saunas was nonexistent. Id seen them used in Seinfeld and Friends as set ups for naked
jokes, and Id certainly heard the rumors about how popular they were in other parts
of the world, but Id never partaken. But now, all thats changed. Dana here, and you're watching Wanted an Adventure
Living Abroad.
The sauna culture varies widely throughout
the world, with Europe in general being more comfortable baring all within those hot demarcated
zones of steamy nakedness, and America and Canada being, well, generally less comfortable. But even within Europe the sauna norms and
etiquette definitely do vary from country to country. In my mind, Finland is like the headquarters
of the saunas. In Finland there are public saunas, private home saunas, corporate saunas.
Theres even a sauna at the Parliament House.
So many saunas that according to Statistics
Finland, the average breaks down to 1 sauna per every household. Thats a heck of a
lot of saunas! But in Finland saunas aren't seen as luxury items, so much as they're necessities. According to VisitFinland.Com, saunas are
an integral part of the Finnish culture, and apparently, if they go too long without a
sauna, theyll start feeling incomplete. I know what thats like.
Too long without
baby back ribs and I start to lose my mind. What? Not the same thing? Saunas in Germany aren't really taken as seriously
as they are in Finland, nor are they as pervasive. In Germany, some people sauna and some people
dont. Ive gotten the sense that saunaing in Germany is kind of like mayonnaise--people
either love it or they hate it.
When I was in Finland, the sauna that I visited
was single-sex, but while doing my research for this video I learned that it actually
varies from not only sauna to sauna but also circumstance to circumstance. I found the
best explanation for this on the Wikipedia page, actually, where it explains that, well,
sometimes men and women go to the sauna together, but sometimes they don't. For a person brought
up in Finland, the rules are, apparently, instinctive but difficult to put into words.
The article goes on to explain that the age structure of the group as much as the relationships
of the people in it can lead to 3 different options for saunaing. First is that everyone
can just go to the sauna together, men and women.
The second is that the men and the
women could sauna separately. Or the third option is that each family unit could sauna
together but separate from the other families. But even though it's totally normal for Finnish
families to sauna naked together, it is common for teenagers at some point to stop going
to the sauna with their parents. In Germany, however, things are a lot more
straightforward.
Occasionally, at a gym or a swimming pool, there will be a single-sex
sauna within the separate locker rooms, but most of the time its all the masses all
together. In Germany there are also these stand alone
thermal water worlds as theyre best translated from German into English. And at these places
you have 2 sections: a bathing suit required section and a bathing suit verboten section.
The required section is kind of like an indoor water park. Here's where youll find the
kids, the families, and even some water slides! But dont get too comfy over there thinking
that you could just go into the bathing suit section to avoid the naked people because
theres only 1 dressing room for everyone, anyway.
One dressing room. For everyone. Men,
women, kids, 1 dressing room. And the only way to get out to either section is through
that 1 dressing room.
But at the saunas, naked and sweaty as everyone
is, it is certainly not a sexual environment. First of all, its usually so freaking hot
that you try not to touch your own skin let alone have someone else touching you. Its
so hot that you have to remove necklaces before going in or else they start to burn you halfway
through. Plus, thats just not the culture of the environment.
Theres a well-known
Finnish saying that says, you should behave in a sauna as you would in church. Let that
sink in for a moment. Okay. As far as my German saunscapades go--did you
see what I did there? Saunscapades--you liked that, didn't you? As I mentioned at the beginning of this video,
I have in fact become a partaker and even a lover of the German sauna.
But not a lover
of mayonnaise. Yuck, ew. During my first few sauna visits, though, I certainly experienced
my fair share of awkward encounters. Almost hard not to when youre trying to get used
to waltzing around a water park naked, right? For my very first time, Mr.
German Man and
I visited the bathing suit required side first, but then before going over to the other side,
I ran back into the changing room just to grab something from my locker. But on the
way outwait, really? You really think I'm just going to give away these intimate stories
that easily? Ha. Of course Id love nothing more than to
divulge my awkward naked sauna stories to the world, but not without a little incentive.
So heres my promise. This channel currently has a little more than 200 subscribers.
When
it hits 1000, Ill share all my sauna stories with you. So tweet, share, post, like, plus one or even
tell your friends in person, and part II of this video will be here soon. Links to everything that I talked about below.
Also let me know in the comments if youve ever been to a sauna, naked or otherwise,
and what you thought of it. Dont forget to subscribe and until next
time...Today Im going to try it in Finnish because I talked about Finland, so Finnish
people, Im really sorry if I say this wrong.
Until next time, nkemiin.
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