It Takes 17 Years
Jul. 20th, 2009 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeBack in 1992 I remember watching the Pole To Pole travel series starring Michael Palin. In it, he travelled to Finland and experienced a traditional Finnish sauna, which included flagellating yourself with birch branches before sitting in an 80C hotroom for 30 minutes. He also went skinny dipping in a Finnish lake, which is tradition here. Often, you do it in the snow as it is very refreshing and closes the pores, increasing blood ciruculation in the body and the contrast between the hot sauna and the cold lake is very theraputic. When I first saw this all of 17 years ago, it was something I always wanted to do. Today, I finally did.
The lake was fucking freezing. There was no snow (it's July remember) but the thermometer claiming the water temperature was 20C was quite clearly lying. Still, once the coldness of the water was acquainted with, it was fun diving in from the floating wooden pontoon. It was weird as we got buffeted by waves as the speedboats sailed past, I got my paws tangled in reeds and there were patches of water that were warm and then one swimming stroke away, it was freezing. Most odd. The water was crystal clear and it was great skinny dipping as there was asolutely no one there apart from Hiru and myself and I didn't really give a toss.
Afterwards, I went round to Hiru's mother's house, which was deep in the forest, like Little Red Riding Hood's granny's house. She was a really sweet lady and although she spoke little English and communication was difficult, with Hiru on hand to provide the translations, I discovered that it was the family house and it was built by her ancestors. It was also a traditional house with a traditional boiler, which we had to stoke if we were going to have a sauna. This meant that we had to collect the wood from the shed, tip the waste paper and the wood into the furnace after pushing the old ashes down to the bottom of the pit, open the little air vent and light it. It was great fun.
Once we had done this, we sat down for some delicious food that Mrs Hiru had prepared. There was chicken in a light curry and some gorgeous potato gratin cooked with onions and garlic. She had also prepared an excellent salad with apples of all things, some cherry tomatoes and some superlative squash made out of cranberries, strawberries, raspberries and four other berries I had never heard of. It was most tasty. In fact, berries are quite massive out here and I ate a baby wild strawberry when I was out in the woods as well as some sweetened red berries in an ice cream tub upon my return. After our sauna, we were also served some great homemade blueberry cake over a cup of tea. So quintessentially, erm, Finnish. Apart from the fact the tea was Twinings.
Most Finnish homes have a sauna as Finland is the home of the sauna (although the Swedes may disagree). Even most flats in cities have their own saunas in the basement. And they are not the gay variety either, although tradition dictates you do go naked. One thing I have become more happy with since joining the Fandom is my own nakedness so I stripped down and sat on a tea towel as the temperature rose inside the small wooden box of a room as Hiru kept pouring warm water on the hot coals. As the temperature rose, I flagellated my whole body with birch branches dipped in cold water. The flagellation opens the pores and as the leaves smell nice, it is also theraputic. The branches and leaves were soft so it left a tingly sensation and you could really whack yourself hard and it still barely hurt. What's hurting more is the mosquito bites I got when collecting the branches from the forest, the mosquitos and scratchy things out here are something else.
The journey down to Stansted Airport was uneventful - I caught a lift from my Dad who was driving my sister down to Heathrow as she was heading to Ecuador today. The flight though was a nightmare as I was caught between a tight-laced lawyer type and a long haired hippie who spent most of the flight smelling of chicken sandwich. I was squashed between both of them with barely room to open my Independent. I hogged the armrests due to my fat belly impeding my arms from resting inside the chair space - I now feel so fat and horrible.
Tampere airport is tiny - one of those that has only been boosted by Ryanair flights visiting it. Customs was like a toilet cubicle but I got through and met Vin, who was waiting for me at the airport. I got into a random car for the fourth time in my life and we headed into Tampere, a city I visited last year and one I was glad to be re-acquainted with. Indeed, it is very rare for me to visit a foreign city twice - this was only the second time I ever have, I think.
I went to Hesburger twice in the space of 12 hours - once in Tampere city centre and one in Jyväskylä on my way up to Äänakoski to see Hiru. I had an hour and a half to kill in Jyvaskayla around lunchtime so I decided to walk around the town. It is a largely uninspiring place, built in an identikit fashion that seems so common with Finnish towns. However, there was a nice church and a lyceum in the centre of town and a sex shop that was sadly closed. Hesburger is a fantastic chain restaurant that is based predominantly in Finland, although they do have outlets in Sweden, Germany and in the Arabic world (who let them build because they are not an American chain). They do excellent burgers that come with a unique sauce that is to die for. The fries are merely okay though, more like Burger King's than McDonald's in England sadly. Still, definitely worth a visit if ever you are out here.
Apart from that, we did go out for a night out in Tampere last night, where I drank two pints of Karjala, given a loyalty card for something that I am not sure what it is and then headed home as it was getting late. The bus into town was great though as it was full of students heading out for a night out - at midnight as clubs tend not to shut here until 4am or so. It was great soaking up the joyous atmosphere - and in fact the bus was like something out of a furmeet, judging by the people who were on it. It's interesting actually as the Finns have a particularly Slavic look about them which makes them an easy distinguishable race, I find. It is so obvious that I am a tourist.
Another point is that it doesn't get dark here at this time of year - the sky is merely a dark blue hue rather than black. The Sun was rising by 2:30am, as we were heading back through the suburbs, and it gave me a fantastic lease of life. Speaking of which, I am really enamored with suburbs at the moment. Like in Singapore, they may be plain but for some reason they can sometimes tell you more about a place than any city centre ever would. Don't know why. In Tampere, I briefly met two other furs, who I may be meeting again on Thursday, along with Vin, when Hiru and I travel back down there.
Apart from that, I managed to speak to Yinwolf - a fur I had great pleasure meeting last year but who I can't meet this year as he has just started his six month compulsory military service with the Finnish army. He is trying to get Friday off to come and meet me but as he has just completed his first week, he doubts he can get leave, which will be a shame.
I also saw a Japanese anime - Rozen Maiden - which was a little depressing but very compelling at the same time. I also saw a demonstration of the Sims 3 where Hiru created my very own character who looked very much like me in human form. Yet he wore more pink. It does look a lot better than Sims 2, which we showed me last year, and very addictive. Probably something I should avoid lest I spend every waking hour playing it.
He also played a CD of a fantastic Finnish band called Indica, which was cool. I am now watching the Finnish version of one of those late night quizzes that con drunk people out of their money after watching Lost and A Touch Of Frost with Finnish subtitles. Hiru is testing me on Japanese for some reason and I am looking at the empty bottle of a soft drink that has a cartoon cat on the front and it comes in Listerine green flavour. It's some sort of fruit and it tastes very nice :)
The lake was fucking freezing. There was no snow (it's July remember) but the thermometer claiming the water temperature was 20C was quite clearly lying. Still, once the coldness of the water was acquainted with, it was fun diving in from the floating wooden pontoon. It was weird as we got buffeted by waves as the speedboats sailed past, I got my paws tangled in reeds and there were patches of water that were warm and then one swimming stroke away, it was freezing. Most odd. The water was crystal clear and it was great skinny dipping as there was asolutely no one there apart from Hiru and myself and I didn't really give a toss.
Afterwards, I went round to Hiru's mother's house, which was deep in the forest, like Little Red Riding Hood's granny's house. She was a really sweet lady and although she spoke little English and communication was difficult, with Hiru on hand to provide the translations, I discovered that it was the family house and it was built by her ancestors. It was also a traditional house with a traditional boiler, which we had to stoke if we were going to have a sauna. This meant that we had to collect the wood from the shed, tip the waste paper and the wood into the furnace after pushing the old ashes down to the bottom of the pit, open the little air vent and light it. It was great fun.
Once we had done this, we sat down for some delicious food that Mrs Hiru had prepared. There was chicken in a light curry and some gorgeous potato gratin cooked with onions and garlic. She had also prepared an excellent salad with apples of all things, some cherry tomatoes and some superlative squash made out of cranberries, strawberries, raspberries and four other berries I had never heard of. It was most tasty. In fact, berries are quite massive out here and I ate a baby wild strawberry when I was out in the woods as well as some sweetened red berries in an ice cream tub upon my return. After our sauna, we were also served some great homemade blueberry cake over a cup of tea. So quintessentially, erm, Finnish. Apart from the fact the tea was Twinings.
Most Finnish homes have a sauna as Finland is the home of the sauna (although the Swedes may disagree). Even most flats in cities have their own saunas in the basement. And they are not the gay variety either, although tradition dictates you do go naked. One thing I have become more happy with since joining the Fandom is my own nakedness so I stripped down and sat on a tea towel as the temperature rose inside the small wooden box of a room as Hiru kept pouring warm water on the hot coals. As the temperature rose, I flagellated my whole body with birch branches dipped in cold water. The flagellation opens the pores and as the leaves smell nice, it is also theraputic. The branches and leaves were soft so it left a tingly sensation and you could really whack yourself hard and it still barely hurt. What's hurting more is the mosquito bites I got when collecting the branches from the forest, the mosquitos and scratchy things out here are something else.
The journey down to Stansted Airport was uneventful - I caught a lift from my Dad who was driving my sister down to Heathrow as she was heading to Ecuador today. The flight though was a nightmare as I was caught between a tight-laced lawyer type and a long haired hippie who spent most of the flight smelling of chicken sandwich. I was squashed between both of them with barely room to open my Independent. I hogged the armrests due to my fat belly impeding my arms from resting inside the chair space - I now feel so fat and horrible.
Tampere airport is tiny - one of those that has only been boosted by Ryanair flights visiting it. Customs was like a toilet cubicle but I got through and met Vin, who was waiting for me at the airport. I got into a random car for the fourth time in my life and we headed into Tampere, a city I visited last year and one I was glad to be re-acquainted with. Indeed, it is very rare for me to visit a foreign city twice - this was only the second time I ever have, I think.
I went to Hesburger twice in the space of 12 hours - once in Tampere city centre and one in Jyväskylä on my way up to Äänakoski to see Hiru. I had an hour and a half to kill in Jyvaskayla around lunchtime so I decided to walk around the town. It is a largely uninspiring place, built in an identikit fashion that seems so common with Finnish towns. However, there was a nice church and a lyceum in the centre of town and a sex shop that was sadly closed. Hesburger is a fantastic chain restaurant that is based predominantly in Finland, although they do have outlets in Sweden, Germany and in the Arabic world (who let them build because they are not an American chain). They do excellent burgers that come with a unique sauce that is to die for. The fries are merely okay though, more like Burger King's than McDonald's in England sadly. Still, definitely worth a visit if ever you are out here.
Apart from that, we did go out for a night out in Tampere last night, where I drank two pints of Karjala, given a loyalty card for something that I am not sure what it is and then headed home as it was getting late. The bus into town was great though as it was full of students heading out for a night out - at midnight as clubs tend not to shut here until 4am or so. It was great soaking up the joyous atmosphere - and in fact the bus was like something out of a furmeet, judging by the people who were on it. It's interesting actually as the Finns have a particularly Slavic look about them which makes them an easy distinguishable race, I find. It is so obvious that I am a tourist.
Another point is that it doesn't get dark here at this time of year - the sky is merely a dark blue hue rather than black. The Sun was rising by 2:30am, as we were heading back through the suburbs, and it gave me a fantastic lease of life. Speaking of which, I am really enamored with suburbs at the moment. Like in Singapore, they may be plain but for some reason they can sometimes tell you more about a place than any city centre ever would. Don't know why. In Tampere, I briefly met two other furs, who I may be meeting again on Thursday, along with Vin, when Hiru and I travel back down there.
Apart from that, I managed to speak to Yinwolf - a fur I had great pleasure meeting last year but who I can't meet this year as he has just started his six month compulsory military service with the Finnish army. He is trying to get Friday off to come and meet me but as he has just completed his first week, he doubts he can get leave, which will be a shame.
I also saw a Japanese anime - Rozen Maiden - which was a little depressing but very compelling at the same time. I also saw a demonstration of the Sims 3 where Hiru created my very own character who looked very much like me in human form. Yet he wore more pink. It does look a lot better than Sims 2, which we showed me last year, and very addictive. Probably something I should avoid lest I spend every waking hour playing it.
He also played a CD of a fantastic Finnish band called Indica, which was cool. I am now watching the Finnish version of one of those late night quizzes that con drunk people out of their money after watching Lost and A Touch Of Frost with Finnish subtitles. Hiru is testing me on Japanese for some reason and I am looking at the empty bottle of a soft drink that has a cartoon cat on the front and it comes in Listerine green flavour. It's some sort of fruit and it tastes very nice :)
