Our neighbours have a sauna.
Our neighbours are really nice people. He's from Germany, she's from Russia. If i go over to plow their yard in the winter, some sort of baking usually beats me home. It was from them that we got our, English as a second language dog. She's not really a bad little dog, aside from her thick eastern block accent and her thoughts of world domination.
Anyways, having a sauna is a very European thing to do i guess. I've mentioned to him that i like hot tubing, but that doesn't really interest him. They do the sauna thing. He built it himself and did quite a nice job. He's invited me over a few times to sauna with him.
There's a bit of procedure to doing the sauna correctly. You go in for about 20 minutes. That's as much as i can stand. You have to get out before you start to get light headed. Then, you sit out of the sauna for 15-20 minutes, cooling down and dehydrating then back in for another round. The second time in, you can only stay about 15 minutes, then back out, and once again, back a third time for, maybe 10 minutes. If you do it correctly, you feel relaxed and tired. If you overdo it, you end up with a nasty headache and feel nauseous. I've experienced both.
When we're in there, we each have a tub full of cool water with us. It's used to dip from and pour cool water onto ourselves. When he splashes water onto the rocks and it gets so hot in there that you can't even breath, you can scoop water into your hands and dip you face into it. If you hold your nose and mouth as close to the cool water that you can without actually sucking it into your lungs, it makes it easier to get a breath.
Sometimes, when you are out of the sauna cooling off, you can run out and roll around in the snow. I know......this is supposed to be a relaxing thing, but it's not so bad. I tried it. You go directly from the snow, back into the sauna. You get a sort of prickly thing happen to your skin., although that might just be frost bite? Another odd thing they do is, while you are in the heat, you can whack yourself, all over your body with a bundle of sapling branches. It's supposed to help to open up your pores. I didn't do that. It looked a wee bit uncomfortable.
I'm pretty sure that the proper way to experience the sauna is to be in there in the nude. I don't mind nudity. I've been known to wander around the house at times in my all together. I'm just not all that comfortable sitting there chatting with my neighbour when my bits are hanging out. Even though i'm pretty sure when i'm not there, it's leave your clothing at the door. He's been good about letting me wear my bathing suit when i'm there. He's a good fellow, but we're not THAT close.
..............i've considered bringing a few beers along to help keep me cool in the sauna but i'm not sure i know him well enough. Although, we do sit there sweating together with a thin layer of bathing suit away from having our junk hanging out, i probably know him better than some of my other neighbours.
Ha! I'm glad that you and your neighbour have come to an agreement regarding clothing that you both can live with.
ReplyDeletenot as glad as i am! That 2 naked guys in an 8X10 ft room together can be rather uncomfortable if you don't get the ground rules out of the way right up front. :)
DeleteThis sounds pretty horrific lol.... I've never understood the sauna thing - and have never tried it myself. Of course, here every day is like a sauna, so maybe that's why I'm less inclined.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to read and really fun to imagine! Ken sitting there trying to breathe, holding cool water up near his face... funny!
apparently there is a dry sauna and a wet sauna. I'm not sure if wet sauna is the correct term. This is a wet one. When he puts water on the rocks it can litteraly feel like you can't breathe. It was a little uncomfortable the first time.
DeleteIt's probably true about not having saunas there because of the climate. Some days you're probably looking for a house of ice! :)
The going back and forth between sauna and snow must be a Canadian thing ;-)... I have a friend here who married a Canadian - and on her first visit over - that was one of the treats her new husband had in store for her lol
DeleteIt's nice to have things to look forward too. :)
DeleteI guess we may be a hearty bunch. The forcast is for more snow again tonight. Maybe i should be taking advantage of the last of it to run out and roll around in it?
I want to know more about your foreign dog!
ReplyDeleteI did that whole "running out and rolling in the snow" thing once from the jacuzzi at a ski lodge in Oregon. It was pretty sweet! Very invigorating.
It's a little hard to wrap your head around running out into the snow to roll around in when your 3/4 naked. But it is quite a sensation when you go back into the heat afterwards.
DeleteI think my foreign dog probably deserves a post of her own. Although, technicially, she's not foriegn. She just had to learn English when we got her.
I did the sauna thing once with a Finnish friend of mine who grew up with them. It was a great experience, but yes, the heat is INTENSE! He swears that you come out much cleaner than in a tub or shower because all your pores open up to release the grime. Probably true.
DeleteWe hot tub au naturale since the kids are long since grown and gone, though we probably have done irreversible psychological damage the furkids and any neighbors with binoculars as we walk across the deck to and from the tub. We don't invite friends for tubbing, cuz I hate swimsuits and I'm with you about sitting there naked with neighbors while visiting away, that would require more alcohol that would be wise, or a "back to the 60's" party theme - but we all looked a hell of a lot better back then, as much as I can remember, it's a bit hazy! :-)
If the neighbors need binoculars to get a look, then you're probably far enough from anyone to have it matter anyways. Our little tub is in a gazebo sort of thing only a step or two from the house so we're pretty secure. I'd have to think twice about taking an au naturale stroll across the yard if mine was any distance away. :)
DeleteThe nudity thing was hard for me to accept for a while when we moved to the Caribbean. Different cultures look at it in different ways. While they don't run around naked down there, they are not as discreet as we Americans are about our bodies.
ReplyDeleteThere were showers on the beach and people would strip naked to use them. RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. People would change into or out of swimsuits in the parking lot.
Our neighbors were painting their house when we first moved in and the girls were only wearing thongs with no tops on. It was just acceptable and took some getting used to.
There's nothing all that wrong about it but you're right. it's a culture thing. They're probably wondering what's wrong with us.
DeleteI would love to live in the Caribbean for a while. I'd even paint my fence in all my glory just to fit in.
I'm certain that being a German, your neighbor wouldn't mind having a couple of brewskis to share in the sauna. I had to chuckle over the notion that smacking yourself with sapling branches looked unappealing to you but not the whole rolling around in the snow. :P
ReplyDelete-Barb the French Bean
you have to draw the line someplace. :)
DeleteBack in the day, I used a sauna at the gym sometimes. That was years ago and I will not do it again. It is too much like when my apartment is 120 in the summer and I can't get a breath of air unless I sick my head in the freezer. No thank you.
ReplyDeleteBut the experience is much more satisfying if you get to pay for it, isn't it? :)
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