adventures: 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."
