Bad Directions, Bad Signs and a Cold Lake: Our Spa Experience
A few days before our trip, my sister called me and excitedly explained that she had booked us for a two-hour spa treatment that she had read about in a British country magazine. She explained that the spa was located just 30 minutes from the house in Northern Ireland—- clearly far enough away from the “Troubles” in Derry that she was so concerned about. She further described that this was a very different type of spa which included, a salt water bath, Finnish and aromatherapy saunas, a dip in the lake, and that I should bring my bathing suit.
There is so much in that last sentence that give me pause. First, it is March. As if having an inadequate time period for preparing myself to wear a bathing suit wasn’t enough of an issue, “a dip in the lake?” Other than my sister and a few of her Irish friends, no one in this country has seen me out of my winter coat all week! The prospect of getting out of that coat, into a bathing suit and then into a lake -without the coat- almost put me over the edge.
And second, I’m not a big fan of lakes. The whole squishy feel of lake bottoms always makes me worry about what might be lurking in all that mud. Give me some good, old fashioned cement any time, preferably with a lovely liner. But there was no turning back, as she had prepaid. So the bathing suit was packed and off we went.
As we did not have a map of Northern Ireland, we asked my sister’s friend for directions on how to get to the spa, who then immediately called her son for help. Once again, as is often the case when asking for directions in Ireland, we were immediately transported back to the openingscene of “The Quiet Man,” when John Wayne asks multiple townspeople which was the road to Inishfree. After much directional back and forth between my sister’s friend and her son, we did the only logical thing we could do with only 35 minutes left to spare before the relaxation began—we pulled up Waze.
The drive was quite lovely, with only minimal winding roads. (that’s always a plus for me) Waze brought us to our final destination, or so we thought, because we pulled into a road with a locked gate that did not have the name of the spa anywhere we could see. In fact, it had the name of a community, and it looked like there were private homes on the other side of where we were trying to go. As we were soon going to be late, my sister got out and began ringing the buzzer, which remained unanswered, no matter how many times she rang it. I finally called the spa and the young girl, who clearly had only relied on Waze for directions her entire short life, had absolutely no idea where we were. It turns out that we were down the road, less than a mile away. If her directional abilities, or lack thereof, are reflective of her generation, there is going to be a lot of lost twenty year olds in the coming years.
Upon arriving, I started to get a bit nervous, when we saw that there were a whole lot of buildings and not enough signs. We finally found a human being sitting at a desk, and our adventure began. The directionally-challenged young lady (as it turns out) described to us how we would move from one small building to the other, enjoying a specific spa service in each. In describing the salt pool, she said that the spa recommended that we remove our bathing suits, as the amount of salt could ruin the color and that we should wash out our ears because of the amount of salt that could collect. First, I love my sister dearly, but there was no way in hell I was going to float naked with her in that pool. I got my bathing suit on Amazon for 20 dollars and I’d just risk it losing its color. My sister was with me on this. Second, how much salt could accumulate in one’s ears when the whole “experience” was only 20 minutes?
We were clearly distracted by the bathing suit/salt issues because upon leaving the office, neither of
us had closely listened to her directions. She did not give us a map, there were no clear signs, and we were pretty sure that Waze could not get us out of this jam. Instead of beginning our relaxing two hours, we found ourselves running from building to building, looking for some salty water. We saw a truck coming, a.k.a. “A wee lorrie” and flagged it down. The driver told us that we needed to go through a locked door and did we have the combination? Although distracted, I would like to think that had the young girl told us of the need for a combination, it would have registered with one of us. We concluded she never told us.
We finally found the salt bath, which upon first glance, looked like a small room in a flooded basement. Ambience, it did not have. Fortunately, that didn’t matter, as I was with my sister..... in our bathing suits. After we stopped laughing about the craziness of this experience, we entered the pool/basement and my sister, who was less than concerned about the salt in her ears, floated beautifully, looking calm and relaxed. Me, not so much. Because I didn’t want to get salt in my ears, my head was not parallel, and that affected my buoyancy. To put it plainly, my butt kept sinking. When I wasn’t sinking, my head kept bumping into the concrete wall. I was more than happy to leave this part of the relaxation.
The next part of our “scavenger hunt” was to find the Finnish sauna. After several minutes of looking, we found the building, and it described how we should spend a few minutes in the sauna and then come outside and either stand under a cold shower or go in the lake. We thought we should at least try the lake—but I told my sister she had to go first. She got in, her eyes got wide, and she got out. I put my feet in, and after a rush of extreme pain from the cold, I thought, “What am I trying to prove,” and got out. Unfortunately, the shower was no better. We moved on to an outdoor hot tub, which promised to complete our relaxation, as we contemplated life while overlooking the beautiful lake. That would have been lovely had it not been for the construction nearby (they are apparently expanding their relaxation options) and the cement truck intermittently driving between us and the beautiful lake view.
What we didn’t get in relaxation, we certainly got in laughs. Next stop, back to Dublin. There must be a store or two we didn’t get to on the first leg of our journey. The good news—because every cloud has a silver lining—is that thanks to all the brown bread I have eaten here, I have plenty of bulk to help me close my already-bulging suitcase, should I buy anything else.
There is so much in that last sentence that give me pause. First, it is March. As if having an inadequate time period for preparing myself to wear a bathing suit wasn’t enough of an issue, “a dip in the lake?” Other than my sister and a few of her Irish friends, no one in this country has seen me out of my winter coat all week! The prospect of getting out of that coat, into a bathing suit and then into a lake -without the coat- almost put me over the edge.
And second, I’m not a big fan of lakes. The whole squishy feel of lake bottoms always makes me worry about what might be lurking in all that mud. Give me some good, old fashioned cement any time, preferably with a lovely liner. But there was no turning back, as she had prepaid. So the bathing suit was packed and off we went.
As we did not have a map of Northern Ireland, we asked my sister’s friend for directions on how to get to the spa, who then immediately called her son for help. Once again, as is often the case when asking for directions in Ireland, we were immediately transported back to the openingscene of “The Quiet Man,” when John Wayne asks multiple townspeople which was the road to Inishfree. After much directional back and forth between my sister’s friend and her son, we did the only logical thing we could do with only 35 minutes left to spare before the relaxation began—we pulled up Waze.
The drive was quite lovely, with only minimal winding roads. (that’s always a plus for me) Waze brought us to our final destination, or so we thought, because we pulled into a road with a locked gate that did not have the name of the spa anywhere we could see. In fact, it had the name of a community, and it looked like there were private homes on the other side of where we were trying to go. As we were soon going to be late, my sister got out and began ringing the buzzer, which remained unanswered, no matter how many times she rang it. I finally called the spa and the young girl, who clearly had only relied on Waze for directions her entire short life, had absolutely no idea where we were. It turns out that we were down the road, less than a mile away. If her directional abilities, or lack thereof, are reflective of her generation, there is going to be a lot of lost twenty year olds in the coming years.
Upon arriving, I started to get a bit nervous, when we saw that there were a whole lot of buildings and not enough signs. We finally found a human being sitting at a desk, and our adventure began. The directionally-challenged young lady (as it turns out) described to us how we would move from one small building to the other, enjoying a specific spa service in each. In describing the salt pool, she said that the spa recommended that we remove our bathing suits, as the amount of salt could ruin the color and that we should wash out our ears because of the amount of salt that could collect. First, I love my sister dearly, but there was no way in hell I was going to float naked with her in that pool. I got my bathing suit on Amazon for 20 dollars and I’d just risk it losing its color. My sister was with me on this. Second, how much salt could accumulate in one’s ears when the whole “experience” was only 20 minutes?
We were clearly distracted by the bathing suit/salt issues because upon leaving the office, neither of
us had closely listened to her directions. She did not give us a map, there were no clear signs, and we were pretty sure that Waze could not get us out of this jam. Instead of beginning our relaxing two hours, we found ourselves running from building to building, looking for some salty water. We saw a truck coming, a.k.a. “A wee lorrie” and flagged it down. The driver told us that we needed to go through a locked door and did we have the combination? Although distracted, I would like to think that had the young girl told us of the need for a combination, it would have registered with one of us. We concluded she never told us.
We finally found the salt bath, which upon first glance, looked like a small room in a flooded basement. Ambience, it did not have. Fortunately, that didn’t matter, as I was with my sister..... in our bathing suits. After we stopped laughing about the craziness of this experience, we entered the pool/basement and my sister, who was less than concerned about the salt in her ears, floated beautifully, looking calm and relaxed. Me, not so much. Because I didn’t want to get salt in my ears, my head was not parallel, and that affected my buoyancy. To put it plainly, my butt kept sinking. When I wasn’t sinking, my head kept bumping into the concrete wall. I was more than happy to leave this part of the relaxation.
The next part of our “scavenger hunt” was to find the Finnish sauna. After several minutes of looking, we found the building, and it described how we should spend a few minutes in the sauna and then come outside and either stand under a cold shower or go in the lake. We thought we should at least try the lake—but I told my sister she had to go first. She got in, her eyes got wide, and she got out. I put my feet in, and after a rush of extreme pain from the cold, I thought, “What am I trying to prove,” and got out. Unfortunately, the shower was no better. We moved on to an outdoor hot tub, which promised to complete our relaxation, as we contemplated life while overlooking the beautiful lake. That would have been lovely had it not been for the construction nearby (they are apparently expanding their relaxation options) and the cement truck intermittently driving between us and the beautiful lake view.
What we didn’t get in relaxation, we certainly got in laughs. Next stop, back to Dublin. There must be a store or two we didn’t get to on the first leg of our journey. The good news—because every cloud has a silver lining—is that thanks to all the brown bread I have eaten here, I have plenty of bulk to help me close my already-bulging suitcase, should I buy anything else.
ROTFL. And such a great distraction from the news!!
ReplyDeleteLoved this! I laughed
ReplyDeletethe entire time reading this!