Gezellig X-MAS!!!!

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.

Lapland! (written on 18-12)

Lapland, Cottage, Alcohol, Sauna, Sleeping, Northern-Light, Travelling. These are the keywords of the past week. It all started with the final presentation on Thursday the 10th of December. Nothing spectacular happened and everyone passed it. Holiday!! The celebration of it that night wasn't so intense for me. Mainly because I was pretty tired of the days/evening/nights before the final review.

Friday evening we took the train to Rovaniemi. Although we were accompanied by enough alcohol, sleeping was my most important activity. After Rovaniemi we needed to take a bus heading North for another 150 km. A taxi had to be taken in Kittilä to reach our final destiny: a cottache with 2 sauna's, but without: electiricy, water and central heating. We arrived while the temperature was -4, by which we were pretty lucky. It took a while to heat up the wooden stoves, cause most of the chimpney's where stuck with snow. The next day it was around -25. Which is cold, but not too cold if you only walk from the house to the wood staple, sauna and back. That day we also chopped a tree of about 25 meters. Because we had a small and "not sharp" axe it took a while, but nothing is impossible. After a while it came down and you can imagine that for a Dutch guy chopping down a tree is quite a happening.

The third or the fourth day it was -35. Sauna gets a new dimension by these temperatures. The sauna cottage was about 40 meters walking from the main cottage. After being in sauna for about 10 minutes you can sit outside on a elevated terrace, or roll through the snow. Almost everything you touch at -35 degrees Celsius sticks to your body. Opening the door, walking (naked) outside and sitting (naked) on a bench becomes a total new experience, even after 4 months of sauna practice. But after a hot sauna it doesn't really matter anymore how cold it is, it is beautifull. A clear sky, a white ground, steam coming from your body, sitting on a bench to which your balls freeze while you're sipping your beer. What a wonderfull world!

From the wonderfull world we went back to Helsinki. We arrived back last friday and in the evening we had a goodbye toast. After a short sleep Javier and I went to Sebastians summer cottage in Kristinestad...... the cooling down!

Update!

It has been a while that I’ve wrote the last post. It has been pretty busy since then and I didn’t really feel like updating it. At this moment I’m working on the final presentation for our studio exercise. This presentation is going to be on Thursday, therefore we need to hand in the drawings by tomorrow. So this weekend hasn’t been a weekend at all. While the computer is rendering an image I have some time to update you. The update is going to be short. A few weeks ago I went together with 149 others on a skiing trip to Ruka, which is pretty far up north. Going on holiday with Finns the best way to explore their culture. However, no new habits were revealed, but the old ones definitely became confirmed. Fins like to drink, like we do. But like I’ve probably already said before: they drink to get drunk. It became really clear in the bus. Vodka is handed out for those who ordered and you’re not a real man unless you get drunk. Some girl was kind of surprised because we only had a few beers with us and no intention at all to get drunk. She proudly told us that she finished 7 vodka bottles (obviously not on her own) at her birthday party. Well…… we might do that as well, but rather in a way to explain how drunk we were, instead for showing of…. As far as I am accustomed to Dutch habits. And maybe I was talking to one of a kind.

After a 12 hours bus trip we arrived around 9 am and around noon we were standing on our snowboards. The first day I dislocated my fingertip and hit a tree, but nothing else happened. In the evening we went to the bar, but we were the only sober ones. Which is not as much fun as we thought it could be, don’t know the reason for that. On Saturday we firstly set of for a fondue dinner. It was a lame dinner, no excitement no gezelligheid. People are sitting quiet, finishing their food, behaving…….. maybe because they were not drunk…… although I’m not sure. In the evening we also finished some drinks and ended up drunk…….. yup, that was some fun.

Within a week we’re going to be on the arctic circle, so hopefully we’ll see the northern lights. We’ve plenty of time to look up to the dark sky, cause it is at least 22 hours night!