On The Wing

Editor’s note: We are not all rant and rave at On The Wing.  We are always intrigued by those very real and quirky things that happen daily to each of us. The strange and unusual occurrences that enrich the human experience. This is precisely why we love the personal essay. Essays showcase our vulnerabilities in a very personal and engaging manner. Told from an emotional place, the personal essay allows our readers to connect with situations that they might not otherwise have the chance to experience. That is certainly the case with Nicole Hadaway’s piece that follows below. A stranger in a strange land, she tells the tale of how even a pampered spa experience can be a real eye-opener.

European Spa, American Body

By Nicole Hadaway

Three short years ago, my husband, an engineer, was placed by his company on a project located in Monaco.  So we, hubby, kiddo (nine months at the time) moved to the French Riviera.

Wohooo!

I finally would use that French I’d studied for six years!

Funny thing – back when I studied French (in the late eighties/early nineties), they taught things they thought might be useful in trips to the Patisserie, the Train Station, or inviting your friends over for a sleepover.

The trip to the European Spa was not one of those things.

So Hubby’s company thought it might be a nice idea to treat all the wives to a great day at the spa, at the Monte-Carlo Thalasso, wherein they specialized in seawater treatments.

I went to book my appointments and picked out from the menu (written completely en francais): a mud wrap, the douche a jet (which, with my French I translated to mean “high-pressured shower”), and a massage under a shower of sea water.

Sounds great, huh?

Let me just say here that before I moved to France, I knew that there were different attitudes towards body shame, nudity, etc. I went to the spa with the mindset that I might be baring body parts I wasn’t used to in a spa setting. But I had no idea what awaited me.

I never had a mud wrap before, and they are not my thing, but I thought I’d give it a try – it was free, after all.  So I get to the spa, change into the fluffy white robe provided for me, and pull out my bikini when the lady supervising me shakes her head, “no,” and gives me a pair of paper underwear bottoms (the Brazilian kind. Oh yeah, and they’re white) and a shower cap to wear.

And that’s it – a white paper thong and a shower cap. Then I got coated with mud, all over.  I mean, everywhere.  After that, she wrapped me in a plastic sheet, just like they do before they kill people in mob movies! Then she belted an electric blanket around me, as if I were an enchilada, turning on the heat.  If you have any kind of claustrophobia or fears of cooking to death whilst tied into an electric blanket, then I can tell you — this treatment is not for you!

After 20 minutes of relaxing thoughts like, “What if they forget about me here and I bake down to a muddy, desiccated corpse?” The attendant came back, unwrapped me from my plastic corpse-bag, and then motioned for me to go over to the shower next to the table. She took the hand-held shower head and hosed my back, while I was allowed the dignity of doing my front all on my own – wohooo!

Next, after my oh-so-calming, mob-style mud treatment, I wrapped myself in my fluffy white robe and sat and waited in the waiting room for the douche a jet. Having been coated with mud by a complete stranger, I looked forward to standing by myself under several shower-heads as they massaged my body with warm, relaxing sea water.

Uhm, no.

So a guy – yes, a male – leads me to my next treatment. It’s in a long, white-tiled room, with a stool near the door, what appeared to be a fire hose (white) wrapped on the wall next to said stool, and handrails and a drain at the far end of the room. I’m thinking, “Oh, no. No, no, this can’t be right.”

The guy gestures to the stool, upon which is laid a shower cap and another set of white paper Brazilian underwear. He says to me, “Je vais retourner,” and smiles as he leaves the room. I’m thinking, when he said, “I’ll be back” that he meant “A lady will be back because you’re a girl and you’re going to practically be naked during this treatment and that would just be plain awkward even though this is Europe and we’ve got more liberal attitudes regarding nudity over here.”

Oh, how wrong I was! He comes back – the guy — and it’s me, my shower cap, and the white paper thong against guy with the fire hose. I kid you not. Have you ever seen that movie Silkwood, where Meryl Streep’s character gets contaminated and they have to hose her down? Yeah, people apparently pay good money for that treatment at a high-class Euro Spa!

If I closed my eyes and concentrated on the high pressured water massaging my feet, legs, arms, and back, it was nice and did work whatever kinks I had in my muscles out.

To his credit, the guy was nice. However, it was a man who was not my husband nor in the medical profession, hosing my nearly-nude body down as if I were a piece of garden furniture getting washed after a weekend of pollen.

The last treatment was actually nice – a back massage – by a girl, thank heavens!  Sea water gently cascaded down on top of me.  This was my idea of a cool spa treatment and I did enjoy it. Whew! Finally.

And that was my visit to the swanky Monte-Carlo Thalasso.  All in all, I was glad to have the experience, because it certainly makes for interesting (and funny) conversations and of course, it gave me something about which to write!