The land of the Long Hot Sauna

Once again Steve has been out and about in the snow, this time naked:

A recent work trip took me to Oulu in Finland. Oulu is halfway up Finland, on the west coast. And this time of year it is pretty much white as far as the eye can see. Snow snow snow. Even the snowmen are cold.

And to celebrate our project kickoff we went to a small manor house, had some food, a few beers and into the sauna. But this house had two types of sauna; a normal one and a smoke sauna.

You make a smoke sauna by not putting a chimney in your sauna, and then burning some wood. It leaves a great smell, but the inside is covered in a fine soot. And when you get up you have a big black mark on your bum.

Damn those Finnish Saunas are hot. After a half hour of sweating out with a whole bunch of naked men, there is nothing better than a roll in the snow. Okay there is one thing better - dipping in the ice cold water. And I can tell you now that the testicles did not see the cold water coming. Oh... BRISK!

And repeat.

I had a few goes in the various saunas. I even sat in the snow for a while. Which really hurt - and the pain stays with you afterwards; until the whole area warms up. If there wasn't a crack there already I would have broken it clean off.

Apparently smoke saunas are quite rare nowadays. They have a tendency to burn down.

I would have posted photos, but my bag and camera were stolen in Heathrow. So you'll just have to imagine me standing there naked. Oh yeah.

Bridie gets a Crackberry

Bridie's work has finally dragged her into the addictive world of Crackberry. She now has more gadgets than Steve - where's the envy!

While Bridie has now joined the sad world of being accessible via email 24/7 - it will not be joining us on holidays!

Really... we just wanted an excuse to use this photo (taken at the Edinburgh Festival last year).

Pissweak world: The brewery museum

Just back from Brussels, and we thought we'd share a special nook of this fine town.

Just off the Grand Place in the centre of town is a Beer Museum. It amounts to two rooms. A room full of oldish stuff. And a room full of newish stuff.

And then you're done.

All for 4 euros each.

The photo is of other people mesmerised at how bad this place is.

But at the end you get a free (small) beer. If only to get the taste of blatant exploitation out of your mouth.

Happy New Year 2006

Since we had a big trip to Aus not so long ago, Steve is sick of airplanes; crammed in a metal tube for hours.

But we just *had* to do something for New Year's Eve. So we booked a big metal tube that goes along the ground instead.

We took the Eurostar to Brussels.

Brussels has probably about 2-3 days worth of tourism. But over the holiday season this drops dramatically as things shut. And so we probably spent too long there. So much so that we even ended up in an Irish pub wondering what to do next. The Irish know how to answer that question.

But we did get to see fireworks as they put on a good 20 minutes of stuff-blowing-up.

In the time leading up to midnight they have music playing - mostly local rock music. And the 10,000 or so people are singing along. So it was kind of fun, rather than the waiting-around that goes on in London.

So we wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year. May you get more of the stuff you like.

Steve and Bridie