The Cooling Down

The cooling down became literally a cooling down. Being with 18 persons in one cottage in Lapland heading to an alcholic situation is not comparable with the four that stayed in Kristiiniekaupunki. I'm not sure yet whether it was the amounts of drugs (alcohol) or my own prepared food back in Helsinki that screwed up my stomach, but my stomach was complaining almost all the time at Sabby's place. Luckely there was much more to it than drinking alcohol. Detoxing from alcohol is step one of the cooling down and I must say that I'm quite well recovered after some medicines. Step two is obviously related to 'the sauna'.

The first day the sauna was a bit disappointing, It was cold, only 70 degrees, because the windows weren't good isolated. Sebastian bought some rubber strips which he attached to the windows. The day after the sauna reached a temperature of 110 degrees, good enough to get into the hole in the ice that Sebastian had prepared. It was a perfect cooling down.

During the day we did some activities on the ice. The lake was totally frozen and covered with snow. This gave, in combination with sunrise and sunset, a fabulous view that we enjoyed during fishing, ice-skating and our attempt to make an iglo. Although fresh snow had fallen, making an iglo was unfortunately impossible because the snow didn't stick together. We had already tried to make one in Lapland, but there we also had to deal with the same misfortune.

Making an iglo was one of the so called daily missions. Likewise was cutting down the tree, of which I'm really proud. However, the Finns don't seem to share our enthusiasm. Since our return from Lapland I've been proudly telling about this event to all the Finns I met. All rejected the idea and we immediately got compared to Germans, which had been all over the country in the news because they had cut down some trees. We did only one tree, although it was the biggest one.... the most valuable one......... the most important one for regrowth of the forrest........... Oops?! No, no 'oops' at all. I still remember the sound, as I will never forget the sound of water that touches the stones of the sauna oven.