A fat Turkish woman comes and roughly shakes me from my thoughts.  She flips me over and with a jerk brings me to my feet.  Tugging my arm she pulls me over and shoves me down onto a marble step next to a sink. I gasp for a breath as she unexpectedly pours water over my head and starts scrubbing my head, face and shoulders with hot water, frothy soap and a coarse loofa towel. This is the Turkish bath.  Twenty minutes later I am the cleanest I have ever been, laying on the hot marble stone while the Turkish lady takes on other victims. I can feel all my blood pulsing through my body and the steam is clearing my head. My muscles relax and I am completely Zen, allowing my body to melt into the hot stone.

As I lay there my mind wanders through the streets of Istanbul, the passages of the Grand bazaar, the alleys of the Spice market, the towers of the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. It wanders through Dilan’s apartment where I had spent the night before on a home stay program with her family. We had stayed up late into the night talking in broken English and sign language, drinking Turkish coffee and being force-fed cakes and pastries in their tiny apartment by her adorable and caring mother. It wanders past the faces of the children that have been following me around trying to sell me tissues for the past five days. As I walk half-awake through the steam into one of the large clear pools I realize that my stay here will soon be over and that I am in no way ready to leave. As I don my clothes and leave the bathhouse the burning red sun is setting behind the Hagia Sophia. Having had only a taste of the marvels of Istanbul, I promise myself I will one day be back.