Week 11 - Personal

This week has been quite busy for me. I have been in placement for 3 days, and I have been exhausted after Norway. I have slept alot and I also had a Finnish exam on Tuesday, which I passed! Unfortunately on Friday, my laptop broke, and wouldn't turn back on so I feel like I cannot keep in contact with anyone. It is very expensive for me to use my mobile here, and I have to pay to use the computers in the Kauppatori (town centre) so I have been relying on friends and the computer labs in the University. This has been quite frustrating for me because usually the computer labs are closed when I get there and so I have to borrow a computer from a friend, but then I cannot use it for too long. On Saturday a few friends and I decided that we wanted to try and do the sauna and then the ice swimming afterwards, before all the ice melts. We went to a place called Uittamo, which is about 10 minutes from the centre of Turku. The sauna cost 4 Euros to use, and you could stay for as long as you wanted. My friends and I watched as people came from the sauna and ran to the water. There were a few holes cut out of the frozen sea, where people were jumping into. When I saw this I felt nervous, and I was unsure if I could do it or not. Anyway, we decided that we would try this, and so we went into the sauna for 20 minutes, which was a mixed sauna. When we felt that we couldn't stand the heat any longer, we ran to the water and immediately jumped into it. When I jumped into the water, my immediate reaction was to get back out again! The water was freezing and it completely shocked me. I got straight out of the water and went back to the sauna again. We repeated this about 5 or 6 times, and each time we did this we could stay in the water for longer. This was the first time I had ever done this and I would thoroughly recommend everyone to try this. There were people of all ages and sizes, and after this, my skin felt so smooth and I felt so refreshed! I think I will definitely be doing this again in the near future, and my only regret is that I didn't try it sooner!