Baden-Baden, Part 1 of 2

I put my clothes in the green locker and pulled the little key-band tight around my wrist. In just a moment I'd have to open the door and step out. They didn't give you a bathrobe, a towel, nothing.

Germans. Lots of them. Naked. Strutting around the chilly locker room as if their penises weren't visible. OK, settle down, I came here, I knew what I was getting myself into.

It was late February, and it'd been freezing cold for going on five months now. The relentless cycle of snow melting into slush and then re-freezing into a thick, solid sheet of ice covering the sidewalks forced me to walk slowly and awkwardly down the street every morning to work and back, gripping the nearest lamp post with my gloved hands to try and keep my feet from slipping out from under me. Five months.

All I knew about Baden-Baden was that it was famous for it's natural hot springs, which they piped indoors into classy old Roman-looking bath houses and sold tickets. I've never had any desire to go to a sauna before, but after so many weeks of below-freezing weather, the idea started to sound pretty good. That there's a casino in Baden-Baden was icing on the cake.

I hopped the next train down, and in a few hours was checked into my hotel and ready to steep myself in some piping-hot spring water. I decided on Friedrichsbad, the oldest and classiest looking of the two major bath houses in Baden-Baden. Romanesque with its interior covered in tile mosaics, it was built in the late 1800s and a favorite of Mark Twain himself during his time in Germany. I figured if the man knows half as much about bath houses as he knows about, uh, river boats, then Friedrichsbad must be the ticket.

I entered the huge, elaborate building, stomped the snow off my boots, and paid the woman at the counter. Did I want to pay a bit more for the massage, she asked? What the hell; how often am I in Baden-Baden?

She gave me a key and sent me upstairs to the locker room. The routine was: Step into a little cubicle, remove your clothes, step out of the cubicle, stow your clothes in a locker and hit the showers. Why the cubicle was involved, I do not know. Apparently strolling around naked was OK, but actually disrobing in front of people is undignified.

I'm usually a pretty logical guy, but when it comes to pissing, shitting, or getting naked with strangers, I tend to get a little neurotic. You know who pisses, shits, and goes around naked? Animals. Animals without shame. Animals without dignity. Once we admit we're animals, it opens the door to all sorts of distasteful behavior, like humping lawn gnomes.

And there I was, standing in the little cubicle, clothes in-hand, about to step out naked into a sea of naked German men. The Germans, they are OK with the nudity. A co-worker of mine who's particularly keen on the sauna once invited me to come with him some time. To the sauna. Where we'd be naked. Full-on wang-visibility. I don't remember what kind of non-committal answer I muttered, but I declined the offer. I don't want to see my co-workers naked. If some kind of pecking order based on anything other than skills and seniority emerged at work, I would become a nervous wreck.

Another thing that was causing me great angst at this juncture of the story is that I had just come in out of the snow. And it was mighty cold out in the snow and even a might chilly there in the locker room. Things were, let us say, not all what they could be at that particular moment. I'm fairly certain that my afore-described anxiety in the face of pissing, shitting, and being naked isn't caused by fear of inadequacy. But shrinkage wasn't helping any, either.

I stepped out of the cubicle into the locker room. Wangs: as predicted. And the buttocks -- Jesus, I hadn't even thought about the buttocks. I was not prepared for buttocks. Quickly I stowed my things in the locker and sped into the shower area, where I had more trouble.

The showers were huge metal contraptions, with pipes running all up and down the walls and shower heads the size of wagon wheels. Seriously, that goddam big. Clearly the engineering of another age, I think they were the same showers that Mark Twain must have used there. In front of each one was a single large black lever. No temperature controls? That's funny. Not wanting to blast my skin off under the huge shower head, I pulled the lever just barely, until water started pouring out from above.

Water which was ice-cold.

I had actually been thinking that the sooner a gentleman who'd just come out of the cold was to get to a hot shower, the sooner a gentleman's necessaries and particulars could, uh, right themselves. This ice-cold shower was a wrench in the machinery, no doubt about it. Taking a nervous glance around the room, I noticed that the other men seemed to be standing right in the full-on blasting streams of water from their showers. What? In exactly how many ways are the Germans crazy? I violated the "silence please" rule and asked the man next to me, in my poor, broken German, "Is the water supposed to be this cold?" Without speaking, he motioned with his hands that I should pull the lever back all the way, really open 'er up. Water blasted out and within a few seconds heated up. Temperature on these showers, apparently, increases along with flow. OK.

Finishing up the shower, I was given a towel and a pair of sandals and ushered into room number two. The entire place is divided into 15 numbered rooms, each one with a sign indicating how long you're supposed remain before moving on to the next room. Room number two was the hot air room, completely covered in colorful marble mosaics and with wooden recliners positioned around the room. The reason for the sandals became clear -- without them, you'd burn your feet on the tile floor. Similarly, the towel had to be laid down on the recliner before flopping one's self down. Finding an empty one and lying down, I began to relax. Studying the tile mosaic opposite me and having not a single wang in my peripheral vision, I enjoyed the warm air, and it started to feel like my very bones were warming up. 15 minutes in the hot air room wasn't going to be enough, but room number three was the really hot air room.

After 10 minutes in the really hot air room, all was right with the world. Yes, all.

My content was short-lived, however, because the next stop was the massage. I'd never had a massage before. This will probably not shock you, but the idea of a massage really kind of creeps me out. All the rubbing and the kneading and the popping into place of various things... hands to yourself, thank you. I was starting to regret having sprung for the massage.

Trembling, a nervous wreck, I shuffled naked and sweaty into room number three. Three massage beds stood side-by-side. A man in a t-shirt and shorts took my massage coupon and instructed me to lie down on the nearest one. Wondering if he'd hosed it off after the last guy had been there, I climbed on and was told that, no, I needed to lie down on my back, as he picked up a big bucket of sudsy water and a bath brush. Oh God. Oh Jesus.