Naked in the snow!

Leena invited me to stay at her new house for a night. John picked me from the airport and we drove to a place further up from Porvoo. It was snowing, the wind was strong and it was cold. Porvoo was about 45min drive from Helsinki city centre, and colder. It was about 0degC today.

Their house was a lovely wooden lodge by the lake, still sort of under renovation-construction, but habitable. The place was warm and cosy, built with lots of wooden logs in a traditional Finnish way. There was a huge ceiling to floor glass window that offered a picturesque view of the lake. It was frozen now and everything outside was white. In summer, the view would be equally spectacular, deep blue waters with a floating wooden jetty and rowing boat. They had a little sauna house as well next to the main house. Most Finnish houses had their own sauna. Leena kept it traditional - ie. for easy access between sauna and the outdoors/ lake. After a short stroll in the old town of Porvoo, we headed back for a sauna experience.

The sauna room was heated up, so Leena and I wrapped ourselves in sheets and sat down. Males and females usually had separate sauna rooms so that Finns could enjoy their saunas in the traditional way - naked. When we felt hot enough, we went outdoors to sit by the bench. Just sitting quietly, enjoying the silence. Very tranquil and calm, the white and the silence. Then we went inside the sauna again. We did that a few times. Then Leena suggested we rolled in the snow. Gasp! In the nude! The lodge was relatively far and shielded from neighbouring houses. So I gamely followed her. We did not really roll, because the snow was rather hard. But we smeared snow over ourselves, it was surprisingly not too cold. When our feet started to feel numb, we ran back into the warmth of the sauna room. :) The next time, I should try going from sauna and jumping straight into icy cold frozen lake, then dashing back to sauna. *shivers*

We had a lovely dinner of creamy fresh mushroom soup, potatot & cheese salad and grilled salmon. That was followed by a mixture of traditional Finn desserts - something called Mammi - a choc-malt like mousse with vanilla sauce, and another thing called Pashpa (I think). That tasted yoghurty. Plus we had a very rich chocolate cake, really awesome. I could not stop dipping the cake into vanilla sauce. Oooh....