Picture this: you're sitting in a room, with the door locked. You're naked, and there's an oven in the room. The oven keeps the room at a temperature of, minimum, 60 degrees Celcius, probably closer to 70 or 75. There's a bucket of water at your feet with a big metal ladel in it, and you've been throwing water onto the oven till the tiny window in the corner fogs up. You've gathered some braches from a birch tree in your back yard and tied them together. You start to hit yourself gently with the braches, and, past the slight sting in your nose from the heat, you can smell the aroma of birch trees filling the air. When you can't stand the heat anymore, you step out of sauna, and wander into your backyard. Mind you, the snow is up to your thighs in places that haven't been touched this winter. First, you're just walking around, trying to cool down after the heart-pounding heat you underwent during sauna, but then you decide to lay down. Naked. In the snow.
What you've just pictured in a typical Finnish sauna, as well as what I've been experienced time and time again since my arrival in this beautiful country. Sauna might be the thing I miss most about Finland when I leave! Here's a picture of my "body print" in the snow from tonight's sauna.
