Friday night at the baths

Hey guys,

Yeah, I know it's already Wednesday, but I've been super busy and haven't had a chance to write it up.  So there

Anyways, I spent last Friday night at the baths.  I know, weird?  I never thought of the baths as something to do on a Friday night, but man I can't imagine many better ways--four friends, hanging out for three hours .  And for only 3500 forint (less than $15) it's a lot cheaper than going out anywhere else ;)

Sorry, no pictures . . . I feel like it would have been super weird to change, bring my camera to go take a bunch of pictures, then take it back to the lockers.  A theory backed up by how awkward it looked when someone else did exactly that :P

Anyways, the baths are very cool.  They're "Turkish style", which is apparently a misnomer because they were all built by the Romans.  Anyways, they consist of a series of pools, each one hotter than the last.  The coolest is at 28C, then 30, then 32, then 36, and the hottest pool is 42 degrees centigrade, which is pretty toasty.  I couldn't stay more than a few minutes.  Anyways, the idea is you start cool, and then move up whenever you're ready.  After the pools, you can even go to the saunas which are even hotter.  The first sauna is nothing, but the second one is 50-something and the hottest sauna is 72 degrees.  I don't know how hot that is exactly (I've been resisting the urge to convert, instead trying to simply get a sense for units by referring to good ol' xkcd) all I know is it was hot.  Like, a few minutes and I was dying up in there

So, after you get as hot as you can possibly stand, you go over to the wall, pull on a rope, and it dumps a bucket of freezing cold water on your head!  I know, it sounds awful.  And it is.  It truly, truly is.  But for 20 seconds afterwards . . . my god do you feel alive

And after that, you go jump in the coldest pool (even after the bucket, you still want some cooling down) and do the whole cycle again!  Seriously, it's awesome.  We went through three times in as many hours (my fingers got super pruney, I won't deny it) and afterwards I felt great.

Add to that the nice, crisp walk along the Danube to get to where I'd be picked up by my taxi . . . all in all, a pretty fantastic way to spend a Friday night

Noah out