Spa in Helsinki

I am usually a big fan of spa treatments. While a lot of conventional wisdom about men( unkempt, macho blah blah) would be sniggering at this, but I do believe that it's nice once in a while to pamper the self. Since I moved to Finland five months back, I had not been to a spa & my body was kind of giving me signals thats its hightime I went back to that routine
So I went to google(.fi) & searched for spas in Helsinki. Came out with quite a few searches but liked the Eligia spa simply because they had a nice website. Beware of spas which have an outdated website as chances are their spa services would also be of the same quality

The first problem which I faced was that the website did not have an English option. While google translator does work, it has its own limitations of not working on flash files or giving very strange grammatical sentences ( atrocious English as termed by a native). I somehow got an appointment by calling them & managed to book a "Deep Tissue massage" which was supposed to relax my stressed out muscles. I was really looking forward to it & reached there on time
The first reaction - I was the only guy in the spa & everyone was looking at me as if Will Smith with his MIB wardrobe had landed in the Roman senate full of people wearing satin gowns. Now I know that I look different here but never have been stared like this. But i brushed it aside & started looking for some magazines to read which were all in Finnish. So I flipped through the pages showing food, women, make up, chinese tea recipes in Finnish & waited for my turn
The masseur told me she doesn't speak English which reminded me of Avtaar but however I hoped that it would not make a difference. You don't go to make conversations in a spa but to lose yourself in decadence.
The "room" was on the first floor which meant climbing a total of 9 steps. It was technically not first floor but like 0.64 higher than the ground floor. There was a small 7* 5 feet alley where in the massage table was placed. I am not claustrophobic but the idea of this really really small place did look funny. I changed & then the massage started. Also usually in spas, they cut out all the outside noise & play some soothing music for you to relax.In this case, i could hear all the transactions in the reception with a liberal dose of moi, kiitos& moi moi thrown it. I gathered all my inner buddha peace & tried to block out the noise but seems like Buddha was not very happy with me & refused to co-operate & so I closed my eyes in an attempt to relax

The masseur was quite good & I started developing a feeling that I would feel detressed irrespective of the 7*5 bunker. The right hand side of the bunker was wall & the left hand side was curtains. After 15minutes into the massage, the masseur moved to the left side & owing to lack of space mistakenly ( hope so) touched the curtains & it felt. There was a loud noise & i opened my eyes to see if the masseur has popped over. I realized to my horror that after the curtains dropped, there was a glass window from which you could clearly see the reception & the people sitting in the sofas next to it. Well, they could also see me & so could a lot of people walking down the street. I have known of spas & treatments in the open next to the beach but this experience beat the hell out of me. If you don't appreciate the situation, try imagining having a spa treatment in big glass house in one of the busiest roads in Helsinki. Dilemma- Option 1: should I stop, get up & try to fix the curtain? I have never fixed curtains in middle of getting a massage but what the heck. Option 2: Ask the masseur to do it but then she does not speak English.Option 3: just continue as if nothing happened. I chose option 3 & continued with the treatment. By the next 15 minutes, owing to the fact that I could hear a lot of giggles from downstairs, my buddha decided to immigrate to Mars leaving me stranded with no or negative inner peace.
The final minutes of the massage was mentally excruciating with giggles in background & the fact that I was in my head counting how many people walking on the streets would have seen a man lying down on a massage table.
Finally the massage ended & then I courteously informed the masseur that it was a really good one. Oh I think i forgot to mention that the massage was done with oil. So I was looking forward to a nice good shower & then head back home.Then I asked for directions of the shower to which she looked at me with a surprised frown & I asked again. She said "no shower" - No shower? wtf, what kind of spa gives an oil massage & not have the option of a shower? My utter disbelief must have shown on my face, so she quickly vanished somewhere & I was cursing google & its search results. Post which, I wore my clothes over my oily gym worked out body & headed back home to take a shower. Oh did i also mention that when I was paying my bill, the receptionist said that I had some oil on my neck & gave me a tissue to wipe it - Arrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
That was my first spa experience in Helsinki & I would now go to the next place only with recommendations :)