The view from Nate’s house of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge.
Jill and I head back to Turkey, figuratively, not literally, starting again on my blog.
We have about a month, or two, of blogs about Turkey, and Greece, to catch you all up on, so wait no longer!
I was having some serious back pain for the last month and my distant cousin, Nate Shanok, lives in Istanbul and suggested an amazing massage therapist, Nemrut.
Nate is a great guy and Jill and I got to hang out at his house the night before. Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures of them, but we later had dinner with he and his wife, Emily, and I’ll post about that in the future.
I did get a picture of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, which is actually just called, “The Second Bridge” by everyone we know, including our Turkish friends.
The story is that, about 5 years ago, I was up in Tahoe. I was with a bunch of buddies and we were going to have a little party up in the snow.
The ground was very icy and I happened to slip and slammed my elbow and shoulder into the ground.
I was later diagnosed as injuring my ribs and the muscles around my back and chest.
So, every so often, this pops up and causes a lot of pain.
Sadly, it started about a week before the trip and it was making traveling uncomfortable and limiting what we could do.
So, when Nate suggested I get a massage from his guy, I agreed instantly.
Nemrut is a slab of a man and about as strong as anyone I’ve met.
His hands are huge also.
He, however, was incredibly tender and even the deep tissue work wasn’t painful.
During the massage, it started to rain and I’ve always loved getting massages in the rain.
It just allows me to let go and feel the flow.
I actually am a Certified Massage Therapist, back in California, and I’m very critical of the massages I’m given since I have a very high standard.
Nemrut was amazing. We actually had him come back, 2 more times, and my back felt about 95% better each time.
Here’s a little video of the rain and then you can see Nemrut running to his car at the very end of it.
I had no idea I’d catch him in the video and it just seemed cute.