Esto Trip Part 2 - The Sauna

I left Tallinn on Thursday, March 24th for Saaremaa. Saaremaa is a large island off of the west coast of mainland Estonia. Kuressaare is the main city and my destination. I was going to take the bus which would have taken 4 hours including a 1/2 hour ferry ride for about $20 CDN but at the last minute I heard that flying would only cost me $49 CDN return and the flight was just over 1/2 hour. Needless to say I flew. What a price!

The first night in Kuressaare I had a "real" sauna. Now I am going to tell you what a "real" sauna is. Sauna's originally came form either Estonia or Finland. The Finns and Estonians are very closely related. Sauna's were invented as bath houses. They usually are made up of two rooms. The sauna itself and the outer room. The outer rooms can be quite elaborate with seating and bar fridges etc. or very simple. The outer room is used for changing and relaxing. There is a stove, often a wood stove, that heats the sauna and rocks. The opening to feed the fire is in the outer room but most of the stove is in the sauna. Rocks on top of the stove become very hot. Often there is a small boiler attached to the wood stove to heat water for washing. There are also basins, wooden buckets and vihks in the sauna as well as a barrel of cool water. A vihk is a small bunch of young birch branches tied and dried with their leaves still on.

The sauna was and is also a social event. Often family's sauna together or you sauna with your friends. It is not uncommon to be invited over for a sauna. It is a social even for two main reasons. It is a very relaxing thing to do and also it gives you time to talk when you can't do anything else.

When you enter the sauna you first of all pour water on the rocks to create steam. You continue to put water on the rocks if the sauna becomes cool. Then you find a spot to sit or lay. There are usually two shelves in the sauna to sit on. It is much warmer to sit on the upper shelf. It is nice to have a friend to sauna with because at this point you have time to converse and enjoy the steam. The steam makes you sweat and your skin should start to exfoliate. At this point it's a good idea to take the vihk, I described to you, and put it in a basin of cool water to wet it. Then, you need to slap it on the hot rocks. This softens it. Then you slap, or have your friend slap your body all over with it. This brings the blood to the surface of the skin and continues the exfoliating process. It does not hurt at all. It actually feels good like a massage. When you are finished with the vihk, you wash as normal using the basins etc. You don't have to worry about spilling water in the sauna as it is all wet anyway. You or your friend can pour water all over you to rinse your body of soap etc. and finish your bath.

It is common while you are still lying on the shelf to take a break and retreat to the outer room for a drink and to cool down a bit. This is so you don't dehydrate but it is also part of the social event. Once, when I was at my cousins in Finland with a friend, the three of us took a sauna. It was a very old stone sauna left over from Viking times and did not have an outer room. After we had sat in the heat for some time, my cousin invited us onto a cement patio that was built outside on the front of the sauna. It was a very nice summer evening. There were candles lit and she had cool drinks for us but I have to say it was weird sitting out there naked. All I could think of was what if someone would drive up the driveway about then. I guess I'm still a bit of a Canadian prude. We sat and chatted for a while and then went back and continued our sauna.

The sauna was one of the highlights of my trip. Where I had been staying in Tallinn did not have a shower. I kept washed, of course but I had to sponge bath in the "Wash" room (no toilet in there, just a sink). When I got in the sauna in Kuressaare, I was like a bird in a birdbath. Water was flying everywhere. It felt ooohhhhh so good!

The final thing I'll tell about taking a sauna is how you feel afterward. You feel so relaxed and so limp. This is not the time to go to work. This is the time to relax! It feels so very good.

Esto stories to continue...

CFBC - Good Time Oldies

As you all know I have my own programs Rendezvous and Sunny Side Up on our Campus Community and Multi- Cultural Radio station, CFMH. I really enjoy it. The reason I did it in the first place was to push myself out of my comfort zone. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd be doing this.

Last year, I had Greg Springall on as a special guest on Sunny Side Up to promote 2nd Stage's, "Our Town", which we were both involved with. At the time, Greg was a DJ at CFBC and K-100. Needless to say I was a bit nerved up to have a professional DJ as my special guest. But Greg not only made me feel comfortable, he complemented me, supported me and encouraged me. Not long ago Greg moved away and his job at the radio station was left vacant. He asked if I would be interested. I was so flattered. I couldn't believe he thought I was good enough on air to do his job. I decided if he believed I could do it, I had to believe it too and said yes to him. Greg went on to put a good word in for me at the station before he left. I took my resume in and waited. I got the job and started training last Saturday. This Saturday, I'll be on air in the evening. I can't believe that I've come so far. Like I said, I just wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. Never would I have imagined I'd love being a DJ or that I'd ever do it professionally.

Thank you to Greg for everything, Ted for allowing me to use his good CBC name as a reference, Jennifer for always making me feel like I'm the best, Jay for his enthusiasm, to Don and Rita for their unending support and to my fans for listening. I love you all!

Estonia Part 1 - Tallinn

As many of you know I recently took a trip to Estonia with my wonderful cousin Jana. The flight went well. We left Saint John, NB at 4:30 PM March 19th and we arrived in Estonia just past 4:30 PM on March 20th. There is a 6 hour time change so we were on the road for about 16 hours. The longest part of the trip was from Montreal to Frankfurt, 7 1/2 hours. We had several relatives meet us at the airport. They welcomed us with flowers. I love that custom!

Jana went to Saaremaa with her family and I stayed in Tallinn at my cousin Margus'. Margus and his family live in a well kept home. They had recently done some renovations and it was much more roomy than when I had been there before. Like many homes in Estonia, they had running water but still had no shower. Their water was heated by the kitchen wood stove. It amazed me how clean people there kept themselves and their homes without all the conveniences we have to work with. While I was away, I applied for my Estonian passport. That will give me duel citizenship which is my birthright. I don't know how it will benefit me but now that Estonia is part of the EU, you never know when it may come in handy. I should have it in hand by the end of the April. The last time I was in Estonia many things were hard to come by. The most remarkable thing that I remember is that they used abacuses in the stores to do their calculations. You should have seen their fingers go. It was truly amazing and fast. Now the stores all have computer cash registers and the stores are full with anything you want to buy. The stores are much more colourful as well with advertisements all over the place. The prices for things were very comparable to the prices here in Canada. However, the wages are much lower which makes the cost of living very high for the average Estonian. One day while everyone was at work, Kristo, my 15 year old cousin took me to town shopping. What a great kid! He made sure I got breakfast and then together we went into the city by bus. We shopped and shopped. He was so patient as I listened to lots of CDs. In Estonia you can preview any music before buying it. I bought him some Sony headphones for a thank you gift for being my guide. I had noticed him eyeing them earlier in the day. He fought me on getting them. He is so polite. He was also a lot of fun to go to town with considering the difference in our ages. We really hit it off. He carried everything I bought in his backpack and then we bussed it back home.
That evening after we got back from the city, they took me to the TV tower for supper. It is like the CN tower but not as tall. It is over 500 meters tall. The restaurant is at 370 meters. The meal was very good and fancy. I took a picture of it. :-)
Let me tell you what happened that night. I must have been dreaming and going to sleep walk. I've done that in the past. I pushed myself up on my arms and must have been going to get out of bed but the bed sheets were wrapped around my legs and woke me up. I remember thinking "What am I doing?" and so I went to let myself back down. Now, there was a desk butted up against the head of my bed. The bed was very narrow for a single bed, about 2 1/2 feet wide. As I let myself back down, I hit the corner of the desk with my eye and gave myself a black eye. I knew when it happened that it would be black. It was not real bad. I was able to cover it with makeup. How crazy is that?! One evening Pilvi, another cousin invited us out to see one of my younger cousins, Kadri, in a musical performance. She is a gymnast and competes in rhythmic gymnastics. She is also a dancer and in the performance she did interpretive dance to the songs with two other girls while the singers sung. It was wonderful!

It struck me that all the young girls in Estonia were strikingly beautiful. If you want to know more about that, just ask Jaybird.

Too be continued...