A Note on Showering

It is often said in the U.S. that Europeans bathe less than their American counterparts. It is also known that European women don’t always shave and like to let it grow wild and free. I could never understand this, since I love showers and spend copious amounts of time splashing around in there at home a la Psycho, and prefer silky-smooth to hairy spider legs. If my new bathing situation is typical of all of Europe, I can completely understand how this came to be.

My entire bathroom here in Thessaloniki is about as big as my shower back home, and that’s not exaggerating. The shower is a raised lip in the bathroom floor with a moldy, disgusting curtain that comes around to enclose the little area. The tiny showerhead isn’t mounted but one you hold and aim around. I turn on the boiler, wait a good 18 minutes, and give it a go.

Disastrous. Not only is it tiny, but it doesn’t drain---after 15 seconds of water the shower is filled to the brim and spilling over to the bathroom floor. It’s too cramped to skillfully maneuver the showerhead, and it sprays everywhere. the curtain doesn’t reach the floor and so is useless anyway. After less than a minute I feel claustrophobic and cramped and ready to leap out. After what feels like an eternity I get out, with as much water on the dirty floor as in the area designated shower.

I’ve always been a shower-shaver, but the episode above proved that this was not only improbable, but utterly impossible. However, having not shaved since leaving the US, it had to be done. Armed with only my razor, the sink, and a small can of shaving cream (Katherine, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU, you’re probably the only reason I didn’t bleed out in that bathroom), I began the torturous process.

When I finally emerged from that hellhole, soggy, shivering, and shaven, it was with horribly scraped, cut legs, and I was the least clean I’ve ever been upon exiting a shower. But I was alive.

Given this horrific episode, it’s obvious maintaining the standard of cleanliness to which I’ve become accustomed will be difficult. But I will persevere, my dear Americans, never you fear. I’m just glad my roommate hasn’t arrived yet—the bathroom door doesn't even come close to closing, and such a spectacle would hardly make a good first impression.