Day 12: Authentic Finnish Experiences

Monday was a far less eventful day than I had anticipated. A few hours earlier, I thought I was going to be taking a round trip to Helsinki to replace my passport. But having found it just after breakfast (as discussed in the Day 12 spoiler from yesterday’s entry), my day improved dramatically.

After Mary Beth and her team went to the conference, I had the morning to myself. I went for a run along the Pielisjoki River (finding a more scenic route this time), then did a little souvenir shopping. After Mary Beth got back, we tried to have another American burger from Big D, the BBQ master from Tallahassee. But he was just packing up his equipment after selling out, and told us he wouldn’t be back the next day because of the weather. Disappointed, we bid him farewell.

Instead we decided to have an authentic Finnish experience—a sauna.

In Finnish, it’s pronounced sah-ooh-nah, but it really isn’t any different than a sauna in a gym. It’s just a wooden room with heated rocks to create a dry heat. But the sauna is a big part of Finnish culture, and one of the prime attractions our hotel advertised was its sauna.

So we went in our bathing suits down to the sauna to experience it for ourselves. As we entered the sauna, Mary Beth was still convinced that the saunas weren’t segregated and we could go in together. I suspected otherwise, for reasons which would become disturbingly clear very shortly.

In fact, the saunas were gender-specific, so we went our separate ways. I found my way into the gentlemen’s sauna and entered. When I arrived, I was greeted by a very Finnish, very naked gentleman who was in the midst of his sauna experience.

Now, look, I get it. What’s the big deal, right? It’s culturally acceptable, and I’m just being an uptight American clinging to outmoded social norms and latent homophobia. I knew those things were almost certainly true as I entered.

But it didn’t matter. I took a seat on the opposite end of the sauna, wrapped the towel around my shoulders, and closed my eyes hoping to look like I was just really enjoying the experience.

Shortly after I entered, two French patrons arrived and joined us (both with bathing suits on, thankfully). Out of curiosity, I did look over, noticing one of the French patrons pointing at me and whispering to the other that “I think he’s meditating.”

OK, sure, that works for me.

I will say, though, that the sauna did feel really good. After about 15 minutes I had worked up a really good sweat and felt amazingly relaxed. Still uptight, certainly, but amazingly relaxed. I met Mary Beth outside, who shared a similar experience with a mother and her daughter in the ladies’ sauna. But we both felt sufficiently floaty after the sauna experience that a nap seemed in order.

After the nap, we met up with Aaron for dinner. We went to Aada, a ravintola (restaurant) attached to a nearby hotel. After having Tex-Mex, bad Italian chain restaurant pasta, and Greek, I thought it might be time to try something a little more locally authentic. So I tried the reindeer pasta. I figure if you’re going with a more “exotic” meat for a meal, pasta is the safest way to have it.

And, I have to admit, it was really good. Salty, pepper-y, and I’m certain cured quite a bit, the reindeer pasta was one of the best meals I have had in Finland. Cap the evening off with a blackcurrant sorbet, and I felt very satisfied.

We went back to the room and I killed a little time (well, OK, quite a bit of time) until the kickoff of the USA v Ghana game, the first for the Americans in the World Cup. The game kicked off at 1:00 a.m. local time, which reminded me of when I got up at ungodly hours to watch the USMNT in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea.

My choices were to watch the game on TV with the commentary in Finnish, attempt to stream the video on a less than stellar internet connection, or try to stream the radio commentary and watch the video a la Kent Pavelka on KFAB during televised Husker games.

I went for the radio route, although when I learned that Tommy Smythe was the color commentator I regretted my decision. Still, the American’s didn’t disappoint, winning 2-1 over a team that had knocked the USMNT out of the last two World Cups with a late winner from John Brooks. I had done a decent job not making a racket during the game, but when Brooks’ header went in there was no way I wasn’t waking Mary Beth up with my celebrations. At least (to the best of my knowledge) I didn’t wake everyone else on the floor up.

Remarkably, Mary Beth is used to this kind of nonsense from me, and went right back to sleep. I ended up being awake until after 4:00 a.m., which could make life on Tuesday a little more challenging.