My Days in Paris: Anything but ordinary

Since I became an official expatriot here in France seven years ago, the question I get most often from the folks I left behind is an odd one. “What do you do all day?” they wonder.

Image credit: Hammam de la Grande Mosquée de Paris Instagram

Nobody ever asked me that when I lived stateside. They just assumed I was busy loading the dishwasher, buying groceries, and brushing my teeth. Truth be told is what I do most days here in the city of light. I hate to be the one to dash everyone’s dreams of the fantasy Paris of Epcot, Maurice Chevalier, and the nefarious Emily, but your normal day in Paris isn’t all croissants, champagne, and Chanel suits.

Take Tuesday this week. My to-do list:

• Walk to the Monoprix and buy light bulbs and underpants.
• Recycle ink cartridges and toothbrush heads, buy sugar cubes, toilet paper, and new sponges.
• Repair the drapes in the bedroom that have lost a hanger and
• Renew my apartment insurance online (a two-hour process that should have taken 10 minutes if I had spelled the name of the Ile de France department with one “l” instead of two.)

Image credit: Badly Drawn Dad via Flickr – The local supermarket, Monoprix, on rue Reaumur and Blvd Sebastopol.

Not all my days are so domestic and mundane

I take myself to interesting exhibits and performances, I visit friends in the banlieue and I work as a volunteer in the American Library in Paris. I’ve learned to play mah jongg with a gaggle of pals and I resurrected my knitting supplies and began cranking out baby hats and sweaters for the newest generations of grandkids of my friends with another gaggle of international knitters who meet on Wednesday afternoons in my apartment to take advantage of my three canapés (sofas) to spread out our work, drink tea and eat beignets.

Image credit: Wikipedia – mah jongg

And then there’s my monthly (actually every three weeks) visit to a nearby Hammam for the revitalizing “works” — a hammam, gommage, facial, scalp treatment, and massage.

The North African/Middle Eastern tradition of steam bath and an exfoliating rubdown isn’t something most Americans run into stateside. Yes, health clubs have steam rooms and saunas, and you can book a massage or a facial in any number of salons or spas, but the traditional hammam is an all-in-one experience, a more than 2000-year=old tradition of relaxation, purification, revitalization, and skin-shedding.

It’s an almost mystical experience without the hymns, ritual god-eating, and guilt.

Sometimes called Moorish or Turkish baths, the hammam is both a building (or a salon within a building) and a ritual that moves the client through ever-increasing temperatures and periods of relaxation, treatment, and socialization. My hammam is small, well-run, and immaculately maintained. At various stages of my visit, I’ll be offered hot mint tea and sweet treats — at no point will I have my phone or any of my clothing.

image credit: hammam_mosqueedeparis via instagram

To begin with, the client gives up her shoes and outerwear and is rewarded with the first glass of hot tea. Next comes divestiture in a mosaic-tiled room with lockers for personal belongings. In exchange, I’ll get a thin paisley-printed sheet to wear to the steam room where visibility is about 2 centimeters and temperatures are well over 40C (104F) with 100% humidity.

All I have to do is sweat.

After about 15 minutes I’ll move to another tiled room and drink as much water as I just sweated out before being directed to “allonger” on a raised table, much like an altar, to sacrifice all my old dead skin which is scraped off every inch of my body by a smiling, reassuring, rough-glove-wearing technician who frequently has me turning like a chicken on a spit so she doesn’t miss any tiny skin cells that might be on death’s door.

The finest moment of this process — called the gommage — is after the old skin has been purged but before the client is slathered in coconut cream and rubbed with cut lemons. Using a special black soap that foams profusely, the tech uses an inflated silk-like pillow to smooth the new, fresh skin.

After the gommage, comes the finale, a deep muscle massage with warm Argen oil. It’s this activity that I have yet to get through without falling asleep. This amuses the techs who know I’m napping because I snore like an overfed pig. Everything up to this point is designed to relax and refresh the client and my response to that is to start sawing logs. And I do.

After this, there’s more mint tea and honey-soaked pastries.

My clothes and shoes are reluctantly reclaimed and the sweet team of smiling technicians check to make sure I’m as happy and relaxed as possible. They also make sure I’m awake before I walk home.

Hammams are commonplace in Paris

Hammams are commonplace in Paris and countries where France had colonies, like Algeria and Morocco. In these cultures, the hammam is a place of gathering and socialization. Separated by sexes, of course, the hammam clients of these countries meet to exchange news, arrange marriages, and console the bereaved. “Hamma” in Arabic means heat and while the steam and bath water are soothingly warm, the atmosphere is decidedly cool.

I’ve been going to hammam frequently for the past three or four years.
One thing I realized after living here for a time was that the elegant French women I shared space with daily:

• wore very little makeup and they didn’t seem to need any.
• Their skin looks amazingly healthy.
• A tiny line of eyeliner and some sheer lipstick were all they used.
• A good haircut, well-made shoes,
• and little jewelry contrasted sharply with the heavily rouged and faux lashed by many foreign tourists.

Hammam certainly makes me feel more French and less like polluting my body with junk food or slathering it with cosmetics.

I still haven’t finished my Tuesday to-do list, but after my Hammam and gommage and massage, I hardly care… And that, in fact, is the magic of a Parisian life in general. No matter what happens — demonstrations, burning cathedrals, crashing super jets, or a fecal-filled flooded river — nothing ruins your day because when you step outside your door, there’s Paris.

And it isn’t ordinary.

How does my ‘ordinary day’ in Paris compare with yours? Don’t forget to add hammams to your list for your next French visit. Share your experiences below.

Note images are of various hammam in Paris.