Turkish Bath

If you've ever been to Turkey you might have been to a Turkish bath, Hamam.

Almost all of them have amazing architectural structures, and often the main bath area is round with a domed roof which has glass holes for light to get through as the Hamams have no windows for obvious reasons.

In the middle of the main bath area is an area where you can lay on (sometimes they are heated from underneath). The stuff that will come off you will shock you, black old skin you normally don't get off will roll-off, and you will feel kind of embarrassed :) It is quite the experience, I remember my first Turkish bath visit very well.

Turkish bath started during the times that running water was often not in houses and heating water was a very large task so the entire family would instead go to the Hamam once a week or so.
These days it is more a tourist attraction but some people do enjoy it from time to time, it is like a spa, just less fancy and more practical.

Everyone has his/her own sink which you fill with water. You then have a bowl to pour the water over yourself. The Turkish towels (peshtemals) were originally made for these places and are traditionally red and white, nowadays you see them online a lot and often made in more trendy colors and patterns.

The shoes for Hamams are also unique. Although this one above is very fancy, high, and elaborate they are still now made of wood and are high so that water can flow under them.

There is always handmade olive oil soap, marble sinks and gorgeous brass faucets.

We have a set of original old Hamam faucets in the shop :)
Photos that are not mine were taken from Pinterest.

Last Vacation post, St. Augustine

Happy New Year everyone! Already 12 days have passed, time flies. We have already been back home for a week but Jet lag and both catching the flu (most likely on our flight back) took a while to become human again.
We spent our last week in Florida in St. Augustine, we were there for a few hours last year while driving through.

St. Augustine was the exact opposite of Tallahassee, it is right at the coast and due to its history very touristic. The house we stayed in was a 5-minute walk from the beach.

There was this beautiful sculpture garden, free to visit, donated by a local sculptor, Thomas Glover, who passed away a while ago, here is the story behind the park.

8 sculptures were made by Glover, and 8 more were from other artists.

We were staying in a house taking care of 2 Scottish terriers and a parrot. After weeks of missing our own dogs, the dogs we took care of in Tallahassee and St. Augustine were wonderful.
We arranged these sits through TrustedHouseSitters where we also get our own sitters when we travel, no money gets exchanged (besides of a yearly fee at the site itself which ensures a safe environment), it is a great site. If you want to become a member use this code for 25% off RAF112470.

We saved quite some hotel costs this way and we could travel in a calmer way instead of changing hotels every 1-2 days. We had a few rainy days but it was not cold and it was great to wind down before our long trip back.

We didn't do a lot of shopping here as our stuff could barely fit in our car when we arrived :)

We visited the historic part on a sunny day, I did not take that many photos due to last years visit.

Traffic is crowded so we parked a little further away and walked, parking in town can easily cost 20$, we found a free spot :)

The town gets also lots of visitors due to the fireworks during New Year, but it was a bit chilly and we rather stayed with the scared dogs than go outside.

The town gives a bit of a staged feeling, it doesn't feel like the usual American towns, but is worth a visit when in the neighborhood, 1-2 days is plenty. We mostly went to the beach as the dogs loved that as well.

Like last year we had the extra atmosphere due to the Christmas decorations.

We did not go to the lighthouse this year, it has a cool black and white swirl design.

Some people had the beach as their back yard!

These people know how to enjoy life :)

We came back with 9 large suitcases and 4 pieces of hand luggage, it was crazy! Some stuff for the new house, and materials for the shop, all thrifted, of course!