how to shower in a sink, french style
Les Calanques is national park in Southern France, a stretch of rocky white cliffs dotted with sparse, scrubby pine along the Cote D'Azur from Marseilles to Cassis. The Calanques are crossed with hiking trails, and in spots you can scamble down the steep scree to jump off rocks and ledges into the clear blue Mediterranean.
Kat and I stayed at an eco-friendly youth hostel in the national park, a 60 year old villa with incredible ocean views, electricity from solar panels, and water from rainbarrels.
Needless to say, this was not a place with hot showers, but it was so beautiful we stayed for 2 days.
The women's washroom had one long, communal stone washbasin, with three cold water taps with room for 10 people to line up and brush their teeth. After a day in the hot sun and swimming in the salty ocean, I was more than ready for a good wash-up.
I wrapped myself in my sarong, soaked my washcloth with cold water, and was doing my best to rinse off the salt when an older French woman came in, laughed at my sarong, and said, in Europe you don’t need to worry about that. We’re all the same here! You just wash, nobody minds seeing.
She told me how to climb up into the washbasin and use a jug of hot water from the kitchen as a make-shift shower.
The cold wash cloth wasn’t working that well, so I decided to brave it. I grabbed the hot water jug, dropped the sarong, and stepped up into the basin, trying ignore how self-conscious I felt as I poured hot water over my head and soaped up.
Despite my misgivings, nobody looked at me funny or asked why I was standing in a sink with no clothes on. Just as I finished up, three more women climbed up into the
washbasin with their jugs of water, laughing and chatting. In the end, I thought, a hot shower feels damn good, no matter what the logistics.
Kat and I stayed at an eco-friendly youth hostel in the national park, a 60 year old villa with incredible ocean views, electricity from solar panels, and water from rainbarrels.
Needless to say, this was not a place with hot showers, but it was so beautiful we stayed for 2 days.
The women's washroom had one long, communal stone washbasin, with three cold water taps with room for 10 people to line up and brush their teeth. After a day in the hot sun and swimming in the salty ocean, I was more than ready for a good wash-up.
I wrapped myself in my sarong, soaked my washcloth with cold water, and was doing my best to rinse off the salt when an older French woman came in, laughed at my sarong, and said, in Europe you don’t need to worry about that. We’re all the same here! You just wash, nobody minds seeing.
She told me how to climb up into the washbasin and use a jug of hot water from the kitchen as a make-shift shower.
The cold wash cloth wasn’t working that well, so I decided to brave it. I grabbed the hot water jug, dropped the sarong, and stepped up into the basin, trying ignore how self-conscious I felt as I poured hot water over my head and soaped up.
Despite my misgivings, nobody looked at me funny or asked why I was standing in a sink with no clothes on. Just as I finished up, three more women climbed up into the
washbasin with their jugs of water, laughing and chatting. In the end, I thought, a hot shower feels damn good, no matter what the logistics.
posted by soobee at 4:38 PM
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