Alright guys, let's talk about the 800 pound goril......uh.....naked man in the room

So I will continue with my koli story shortly, but for now I just wanted to quickly blog about a unique experience I recently had in the Finnish sauna. First off, in Finland there is something like 3 million saunas for a population of 5 million people. The sauna is very simply an integral part of the culture here. If I'm not mistaken, sauna is originally a Finnish word that the rest of the world just adopted. So these people are the sauna original baby!

That being explained, in the housing arrangements they have a sauna that can be used at certain times of the month and week. You can either go to the housing people and pay 8 euros to reserve the sauna 1 hour out of every week, or just go to the sauna when it is regularly opened on Wednesdays. Now usually on Wednesdays in my living arrangement, girls can go from 6-8 and guys from 8-10. They separate girls and guys because Finnish people go to the sauna straight up naked. I suppose it kinda makes sense, I guess if I wanna relax to the full extent, course I gotta be naked? Well either way, to most exchange students that idea seems pretty daunting. Just keep your eyes looking above eye level!! some of them say. Sometimes I ask other exchange students if they go naked and they're just like whoa no way!!

So today(wednesday) I was invited to the sauna by my fellow American and also exchange student, Weston. He said that him and some exchange students would be doing a mixed sauna(clothes on, obviously) at 8pm and wanted to know if I would like to come along. I said well, sure why not. I hadn't yet been to the sauna in the housing arrangements, and I wanted to start going regularly since it's relaxing when there aren't a bunch of crazy water fiends in there. But in the back of my mind I thought, wait, isn't today Wednesday? Isn't the sauna open for -men- from 8-10? Well I just said eh they do this regularly and went along with it, cause apparently they do actually every wednesday try to have a mixed sauna.

So I go, it's quite nice. It was seriously nothing like the one I checked out when I went ice swimming. There was a small opening near the bottom of the doorway that allowed heat to actually escape if shit got real. When I entered it was more like a really really really warm room, no hyperventilating. It was this cold in part because the people were playing and throwing water on each other and opening and closing the door. Some people went and brought snow from outside and started spraying people with it just for the shock effect. But after a minute everyone calmed down and had nice sauna again. We threw some water on the  coals, a nice amount. It was very good, I like the sauna a lot. So we sit there a bit longer and have nice conversation with a few intervals of people getting crazy with the snow again but it's nothing as bad as crazy water fiends. I managed to stay peaceful the entire time.

So at one point we all are just sitting there talking and sweating when I see someone pass by the door out of the corner of my eye. Uh oh. In pops in a naked Finnish guy, our age too. He just kinda looks in with this slightly confused look on his face, then just goes for it and sits down. Now there is a lot of people in this sauna and it's not a big sauna. We had to make room for him whenever he came in. Even more over, I knew the guy!

One of the first weekends I got here and did not know the bus system, he and I both got left at the bus stop. We had a nice conversation and decided to just walk back together since we had discovered we lived in the same building from our pleasant conversation. It's an hour walk back, so we got to know each other pretty well. Since then we've had a couple more nice conversations on the bus and at bus stops. This guy was now naked sitting beside me in the sauna, and definitely feeling awkward because of a lot of male and female clothed exchange students.

It was also really funny, and really kinda not funny at the same time because I was sitting beside him on one of the benches in the sauna. Thing was that the benches in the sauna face each other. So I was having quite the fun time in my head watching peoples eyes as they were trying to have conversations. People would be talking then randomly glance down, I guess it's just in peoples nature I don't know why. It's not like these people were trying to sneak a peak, I feel like they all looked in spite of themselves. Girls, guys whoever hahaha. I mean I guess you just can't help it.

I tried to talk to him and get into a nice convo with him as not to make him feel so strange, but you know, we were the ones who should have felt strange. We were out of line, not him. How awful to make someone feel embarrassed within their own culture! So eventually everyone wanted to take a break and go out for a second, but I stayed in there with him. He expressed his embarrassment for being the only naked one at that point. I knew what I had to do. I just said here goes nothing, and got naked as well. Now good thing was the girls definitely weren't coming back in at this point, they decided they were done with one naked man I think. But the guys slowly trickled back in. Kinda strange also because I was with a group of people that I hadn't really formally met yet, because my friend just invited me to come with his friend group. Kind of a strange first impression. So they would come back in and you could see in their face the thought crossing their mind "Wait, what?!?! Two naked guys now?!"

So I just sat there naked with my bus stop friend and eventually I think the other guys caught on and then also got naked. It was actually better. Not nearly as bad as one would think. Surely it's difficult for us to rid ourselves of our cultural perceptions of what it means to be naked and what that implies, but by gosh, after just being in there with a few guys for 15 minutes.....it feels so....normal. That does it, I'm a nudest. Till next time, peace!

Trip to Koldi, really really Koldi: Part tangent

Whew poor video quality, it was so cold my phone started acting crazy!!

So hello again my friends! This little video is one I took while visiting a place called Koli. It was very freaking cold, hence the title, with the very cry your eyes out and vomit hilarious pun in the title: Koldi. But that's neither here nor there, I'll get to that later, for now let's be patient people.

So this video basically reminded me of a nice conversation I had with a couple Finnish friends the other day, and therefore it's time for a tangent out the get go. Finland has it's own version of Jackass. It's true, and the damn people are crazy as hell. Seriously, I have no idea how these people are alive. It's only like 4 people or something too, so no one avoids getting horrible pain inflicted on them. And really, they don't do anything that's really meant only to be funny per se. Like a lot of Jackass stuff is extremely risky and there's a likelyhood that the person will get hurt, but if not then whatever it is is often pretty funny and ironic. Like for instance this involves no one getting hurt really:

And this one is risky but people didn't have to get hurt necessarily:

I will agree that some of them are just straight up pain but not all of them. But every single Finnish Jackass I watched(called the dudesons) involved someone getting hurt haha. I guess there was one where they blew up a house and no one got hurt, anyways here's a taste:

Now this video is in Finnish so if you can't tell just from context clues what they're doing, they're testing a phone to see if it still works after being put through.....the elements? Well not the elements but you know what I mean. Don't you just love the smile the guy keeps on his face during the third trial? The guys are crazy haha.

And lastly, here's a preview of the dudesons air in the US. Heck, many of you might have already seen this stuff. Apparently there was a problem because it was offensive to Native Americans, which I can see that pretty readily. 


There's another really cool show my friends showed me called madventures, again I think this one aired in the US as well. It's basically two Finnish dudes running around to different places and doing the craziest stuff people do in that culture. Check it out:

Quite interesting I would say. Now as far as Finnish accents go, these are pretty strong ones. A lot of the younger people you meet here don't even have a trace of this accent. It's kinda scary really. But you will find some older people here and less younger people who actually carry this accent. Often the British accent a lot of them have is stronger than their Finnish accent, which is just silly and provoking of envy haha. 

Wow, I think this one is definitely my favorite. Roof jumping in Russia. I think this one is just hilarious because of the reaction after losing at rock, paper, scissors. "Vittu...vittu vittu vittu!" I think that is the F word equivalent in Finnish.  When he's standing on top of the building he's apparently saying "I'm f***ing afraid, I'm f***ing afraid" hahaha poor bastard. 


Alright well this has been a niiiice long tangent for ya. I will continue this blog later with the actually on topic part once I get all the photos loaded. Yeah that whole tell you what I've been doing thing, what a concept. Either way, stay tuned and in the mean time, check these programs out to learn ya a little somethin about Finnish shows! Peace!

Ice Swimming 2: The Water Fiends

Hello all, how's it going?



So when we last left our.....hero? Our story. When we last left off I had just taken a plunge not in the ice water(as was, for some reason, the objective), but into the deep ass snow. So anyways, my British friend Alex and I were walking over the bridge afterwords, getting closer to the ice swimming place. I suppose we had been walking from my apartment for about 30 minutes at this point. The bridge was over a nice iced lake, which had also a nice neighborhood right beside it, but other than that you could see mostly just forest from the top of the bridge which slightly elevated you above the trees as you walked over it. 

We walk past the bridge and eventually reach our destination, which consists of a sizable 2 story house looking structure(it's obviously for commercial purposes) on the right, a small rectangular extremely small 1 story house looking structure on the left, and straight ahead a concrete dock with railings and two steel stair cases at the end. People busting out of the Sauna(small house structure) in a bit a seeming rush, their bodies steaming like crazy. The steam followed them as the walked down the dock. I saw people go to the end of the dock and walk down the stairs, ....a couple seconds go by, then they come up the other stairs, bodies not really steaming anymore. I thought hmm wow this must not be so tough, I was expecting to hear shrieks and presumably Finnish curse words then they come running back down the dock begging for warmth.  Nope, they seemed pretty calm and collected so this was cool. Felt kind of weird though to see them walking around in bathing suits just 20 yards from where I was standing wearing a huge jacket, scarf, mittens, toboggan, thick lined pants, long underwear, etc.

We go inside, get registered, we look at the temp. it's -8 degrees F. Damn. And we're off, the rest of the crew(actually a lot of people, maybe 18-22) come in and we get changed. I'm wearing only my blue bathing suit as we walk outside. Immediately I feel my body ask me why the f*** I'm outside, and we begin to scurry quickly to the sauna. Now I've never been in a Finnish sauna before, and all the saunas I've been in, I've had more or less control of the temperature except for maybe in the gym when Brian would turn it all the way up. That bastard. But honestly, even Brian turning the temperature all the way up was absolutely nothing compared to this. There is a room right beside the sauna where you can wash your feet off before you go in, and really I thought that room was pretty toasty... There is a glass door separating the sauna from the foot wash room, I enter through the glass door and am immediately floored by a wall of heat. 


The first thing that goes is your ability to breath comfortably, then you immediately start sweating like a.....pig? Do pigs sweat a lot? Anyways, it was a lot and at first I'm just like wow I'm straight up out of here, but then I kinda calmed a little and had a seat. Mind you that all of this is going on in my head, really I just walked in and sat down. I observed all these notions in silence. So after about 30 seconds to a minute I actually start quite enjoying it. It was very nice, relaxing, really hot but eh that was kind of a good thing...............then came the water fiends. 


For those of you who don't know, which is probably none of you but let's not leave anyone out, ya sit in the sauna and when you feel like you haven't had enough punishment, you throw water on the coals that are heating the room. The coals are really freaking  hot, so the water instantly evaporates and heats up the room -and- increases the humidity. By gosh that's a double whammy! 

You use a spoon to throw the water on the coals much like the one in this picture of some of my friends also in a sauna here in Finland. For some reason that is completely beyond me, in this picture they have decided to use vodka instead. I wasn't there for this incident, as I got this photo off facebook, but I do hope everyone in this picture is still alive. So let us continue.

Actually no let's go on a complete tangent for a second, humidity matters soooo much more than I ever thought it did as far as making something hot or cold. I mean, I knew it mattered for the heat in terms of hot weather, but cold weather too so much! I mean it makes sense. It feel soooo much colder here when the humidity is up here, which because of the lakes, it's often up to 100%. 

Yeah so back to the story. So you throw water on the coals, and depending on how much you throw on there, it could get really, really, really really really hot. Everything in the sauna was just hunky dory until we got some really big Finnish dudes with tattoos come into the sauna with us...which was probably about 5 minutes after we got in there. I think they quickly realized we were international and decided they wanted to prove their Finnish might. Perhaps not though, perhaps they're just Finnish and are used to it and really like steam and pain. 

Pish!!! Pishh!!(sound it made when they threw water on the coals) Pish pish pish pishhhhhh!!!! It was absolutely ridiculously absurdly hot!! When we walked in there it was already 80 degrees centigrade. That's right, degrees centigrade. That's 176 degrees Fahrenheit. They just kept throwing that water on the coals. And you know, it started nice. Every time you throw a spoon of water on the coals it feels like someone put  something really hot on your back, and on your face. Mostly your face. At first it was us putting a spoon here and there on the coals, just to spice things up a bit. Then after they came in they immediately started throwing more than we did, probably just because they're used to it. 

That was uncomfortable, but then they went crazy. These two dudes just started a freaking water battle. Oh yeah??? Well I can throw 6 spoons on there at once! Oh yeah, I can throw 8 spoons on there at once!! Oh yeah?!?!! Well try 11 bitch!!

I was freaking out of there at this point, it was 100 degrees Centigrade, 212 degrees Fahrenheit, or better know as the boiling temperature of water!!! Luckily, you're supposed to get out at one point if you wanna go ice swimming, and at this point, I wanted to go ice swimming!! I popped out of there, steaming like crazy, outside was -8 but it felt good, didn't feel cold at all. So I walk down the dock, thinking oh yeah this is gonna be awesome I'm so hot right now, and by gosh those other people didn't make it seem like it was that bad. 

I got over there went down the stairs, got in up to my shoulders and waist....holy shit that's f***ing cold!! I shriek, curse, and run back to the sauna begging for warmth. Back in the sauna...It feels soooooooo gooooood to be back there. At least for the first 5 minutes, then the water fiends made it painful to breath again so I was back out heading towards the ice. The second time was not nearly as bad, this time I didn't just dip in and get out. This time i actually swam from one stair case to the other. You get out and you really can't feel your crotch, I'm sorry but you just can't. As you run back to the sauna like a baby you really can't feel halfway up your thighs to your lower abdomen. Of course, perhaps that's not a universal idea, I was just an unlucky one. Also I noticed that hands and toes go first, not just in the ice, but in the sauna. I noticed that when I'm in the sauna my hands are the first thing to get uncomfortably hot, and in the ice the first thing to get uncomfortably cold.

Eventually I went in and out of the ice like 7-10 times. Sounds like a lot, but it's mostly because of those water fiends. It got to the point where I would go in the sauna until they pish pish pish then I would just throw my arms up and get the heck out. Often times I would come back from the ice to all the internationals and a couple Finnish people pouring out of the sauna claiming that the water fiends were trying to kill them. 

It was also interesting coming out of the sauna, sometimes I would just go out of the sauna and just stand in the freezing cold. It was really nice. Honestly after you left the sauna you could just stand there in a bathing suit for about 10 minutes without feeling a bit cold. Anyways, here's a couple pictures of me after ice swimming:

Look at all that steam from the people taking my picture. I think I might have still been steaming too. Eventually I got to where I could be in there for something like 10 seconds before I latched onto the other ladder. My friend Alex had done it before and he just swam back and forth, crazy man.

And another one, absurd. But somehow fun.

After we were done I went to dry off and change in the changing room......except hold on......I didn't bring...a...uh......I didn't bring a towel. Hmm, this is an oversight. Everyone is just changing and getting naked in the mens changing room, and I'm just kinda standing there in the changing room like uhhhhh. All our stuff in in the changing room, and there is a door to a one person bathroom in the changing room. I grab my pants, and walk without much resolve into the bathroom. Yeah, I just dried off with my pants. That would have been a strange sight if I would have just been in the open in the changing room. The things are so thick that if you dry off with the outside of them, then the inside of them stays dry. I was getting ready to go to the upstairs of the building to enjoy some food and a birthday party anyways, aka not gonna be outside for a while, so I figured why not. 

So after this monstrously large blog entry, I leave you on that note. Till next time folks and watch out for....the water fiends!!!!!!