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.