Oil Wrestling...manly or strange?

Last week an oil wrestling competition almost 650 years old continued in the city of Edirne, Turkey. Men from all over the country (and this year even a few Sumo wrestlers from Japan) come to this city west of Istanbul, cover themselves with olive oil and wrestle in a pavilion in front of thousands of people (of which I was 1 of about 5 women that I counted in the crowd). There's also a big fair with food, music, rugs, and tractors for sale. It's almost like a small state fair but no fried Snickers bars.

During the match we watched, about 50 men who were probably in the heavy weight division came out to the field and were introduced. Then they all walked and jumped around the field and chose their match ups on their own while the band beat drums and played horns.

Each match up had a judge standing by them. The match began and for most, it was very difficult to see who might be "winning." Most of the matches lasted about 20-30 minutes and then at some point the judge would raise one of the two men's arms as the winner. I had to come home and read the rules afterwards. Some of the ways a wrestler can win are: "Submission" where a fight is so long and difficult in the hot weather that one of the wrestlers simply signals his submission; also, one of the most decisive ways to win is if one of the wrestlers is able to gain the upper hand by reaching down the other wrestler's leather pants to gain leverage. It sounds very strange, I know. There are other ways to win, but none of them are necessarily ways we would think of winning in wrestling. No one gets knocked out or anything like that.

There are 13 categories each with a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place winner. the ultimate goal is to win 3 years in a row and win a gold champion belt.

I can say that I've been...

My Turkish Bath

I've been avoiding the Turkish bath experience because of some of the horror stories I've heard about them as well as some of the youtube videos I've seen where a big burly Turk is manhandling some poor tourist.  But I finally gave in and went to a Turkish bath, and I must say...........it was great.

The first thing you do after you enter is see a list of services provided.  Everything from just sitting in the bath, to the traditional soaping, to a massage, etc.  I wanted the traditional Turkish bath experience, so I signed up for the soaping.

After you pay, they take you to a locker room of sorts, where you undress and put a towel around your waist.  Then they take you to the main bath, which is a large room almost as hot as a sauna.  In the middle of the room is a giant stone circular slab that is heated.  On the outside walls of the bath are basins with hot and cold water taps running to them.  They leave you in this room, laying on the heated stone slab, for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes or so, the guy comes in the room who is going to soap you. (Most of the guys in the bath don't speak English, but I knew enough Turkish and sign language to get by.  The only English word my guy knew was:  Obama!) The first thing he does is put a semi-rough mit on his hand and rubs it over your body.  The mit takes off all your dead skin, which is surprisingly a lot.  After that begins the soaping process.  He brings over a big bowl filled with soap suds and a rag.  Laying on your back, he starts to lather you up with soap, then he rubs in the soap/massages you.  After that he makes you turn over on your stomach and does the same thing to your back.  After he's done soaping, he has you go sit by the outer walls by one of the water basins, where he proceeds to dump buckets of water over your head.  Then he gets out the shampoo and starts to vigorously (and I do mean vigorously) rub the shampoo in.  After he thinks its sufficiently rubbed in, he again dumps buckets of water on your head.  Then he slaps me on the back, says Obama!, and leaves.  The entire process from start to finish takes about 15 minutes.

I really enjoyed the Turkish bath experience and will be going  back.  If you're ever in Turkey, a Turkish bath should be on your on list of things to do.