Let me tell you about my visit to this Finnish sauna. But actually, let me explain to you a little…read morebit about the German sauna rituals first: in Germany men and women flock to "sauna landscapes", where they can - co-edly - relax in a succession of Roman steam bath, rainbow-light-sauna (at 60 degrees), Finnish sauna (at 90 degrees) and multiple other saunas. At the top of the hour, a staff of the establishment comes into the sauna, dressed in a colourful towel, and dowses the hot stones with water that is infused with either eucalyptus, honey-ginger, or any other scent-of-the-month oil. The hot steam, that results from this action, is then distributed via propelling the towel above the clerks head...and is greeted by a communal groan of the crowd.
Then we have plenty of rules that one ought to obey by in our saunas: there's rules about how long you should be staying in the sauna and also about how you should be relaxing afterwards. There's even guidelines on how to best cool down after visiting a sauna: a slight drizzle of cold water, "evaporating" in the brisk air outside, emptying a bucket of cold water over your head or rolling in the snow. Then there's the rule for quietness. In fact, silence is golden and in order to achieve the utmost relaxation, it is frequently enforced by evil looks, should someone violate this rule. Even when the clerk is distributing the super-hot air throughout the sauna, we Germans only give off suppressed groans...after all, it's all about the relaxing spa-experience.
You will now understand my surprise when, during my visit at Arla sauna, the first two sounds that I heard were that of opening beer cans and loud banter by a group of rough-looking men. I found this cultural difference fascinating and it became even more intriguing when I witnessed the usually rather shy Finns, squeezing themselves buttock-to-buttock on the top row of the sauna. The interior of the sauna - and by the way there's only one sauna, not a plethora of different temperature saunas - is also very different to anything I've encountered in Germany before: it's gritty, there's ill-fitted tiles on the wall and the plaster is peeling off the ceiling.
Another interesting fact I witnessed is that Finnish men (and women) seem to go to the sauna only in hordes and a single visitor - like myself - seems to be rather the odd ball out. In fact, when I arrived at Arla, a group of men was just departing (beer cans in their hands) but soon afterwards the staircase was again filling up with laughter by another group of young men - I was guessing that this was an entire hockey team that had just finished their match? As you can imagine, the symphony of opening-beer-cans continued...
All in all, this was a fun experience and I actually really enjoyed the down-to-earthness of it all. Sauna, for the Finns, seems to be less of a rule-bound-health-conscious-way-of-life, but more of a means to socialise and have fun. In fact, we Germans could actually use a bit of this less-uptight attitude and maybe just let go...
