November 2009 Archives
So the story starts like this: A Finnish girl, a German girl, and an American girl walk into a sauna...
I finally got invited to my very first sauna, which if you didn't know, is about the most authentic Finnish experience you could ever hope for. Finns invented the sauna. "Sauna" is one of the precious few words in the English language that actually came from Finnish. (Only we say it wrong. It should be "SOW-na" and not "SAW-na.") These people have personal saunas in their homes, it is a totally integral part of their culture. (Reminder, it is below freezing here for a huge percentage of the year. These people need to stay warm somehow!)
One of my agency colleagues knew I was new to Finland, so she invited me to join her and a German colleague who is in town for the week. (I am not completely convinced she invited me out of 100% niceness...I'm sure part of it was for her own entertainment to see how hard a prudish American would squirm at all the nudity.) She instructed me to bring a "towel, shampoo, and washing things." I stressed. "What kind of towel? Big towel, or little towel? Should I try to bring a classic white towel? Shoot, I don't have a white towel, I'm going to look like an idiot! Well, I'll bring a big blue one and a big brown one, and decide which one to use when I get there when I see what colors of towels other people have. Oh, and I'll bring this small orange microfiber quickdry towel, too, just in case." I think I was hyper-focusing on the towel situation to take my mind off the other more pressing issue: THE IMPENDING PUBLIC NUDITY.
Here's how it works:
Step 1 - Drink beforehand, and buy more beers to take to the sauna, as it's BYOB.
Step 2 - Walk up to the front door of the sauna building, past all the people sitting out front in zero-degree weather wearing nothing but towels, and try not to freak out at how cold it is and how they are all naked underneath those towels. This public sauna place that we went to is in a working class neighborhood, and it's very old-school. It was built in the 1920s, and is one of the few wood-burning saunas in town:
Step 3 - Open the door of the building, and immediately get hit in the nose with the smell of sweat. Clean sweat, but sweat.
Step 4 - Pay the nice man €10. Give him a few extra if you want the birch whip thingie. (More on that in a minute.)
Step 5 - Go upstairs, and open the door to the women's changing area. (Yes, men and women's saunas are separate.) Try not to laugh and/or freak out when you open the door to find a buck naked 10 year old boy, jumping up and down, shouting "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
Step 6 - Quickly ask where the toilet is so you can go collect yourself and give yourself a pep talk, and quietly allow yourself a quick freakout at all the boobies you just saw on the way in.
Step 7 - Come back, find a locker, just start stripping your clothes off, and pretend it's not a big deal. ALL your clothes. (It is considered unsanitary to wear a bathing suit in the sauna.)
Step 8 - Proceed to the next chamber, which is a shower room, and bring your towels and shampoo and soap and stuff. Take a shower out in the open, wondering if there is a peephole somewhere like on Porky's. Wash your hair, scrub your arms and legs and everywheres. This shower is not for your benefit, it is for the sauna to keep it clean. Look out for the naked toddler boy who is going around trying to steal everyone's shampoo.
Step 9 - Wrap yourself in your big towel and grab your small towel to sit on inside the sauna. Then have your Finnish friend laugh at you for wrapping yourself in the big towel, reminding you that "it's going to be quite warm in there, you really don't need it." Realize that you were already just naked in front of these two strangers for the past 5 minutes while showering, and it wasn't that big of a deal. Take a deep breath, quit being so uptight, and shimmy out of your big towel.
Step 10 - Proceed to the sauna chamber:
Step 11 - If you want to be hardcore about it, go to the top row where it's the hottest. Otherwise, pick a place further down. There are these little wooden seat thingies that you put down so you're not sitting directly on the hot stone steps. And you either sit on your towel, or use a disposable sauna mat. Sit and relax, taking deep breaths, basking in the heat, and enjoy. After a few minutes, you forget you're naked. After a few more minutes, you can tell how good your circulation is, and blood is getting to every faraway appendage. After a few more minutes, you're covered in sweat and condensation. After a few more minutes, going outside starts to sound appealing.
Step 12 - Go find your big towel, wrap up in it, grab your beers and head outside! This is actually fairly tame, because if you go to the saunas out in the countryside, they follow up the sauna by jumping into an icy lake!?
Step 13 - Sip your beers and laugh at all the steam coming off your body and head.
Step 14 - Go back to the shower, wash off again, and head back into the sauna. If you want to have the fully Finnish experience, you take this little bouquet of birch branches ("vihtas") that have been soaking in water, and you basically whip yourself with them. I've read about this many times and thought it sounded completely retarded. But it wasn't. The birch smells really good, and whipping yourself is kind of like exfoliating. (My Finnish friend said it's a really good cure for cellulite.) After you do it, your skin feels all good and tingly and moisturized.
Step 15 - Repeat steps 8-13 as many times as you please.
Step 16 - Go home in a woozy relaxed daze, and have the best night's sleep you've had in ages.
It was the nicest, most relaxing, most enjoyable evening. The nudity thing which had initially stressed me out so much turned out to be no big deal at all. Once you're in there and it becomes obvious that no one else cares about what your body looks like, and nobody gives a second thought to being naked in front of strangers, you kinda forget that you think it's weird, too. I will totally go again. There are a couple of other places in Helsinki that are a swimming hall/sauna combo, so I think I'd like to try that out, too.
There are lots of Finnish sayings around the sauna, but I think I like this one best: "All men are equal, and more so in the sauna."
I finally got invited to my very first sauna, which if you didn't know, is about the most authentic Finnish experience you could ever hope for. Finns invented the sauna. "Sauna" is one of the precious few words in the English language that actually came from Finnish. (Only we say it wrong. It should be "SOW-na" and not "SAW-na.") These people have personal saunas in their homes, it is a totally integral part of their culture. (Reminder, it is below freezing here for a huge percentage of the year. These people need to stay warm somehow!)
One of my agency colleagues knew I was new to Finland, so she invited me to join her and a German colleague who is in town for the week. (I am not completely convinced she invited me out of 100% niceness...I'm sure part of it was for her own entertainment to see how hard a prudish American would squirm at all the nudity.) She instructed me to bring a "towel, shampoo, and washing things." I stressed. "What kind of towel? Big towel, or little towel? Should I try to bring a classic white towel? Shoot, I don't have a white towel, I'm going to look like an idiot! Well, I'll bring a big blue one and a big brown one, and decide which one to use when I get there when I see what colors of towels other people have. Oh, and I'll bring this small orange microfiber quickdry towel, too, just in case." I think I was hyper-focusing on the towel situation to take my mind off the other more pressing issue: THE IMPENDING PUBLIC NUDITY.
Here's how it works:
Step 1 - Drink beforehand, and buy more beers to take to the sauna, as it's BYOB.
Step 2 - Walk up to the front door of the sauna building, past all the people sitting out front in zero-degree weather wearing nothing but towels, and try not to freak out at how cold it is and how they are all naked underneath those towels. This public sauna place that we went to is in a working class neighborhood, and it's very old-school. It was built in the 1920s, and is one of the few wood-burning saunas in town:
Step 3 - Open the door of the building, and immediately get hit in the nose with the smell of sweat. Clean sweat, but sweat.
Step 4 - Pay the nice man €10. Give him a few extra if you want the birch whip thingie. (More on that in a minute.)
Step 5 - Go upstairs, and open the door to the women's changing area. (Yes, men and women's saunas are separate.) Try not to laugh and/or freak out when you open the door to find a buck naked 10 year old boy, jumping up and down, shouting "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
Step 6 - Quickly ask where the toilet is so you can go collect yourself and give yourself a pep talk, and quietly allow yourself a quick freakout at all the boobies you just saw on the way in.
Step 7 - Come back, find a locker, just start stripping your clothes off, and pretend it's not a big deal. ALL your clothes. (It is considered unsanitary to wear a bathing suit in the sauna.)
Step 8 - Proceed to the next chamber, which is a shower room, and bring your towels and shampoo and soap and stuff. Take a shower out in the open, wondering if there is a peephole somewhere like on Porky's. Wash your hair, scrub your arms and legs and everywheres. This shower is not for your benefit, it is for the sauna to keep it clean. Look out for the naked toddler boy who is going around trying to steal everyone's shampoo.
Step 9 - Wrap yourself in your big towel and grab your small towel to sit on inside the sauna. Then have your Finnish friend laugh at you for wrapping yourself in the big towel, reminding you that "it's going to be quite warm in there, you really don't need it." Realize that you were already just naked in front of these two strangers for the past 5 minutes while showering, and it wasn't that big of a deal. Take a deep breath, quit being so uptight, and shimmy out of your big towel.
Step 10 - Proceed to the sauna chamber:
Step 11 - If you want to be hardcore about it, go to the top row where it's the hottest. Otherwise, pick a place further down. There are these little wooden seat thingies that you put down so you're not sitting directly on the hot stone steps. And you either sit on your towel, or use a disposable sauna mat. Sit and relax, taking deep breaths, basking in the heat, and enjoy. After a few minutes, you forget you're naked. After a few more minutes, you can tell how good your circulation is, and blood is getting to every faraway appendage. After a few more minutes, you're covered in sweat and condensation. After a few more minutes, going outside starts to sound appealing.
Step 12 - Go find your big towel, wrap up in it, grab your beers and head outside! This is actually fairly tame, because if you go to the saunas out in the countryside, they follow up the sauna by jumping into an icy lake!?
Step 13 - Sip your beers and laugh at all the steam coming off your body and head.
Step 14 - Go back to the shower, wash off again, and head back into the sauna. If you want to have the fully Finnish experience, you take this little bouquet of birch branches ("vihtas") that have been soaking in water, and you basically whip yourself with them. I've read about this many times and thought it sounded completely retarded. But it wasn't. The birch smells really good, and whipping yourself is kind of like exfoliating. (My Finnish friend said it's a really good cure for cellulite.) After you do it, your skin feels all good and tingly and moisturized.
Step 15 - Repeat steps 8-13 as many times as you please.
Step 16 - Go home in a woozy relaxed daze, and have the best night's sleep you've had in ages.
It was the nicest, most relaxing, most enjoyable evening. The nudity thing which had initially stressed me out so much turned out to be no big deal at all. Once you're in there and it becomes obvious that no one else cares about what your body looks like, and nobody gives a second thought to being naked in front of strangers, you kinda forget that you think it's weird, too. I will totally go again. There are a couple of other places in Helsinki that are a swimming hall/sauna combo, so I think I'd like to try that out, too.
There are lots of Finnish sayings around the sauna, but I think I like this one best: "All men are equal, and more so in the sauna."
Sorry about the lack of updates for the past week. It's a week I'd like to forget, actually, so I'm fine with having no posts to show for it. To explain, here is the emotional roadmap of what it's like to move to a foreign country:
Weeks 1 and 2, aka Wide Eyed Optimism - "This is so cool, oh my gosh, I can't believe I actually live here! Oh, rad...what is that place? Who is that guy? How does this work? Neat! Is it really this easy to use public transit? Don't I look cute in my coat and new boots? Man, I am awesome, I will have this figured out in no time!"
Weeks 3 and 4, aka Reality Sets In and It Is Not Pretty - (my current state) "I can't read the label on one single thing in the stupid grocery store, I am so hungry living off carrots and dried banana chips. It starts getting dark at 3:30pm, and it's freezing and wet outside and I'm afraid I'm going to slip and break my ribs AND my laptop. At first it made me happy that people thought I was Finnish, now it just makes me feel like a dumbass to make them say things over again in English. Work is hard, I'm not sure I'm cut out for this job. I have no reason to leave the apartment, no one will know the difference, anyway, because I don't have even one measly friend. Did I do the right thing in making such a blind and huge commitment to live here for a whole year? Can I come back early? I miss my friends."
Weeks 5 and 6, aka Reality Isn't Quite So Bleak - I can't really speak to this yet, but my guess is that after such a beatdown couple of weeks, my confidence will return, I'll get re-excited about exploring my new city, a few things will go my way, and I'll befriend just one person, and that will make all the difference in the world. I'll start figuring stuff out (like where to buy salt, for example) and little by little I'll start conquering all the little challenging annoyances and have some semblance of a social life.
Weeks 7 and 8, aka You've Got This - My friend Leslie moved to London from Seattle a few months ago, and she says her emotional roadmap has matched mine pretty much exactly, and that around the 2 month mark, suddenly it all comes together. I will be with Leslie in London at my 2 month mark, so if she's not right I will let her know it. With my fists.
Weeks 1 and 2, aka Wide Eyed Optimism - "This is so cool, oh my gosh, I can't believe I actually live here! Oh, rad...what is that place? Who is that guy? How does this work? Neat! Is it really this easy to use public transit? Don't I look cute in my coat and new boots? Man, I am awesome, I will have this figured out in no time!"
Weeks 3 and 4, aka Reality Sets In and It Is Not Pretty - (my current state) "I can't read the label on one single thing in the stupid grocery store, I am so hungry living off carrots and dried banana chips. It starts getting dark at 3:30pm, and it's freezing and wet outside and I'm afraid I'm going to slip and break my ribs AND my laptop. At first it made me happy that people thought I was Finnish, now it just makes me feel like a dumbass to make them say things over again in English. Work is hard, I'm not sure I'm cut out for this job. I have no reason to leave the apartment, no one will know the difference, anyway, because I don't have even one measly friend. Did I do the right thing in making such a blind and huge commitment to live here for a whole year? Can I come back early? I miss my friends."
Weeks 5 and 6, aka Reality Isn't Quite So Bleak - I can't really speak to this yet, but my guess is that after such a beatdown couple of weeks, my confidence will return, I'll get re-excited about exploring my new city, a few things will go my way, and I'll befriend just one person, and that will make all the difference in the world. I'll start figuring stuff out (like where to buy salt, for example) and little by little I'll start conquering all the little challenging annoyances and have some semblance of a social life.
Weeks 7 and 8, aka You've Got This - My friend Leslie moved to London from Seattle a few months ago, and she says her emotional roadmap has matched mine pretty much exactly, and that around the 2 month mark, suddenly it all comes together. I will be with Leslie in London at my 2 month mark, so if she's not right I will let her know it. With my fists.
Officially, I have been homeless since August 31st. I am very very happy to report that I am 100% completely moved in and settled into my new permanent apartment in Helsinki. I no longer live out of suitcases. I have a kitchen where I can cook meals for myself. I have a bed with my sheets and blankets on it.
For such a homebody, it has been a very trying two months to not have a place to call home.
Would you like to meet my new home? No? Too bad.
The name of my new street is Pohjoinen Hesperiankatu, which means North Hesperian Street. Hesperiankatu also has a south version on the opposite side of a park that is just outside my door. Middle picture is the front door of my building:
Here is the outside of the building, along with my cutesy little address cube:
You can either take the creepy curvy stairs up to the third floor, or the even more creepy tiny/terrifying elevator, then voila! My door! With my name on it!
When you first enter the unit, you're basically in the kitchen if you step in and take about a half step to the right. It's small, but does have lots of good counter space and decent storage. Storage includes those rad shelves that serve double-duty as a dish drying rack, just like at the other place. (This must be standard here?) I didn't bring much kitchen stuff with me, but luckily the place is pretty well stocked, including these dishes? With grapes on them? And peaches? I miss my green Crazy Daisy Corelle dishes, but these will do, I guess.
You can tell from the picture that the kitchen is kind of a hallway, and at the end of the hallway is the bathroom. Or maybe I should call it a "bath closet." It was really tough to take photos because it's so cramped in there. The bathroom is my least favorite part of this apartment. There is absolutely zero storage, not one shelf or cabinet other than than tiny one under the vanity mirror. The floor tiles aren't heated like in the other apartment. There is no towel warmer. And the whole room utterly reeks of cologne. (I kind of wish the landlords hadn't told me that an Italian guy lived here before me, because now I just obsess about that cologne smell and how there is probably chest hair embedded in all the furniture.)
I included a picture of the washing machine, so you can see how weird it is. I showed it to my sister Staci over video Skype, and she said, "What IS that? A cheese grater??" It's the washing machine chamber, and you have to un-hinge it and it's so weird and small and I'm going to have to do laundry every other day, dangit. And then have all my wet clothes strewn across the apartment.
When you walk in the front door, if you keep walking about 5 steps forward instead of turning right into the kitchen, you are in the living area. It has a sofa, a weird section of the wall framed around the sofa that has inexplicably been painted mustard yellow, two green sitting chairs, a table with a jambox and a candle on it, a TV and DVD player, and a small green bugle-bottomed dining table. I was shocked to learn this morning that the DVD player actually plays Region 1/US DVDs!? Yay!
And finally, the bedroom. When you're sitting on the sofa in the living room, you're staring directly across through some French doors to see the bed in the bedroom. There is also a big desk in there, and the little orange bugle-bottomed chair matches all the orange lights and buttons on my laptop and gets me all giddy. The bed is very weird, it is literally just two twin beds smushed together. And each mattress is only about 4 inches thick! However, it is very comfortable and I love having the little booklights right above my head.
And that is that! Even though it's a lot smaller than my Seattle apartment, it feels bigger since there is so much open space. With the bed that can easily be dissected into two, the couch, and the air mattresses I will buy soon...I am ready for visitors. Come see me!
For such a homebody, it has been a very trying two months to not have a place to call home.
Would you like to meet my new home? No? Too bad.
The name of my new street is Pohjoinen Hesperiankatu, which means North Hesperian Street. Hesperiankatu also has a south version on the opposite side of a park that is just outside my door. Middle picture is the front door of my building:
Here is the outside of the building, along with my cutesy little address cube:
You can either take the creepy curvy stairs up to the third floor, or the even more creepy tiny/terrifying elevator, then voila! My door! With my name on it!
When you first enter the unit, you're basically in the kitchen if you step in and take about a half step to the right. It's small, but does have lots of good counter space and decent storage. Storage includes those rad shelves that serve double-duty as a dish drying rack, just like at the other place. (This must be standard here?) I didn't bring much kitchen stuff with me, but luckily the place is pretty well stocked, including these dishes? With grapes on them? And peaches? I miss my green Crazy Daisy Corelle dishes, but these will do, I guess.
You can tell from the picture that the kitchen is kind of a hallway, and at the end of the hallway is the bathroom. Or maybe I should call it a "bath closet." It was really tough to take photos because it's so cramped in there. The bathroom is my least favorite part of this apartment. There is absolutely zero storage, not one shelf or cabinet other than than tiny one under the vanity mirror. The floor tiles aren't heated like in the other apartment. There is no towel warmer. And the whole room utterly reeks of cologne. (I kind of wish the landlords hadn't told me that an Italian guy lived here before me, because now I just obsess about that cologne smell and how there is probably chest hair embedded in all the furniture.)
I included a picture of the washing machine, so you can see how weird it is. I showed it to my sister Staci over video Skype, and she said, "What IS that? A cheese grater??" It's the washing machine chamber, and you have to un-hinge it and it's so weird and small and I'm going to have to do laundry every other day, dangit. And then have all my wet clothes strewn across the apartment.
When you walk in the front door, if you keep walking about 5 steps forward instead of turning right into the kitchen, you are in the living area. It has a sofa, a weird section of the wall framed around the sofa that has inexplicably been painted mustard yellow, two green sitting chairs, a table with a jambox and a candle on it, a TV and DVD player, and a small green bugle-bottomed dining table. I was shocked to learn this morning that the DVD player actually plays Region 1/US DVDs!? Yay!
And finally, the bedroom. When you're sitting on the sofa in the living room, you're staring directly across through some French doors to see the bed in the bedroom. There is also a big desk in there, and the little orange bugle-bottomed chair matches all the orange lights and buttons on my laptop and gets me all giddy. The bed is very weird, it is literally just two twin beds smushed together. And each mattress is only about 4 inches thick! However, it is very comfortable and I love having the little booklights right above my head.
And that is that! Even though it's a lot smaller than my Seattle apartment, it feels bigger since there is so much open space. With the bed that can easily be dissected into two, the couch, and the air mattresses I will buy soon...I am ready for visitors. Come see me!
