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!!!!!!