Great! I get to say this:

If the sauna, booze or tar won’t cure it, the disease is deadly.

It all depends on the kind of sauna you have or the building has. I have visited new apartments with a tiny sauna cramped into its tiny bathroom. Good luck trying to have a proper sauna experience there. I’ve also been to wonderfully redone, spacious and well-lit common saunas which are a far cry from some of those sad old broomclosets.

Besides, those are all electric saunas. For me, the only two real saunas are the one at my family’s summer cottage by the Gulf of Finland and at my BF’s parents house in Pori.

What’s the problem with visiting your in-laws’ sauna? A real sauna experience involves going with your friends and family and making a night of it, not sitting there all alone experimenting how much your farts echo in the shower room.

I wonder, whether they still have any of those public saunas in Kallio. For many old-school helsinkians those were the only real saunas. In my time there was at least Arlan Sauna. My best sauna experiences are from the army. After couple of weeks living in the forest it was like heaven.

What’s the problem with visiting your in-laws’ sauna?

It’s tough to really relax at the in-laws.

But don’t go to sauna if you have fever…
Could be fatal. I guess..
I’m not a doctor! How should I know?!?

Yeah, especially when you are trying to have sex quietly in the shower room and you are sharing it with the in-laws, and then your mother-in-law tells you that your method is totally wrong and…

“It’s tough to really relax at the in-laws.”

Sorry, Phil, but if you can’t be comfortable getting naked and sharing a Sauna with three generations of your own family – or at the very least, that of your spouse, you haven’t really comprehended the essence of Finnishness!

OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but I have heard from fairly reliable sources of a Finnish exchange student spending a year at an American high school, who was nearly deported when she gave the mandatory “my life back home” presentation to her class, involving a slide show, which included a picture of “my grandparents, my parents, and my brothers and sisters in the sauna on a Saturday evening”. Surely, only a very dirty mind could see that as anything but good, clean family fun!?

I wonder, whether they still have any of those public saunas in Kallio.

Here is a list of public saunas in Helsinki. Dunno if it’s comprehensive.

It’s tough to really relax at the in-laws.

Oh please. My parents-in-law are a fairly traditional couple but my BF and I have no problems “relaxing” or relaxing in the sauna and/or shower room. Often both. Then again, we go to the sauna as couples, not everyone at once.

Oh, you’ve lived in Otaniemi? Cool, could’ve visited you if I was here already that time Nothing like a weird guy at your door mumbling some obscure things about your blog.

Fever: “it attempts to raise core body temperature to levels that will speed up the actions of the immune system, and may also directly denature, debilitate, or kill the pathogen.”

So basicly you had a super fever, without the drawbacks. At least thats my guess.

I have a sauna, and I live in Maryland…..

But I had to buy a Swedish heating unit (Wood burning) over the alternative one from Canada. I did use Finish web sites for the great sauna building help you all give.

Snow and rain tonight, so looks like a good day for a Sauna tomorrow.

The thing is, I find it extremely difficult to relax around my in-laws in a normal situation. But sauna is so much easier. With clothes on, they’re just a weird cardiologist and an even weirder author.

I totally agree that taking a sauna is great for colds. A great accompaniment is an Indian invention called a Neti Pot, which looks like a little tea pot with a long, thin spout. It is filled with warm, salty water, which is then poured into one nostril. The fluid comes out the other nostril. It may sound odd or uncomfortable, but it is very soothing and cleansing, and it works very well. Alternatively, one could use a make-shift container (but make sure to sterilize it with boiling water).

Anyhow, I prefer a sauna and a neti (and lots of garlic) to crack-like cold medication if I’m able any day.

And, yeah, a sauna in my apartment would be realllly nice.

Glad you feel better.

Sorry, Phil, but if you can’t be comfortable getting naked and sharing a Sauna with three generations of your own family

I can get comfortable, but it’s just not my preferred method of relaxation.

Oh, you’ve lived in Otaniemi?

Yup, I was on Servin-maijan tie 6 – If you ever heard about the foreign guy who walked through the woods without ever leashing up his dog, that was me.

I have a sauna, and I live in Maryland…..

Where in MD do u live?

When you see what Americans complain about now….

Then even complained about this (http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/action/withoutatrace/ content.htm ) and CBS got a 3 and a half million dollar fine for their troubles.

Watch a clip of the offending content>/i> MOAR MOAR MOAR

Back to the sauna, its also like a big steam-breather, so the moist air gets your sinuses working. I don’t have a sauna in the flat so I have vicks vaporub jars to put the stuff into hot water and have a towel over my head looking like a dork.

Watch a clip of the offending content
Now why did I never go to that sort of parties when I was a teenager?

Not sauna, but alot of pot smokes out your sickness… at least for awhile

Happy St.Patrick’s Day!

“Watch a clip of the offending content” LOL. Here’s a movie
for you:

http://www.rarelicenseddvds.com/hymypoika-young-gods-jenni-banerjee-widescreen-2003-p-112.html

Does MD stand for Medical Doctor? Does Phil have so much crabs he’s called governor of Maryland, and is therefore unable to relax in a sauna?

I have a sauna, and I live in Maryland…..

way south Maryland on the water.

Lets just say some of my neighbors still use outside toilets…..

and another neighbor (who has never left the county) claims there are “Presbyterians living up North, so beware when you go there”.

Hymypoika?

They should see some French “art movies”, you see more buff…

Oh, for goodness sake. What kind of pervert buys “Levottomat” or “Hymypoika” just to see some nudity? These movies have even a plot and maybe a couple of depth dimensions. They have these real porn movies today, you know.

Well, OK, If glimpse of Laura Malmivaara or Jenni Banerjee is your thing. If naked left-wingers are your turn-on, check out some finnish 70′s movie or Kalle Holmberg’s Rauta-aika.

Hey, thanks for the sauna-list, Franklin. Next time I’m in nostalgic mood and in Helsinki, I’ll check my buddies at HKL and freeride to Harjutori or Hämeentie.

General question on Sauna

I take 2 beers and a water bottle… Is that what most folks take to a sauna?

I think two beers is quite common choice. Many people I know skip the water, but that is not wise, as the beer makes the dehydration just worse. The salt balance is generally taken care by a couple of sausages you prepare on the stove and flush down with the beer.

Now that is, if you really want to enjoy the sauna. It is a different story, if one’s highly competitive buddies come over and it is absolutely necessary to test, who takes most löyly, Koskenkorva and swims further with the stove on the back (I heard about one drowning incidence few years ago…) and nobody is supposed to feel good.

sausages in the sauna would be nice. Just need to figure out the cooking part.

Oh that´s easy. Just wrap the sausages well into an aluminum foil, and place this package onto the hot stones on the sauna stove while you´re in the sauna. You just have to keep an eye on them, and make sure you don´t keep them there too long and burn them, and the foil on the stones on the stove, or your hands cause the foil heats up quite a lot as well. Don´t really know about the safety of this on electric stoves, especially if there are no stones there or if they´re quite little, but works out well on an old traditional stove that is heated with wood, especially when you´re at the cabin, believe me

Foil would work, but is there enought heat above the stones.

Mine is wood fired, with a stove pipe comming up in the middle of the stones. The pipe is a hot spot, so i guess i can put the sausages there.

It may require some experimentation first to find a suitable spot for the sauseges. I would say, that if your sauna is at nominal 80 degrees Celsius and the stones sizzle, when you pour water on them, there is also enough heat for the sauseges to be ready within the time you finish the bath. The pipe junction may sometimes become so hot, that you burn the sausage on the surface in few minutes but it is still raw inside.

I have done this also with an electric stove, which had stones, but then it is good to have an aluminium foil bag to keep the grease inside. It doesn’t smell nice, if it drips on the red-hot heating resistors and is burnt there.

Well you don´t necessarily need a bag if you wrap the sausages into the foil well. There´s usually not that much grease from the sausages. Though it´s better to be too safe.

Winter, I think that when ever the sauna is hot enough for you to go in, that the stones are always hot enough, and the stones are quite a bit hotter than the air above them cause they store a lot of the heat into them.

Snow here in Maryland today.

I will buy some sausages and try out the cooking part of the sauna.

WOW a dual use device, you get the bad cold stuff out of your system and get to drink/eat as well.

Life does not get any better?

So winter, have you tried it yet? Let us know how it worked out for you