Sauna and Ice Swimming

It begins like this: Change into your swim suit (or take off your clothes--Finns actually do this naked).

Enter the sauna (pronounced sow-na--it's through that door on the left in the picture above). Take a deep breath and feel the 80° C air on your skin.

Relax. Just like any other sauna you can imagine, sit there and stew in the heat. Occasionally, splash some water on the stones, which sends steam and an intense blast of heat over you.

When you are feeling overwhelmed by the heat and your body is covered in sweat, work up the courage to go outside. Make sure you have good friends with you to encourage each other.

Run outside and scamper down the ladder and onto the frozen sea. Marvel in the fact that you are covered in sweat, standing outside where it is below freezing, and for some reason you feel great.

Look down at the hole cut in the ice and wonder why in the world you are about to do this. And then, jump! 

Feel the squishy bottom of the lake, feel the cold around you, and most importantly feel the life coursing through you. Have those good friends who encouraged you to take a dip also help you out of the water because it's quite hard to maneuver bare skin on that ice.

Head back into the sauna and repeat the process two or three times. When you're done, feel the benefits of the crazy thing you just did. It's like you can suddenly feel every cell functioning in your body. It's indescribable and invigorating.

Some notes about this experience:

The EPS instructor invited everyone in the EPS to his home to enjoy his traditional sauna. This one was in a cottage separate from the main house and also right next to the water. Given that it's a traditional sauna, it's heated by a stove--that's why you see the fireplace one side. Modern saunas are electric. Roger, my instructor, drilled the hole in the ice with his chainsaw. At first he actually ran into some trouble trouble because the ice was thicker than the length of his chainsaw! Ice swimming sounds crazy, but hundreds of thousands of Finns do it at least once a year. Some doctors even recommend it to help increase circulation. And finally, the photos with the Z in the corner were taken by my friend Lukas, a much better photographer than I. :)