It was -18 in Helsinki when I left and I’m now heading up north on a 4 hour train to Jyvaskyla. The train ride was relaxing, nice to see Finland’s countryside. It’s a nippy -26 when I arrive in Jyvaskyla but this time I have my long underwear on, a must have for any Fin. I ended up staying at Ari’s place, Riikka’a brother. This kid’s only 21 and he owns his own house! We immediately drop the bags off and get a bite to eat.
We went to some pub and I was starving. I complained before about a 3oz. coffee costing 1.80 eu well there was no complaining this time when I spent 16.50eu on dinner which included Elk and Reindeer sausage. Rudolph is quite tasty. I don’t know if it was worth what I paid for it but it was very good. After that myself, Derek, Richard, Black and Chris went for drinks at the Pub Katse.
Next day (Thursday) Richard had to e-mail his homework to his teacher back in Vancouver so we went to downtown Jyvaskyla and just buggered around there for the day. Tam, Teresa and I went to Hemingway’s pub to play scrabble and drink some Karhu III beer and Mintu while Rich, Derek and Riikka went to the rehearsal.
That night maybe 30 or so people all went up to some cabins. There was a fire pit for cooking, 2 large hot tubs which were heated by fire, and a smoke sauna. The outdoor festivities in this freezing cold were only supposed to last a couple hours but most of spent somewhere around 5-6 hours it the hot tubs drinking and having a great time. It was so dry and cold outside that you could finish a can of beer and stick it to your toque. It wasn’t a drinking contest or anything like that, not at all. Everybody was just having a great time.
Every couple minutes you’d see someone jump out of the hot tub and into the -25 degree snow, roll around and jump back in. When you got back in it was like the complete opposite to being freezing cold, obviously, but instead of feeling cold knifes piercing your skin it felt like hot knives. Either way it sounds painful but trust me, the hot needle feeling on your fingertips after rolling in the snow is one of the best feelings. There were even little kids with their parents and the best part was that all the kids were doing it too. The parents all let the kids have as much fun as everyone else was having. I just remember thinking that if I wasn’t allowed to do what these kids where doing when I was their age I would have been pretty choked about it.
Six hours in and out of a hot tub, never thought I’d do that. Even Panu thought it was weird to see everyone in for so long. Fins typically drop in and out of the sauna over a couple hours but never a hot tub. Maybe it had to do with all the Canadians in the mix…who knows, all I know is I had a great time and I can’t wait to see the pictures to refresh my memory.
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