.
This went on for another 10 minutes or so. Me pointing to things in the room—oil bowls, herb sachets, poky things—asking “What?” She was pleased to tell me all about them.
“This? Oil, what. Ayurveeeda. This good body. Hot for body. Make strong. Make happy. Make health.” She smiles. I feel like an expert now.
After emerging from the steam box, I underwent a very sketchy shower, which necessitated dashing back and forth from the bathroom to the massage room, hoping I didn’t bump into the male masseurs.
As I was about to leave, waiting for George in the lobby, she makes one more appearance. Walking by, she slaps the back of my thigh, shakes it a little and exclaims with an affirmative wobble, “Slim body!!”
And with that, George comes out of his room (equally perplexed by his loin-clothed experience) and we depart.
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But I ain’t going back.
I had never had an Ayurvedic massage before though. Ayurveda is a kind of Indian massage and yoga. It’s really a medicinal practice and is supposed to be able to heal your body of all its ailments. However, all I knew was that my mother does Ayurvedic yoga and loves it, that it’s a hip word in urban America, and that my back sorely needed some treatment. So I signed up.
First, a little background. Since coming to Oman, my massages have gotten progressively more “personal” shall we say. Americans are a modest people. We like our privacy. We like to be alone when we undress…of course, unless we are in one type of situation. Even then lots of ladies like the lights off and covers up. At the doctors, we cling to our little blue robe-sheets.
Everywhere else (in my experience) that is not the case. The Brits strip down in front of you in the locker room. Tribal women dance topless. Supermodels pose naked for European billboards. Nude beaches are a catching phenomenon. This we know. But what about cultures that insist on a strict segregation of the sexes? The same situation exists there. Although men never see women and vice versa, women mingle unembarrassed. The men do as well. In conservative societies, male bath houses are de rigueur, while in the West they are labeled as “gay.”
Well, to say the least, I have been getting more and more comfortable in my own skin lately.
As I walked into the dingy building, feeling disappointed at the lack of luxury, I felt a wash of a smell that I recognized from my childhood—that of a traditional Chinese medicinal shop, full of weird roots and dried herbs to heal the ailments of some very ancient Chinese man. It’s a very distinct smell, and somehow, I knew the massage experience would match.
Abandoned for 10 minutes in a small and scant Indian doctor’s examination room, George and I perused the faded wall posters of gastro-intestinal diseases and wondered if we were in the right place. Soon enough, however, we were prodded into separate men’s and women’s treatment rooms and left to our own devices. The room was bare and very third-world. I felt transported to Calcutta instead of Muscat. A plump 40-something Indian woman moved her head back and forth in that distinctly Indian/Pakistani way. Not a nod, not a shake, and can mean anything. Hello, No, Yes, Of course, Shame on you! Beautiful! And more…
She said in English that I had to strain to understand: “Take of clothes. Just panties.”
Okay, standard massage attire. That’s cool. I wait for her to turn and leave, giving me a few minutes to disrobe and drape myself modestly in a sheet or something. She doesn’t leave. She just wobbles her head again. Hmm. After an awkward moment, I figured she wasn’t going anywhere. I strip down to my bra and panties. And she says, “Take off! Take off!” I obey her oddly commanding tone, and take off my bra. I feel very exposed, sitting on a chair in a barren room with only my underwear on. She, however, doesn’t seem like she could care less.
She pours hot, dark oil on my head. I guess that’s the first thing done in an ayurvedic massage. I watch the dried-blood colored oil drip down my body, feeling less than at ease, but somehow the more it seemed that she didn’t care, the less I did too.
She shoos me on to the table. Very utilitarian-like; this was not a massage to be messed with. She had her routine down. First my back. This is pretty standard, except the hot oil dripping down my sides and onto the flimsy replaceable plastic sheet covering the table. The plastic gets slipperier and stickier as the massage goes on. A little unnerving, I will admit.
She took it up a notch when she yanked down my panties and gave me quite the non-embarrassed glut massage. I wasn’t quite expecting that. I think this would have been the point that many people would have walked out. I thought I had my panties on to cover something…not to give you something to uncover.
Well, you can imagine what the front side was like. I can’t say I have ever had a professional boob massage before. Now, the interesting thing is that she did all of these unusual (from my prudish western standards) and up-close moves with total panache. No awkwardness, no feelings of inappropriateness, no creepy caresses, nothing to arouse suspicion. It was all totally professional. Albeit third-world/old-world professional, but professional nonetheless.
My brush with ayurvedia medicinal healing ended being closed up in a wooden steam box. This actually would have been quite relaxing if she hadn’t perched herself on a stool about 3 feet from my face. She proceeded to ask me lots of questions that I couldn’t understand with a disarming sincerity and interest. I tried talking slowly, but with good grammar. That didn’t work. I decided that perhaps there are not two languages, English and Bengali, but rather a third, Benglish. It worked.
“This,” I say pointing to the box hiding all but my head, “hot box.”
“Yeeess…” Head wobble. “Hot box. Good box. Good body box.”
I smile and try out a little wobble. She wobbles back. Wow! Major bonding with the head wobble. She seemed to understand what I meant…even if I’m not sure what I meant.
This went on for another 10 minutes or so. Me pointing to things in the room—oil bowls, herb sachets, poky things—asking “What?” She was pleased to tell me all about them.
“This? Oil, what. Ayurveeeda. This good body. Hot for body. Make strong. Make happy. Make health.” She smiles. I feel like an expert now.
After emerging from the steam box, I underwent a very sketchy shower, which necessitated dashing back and forth from the bathroom to the massage room, hoping I didn’t bump into the male masseurs.
As I was about to leave, waiting for George in the lobby, she makes one more appearance. Walking by, she slaps the back of my thigh, shakes it a little and exclaims with an affirmative wobble, “Slim body!!”
And with that, George comes out of his room (equally perplexed by his loin-clothed experience) and we depart.
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But I ain’t going back.
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