Map created by Reddit user iBleeedorange.
The map above supposedly shows all the public saunas in Finland.
According to Statistics Finland, the total number of saunas was estimated to be over 2 million at the end of 2016 out of a population of just 5.5 million people.
Via Brilliant Maps. Open thread, don’t be an asshole. Thanks. Previous Thread.
I like saunas. A friend who lived in Connecticut (of course Connecticut) had a sauna in his family’s finished (of course it was finished) basement. Somehow his home was a frequent stop on college road trips. Somehow.
I could do with a sauna right about now. It’s frigid outside.
I’m at a sauna now, chilling after rounds of hot sauna and cold sea.
Public saunas have done wonders for my mental well-being. Chatting in the sauna is probably the least stressful way to do small talk with strangers in meatspace.
That ratio of public sauna to population… I think what it means is that the Finnish definition of ‘public’ is ‘no more than 3 people at once’. :D
Ice Swimmer, yeah, I can see that, and I think I’d really enjoy it, too. Everyone is very relaxed in sauna. There should be a tonne of public saunas in nDakota. There aren’t any though.
The last house I rented in Dah YooPee had a sauna in the basement. Made good use of it in the winter, especially after snow shoveling. Slept well afterwards. Cold symptoms seemed milder after being in the sauna early in the infection.
Last time I was in a sauna was during my studies at the university. It was very pleasant experience, one I would not mind being accustomed to.
However there is no sauna in my town I am afraid, unless I build one, and definitively there is no public sauna. The closest one that might be operational is 10 km away.
There’s still villages here that run the sauna by weekly schedule -- Fridays are men’s days, Saturdays for women (or something similar), alternating Wednesdays for whoever. For many people, it’s still the one place they can go and wash in hot water (in addition to spending time with other people).
I’ve never spent a lot of time in a public sauna, as most people seem to have a private one (out in the country), or, if they’re in the city and spending time in a sauna, it’s during a party or other social gathering, among known people. I think sharing a sauna with strangers, and just chilling in all that hot air, would be a neat experience.
Mr and I are going to have a spa day on Monday.
With lots of sauna.
Sauna, in Germany, is a quiet thing. If you try to chat you get kicked out.
___
Hey, I managed to eat dinner.
Giliell:
Good! I’m about to do that myself. Good for both of us.
Giliell @ 9
I’ve heard stories about German saunas and their strict rules, in public saunas.
The Finnish etiquette on speaking in sauna (in the actual hot room) is a bit more nuanced. You aren’t supposed to talk loudly or curse. In public saunas, you can try to initiate conversation with people who don’t look unwilling to talk and go on as long as they seem happy to chat with you (the concept of enthusiastic consent fits here like a glove). You can talk with your friends. You have the right to remain silent.
In some saunas, you’re supposed to ask before putting water on the hot stones in the kiuas to get steam (löyly) and in some places, it’s polite to ask when entering or exiting, if more löyly is needed.
I’ll grant that the German system seems much simpler.
because of a conversation in meatspace tonight
(non-Canadians, dinna fash yersels)
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbours_(1952_film)
.
here’s one yutb version
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K1q8f-I6YsI
,
A Trumpian cartoon:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/mar/21/steve-bell-on-the-facebook-crisis-and-donald-trump-cartoon
This speech. This child. She is everything.
On twitter: mobile.twitter.com/CBSNews/status/977595102217621504?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
On the tube of yous:
https://youtu.be/KiQaIaI9xmk
A whole weekend of shredding wood and still not done. I have a week off and from the look of things i will again not manage to do everything that needs to be done.
Some map geek on Reddit listed what seems to be thousands of public saunas in Finland? As another map geek, I’ll just sarcastically say, “seems legit”.
(Quite a many of those seem to be located right along the Russian border, including areas with practically no settlement/roads and no particular tourist appeal.)
I was walking towards the shore in Ullanlinna (a wealthy area) in Southern Helsinki today. I saw a guy doing Nordic walking (walking with poles). He was pulling a Mercedes-Benz winter tyre that was on its side. He had tied a rope around him and the rope was tied in the other end to the tyre (complete with a rim and the Merc logo). The guy was walking at a moderately quick pace.
Ice Swimmer
Well, from experience I’d say the most important ones are:
1. Make sure if it’s naked or textile. Yes, you’ll get kicked out for not taking off your swimming trunks.
2. Be quiet.
3. The pouring of water is the job of the sauna master who will usually pick some nice smell.
Outside of those sessions the rules are more relaxed.
Giliell @ 18
I think number 3 would the one that would actually cause most cultural conflicts with Finns, at least if the sauna master does throw enough löyly*. Scents aren’t much used here, though it’s OK if the sauna smells like wood smoke a bit as long as no smoke is coming in.
__
* = A Finn’s stereotypical thought: “Why don’t these Besserwissers let us, who know this sauna thing, show how it’s done.” Who’s the bigger Besserwisser…
Me @ 19
if the sauna master doesn’t throw enough löyly
I managed to put on a pound, not that it will avert another lecture, as that pound gained puts me at 94 lbs. (42.6 kg).
Caine @ 21
It’s a start in the right direction at least. Still, yeah, not fun to get lectured about eating habits whatever they may be.
Thanks, Ice Swimmer. No, the lectures aren’t fun, but my oncologist is seriously worried, and so am I, truth be told. It’s not so much about my eating habits, it’s just not putting any weight on. If I wanted to eat 10 fudge sundaes in a row, that would be fine. And I am eating, it’s just not sticking. It’s like what Marcus said, about falling off the calorie cliff -- too far, and there’s no coming back.
I eat the most on chemo days, which of course, is utterly contrary to everyone’s experience, but chemo makes me absolutely ravenous. I eat and eat and eat and eat, and I get one effing pound to show for it. I’ve always dropped weight too easily, which has now become a major problem. If I can’t get my weight up, I’ll end up in hospital again, and I do not want that. Really don’t want that. It doesn’t help that I’ve really lost most of my taste for sweet stuff, which is the easiest way to put weight on.
Oh well, I’ll deal. Doesn’t help to whinge about it, but I thank you for being nice enough to lend an ear. :)
Caine #21
nuts and berries
cheese
avocados
.
nice to eat
buttloads of calories for the weight-gain.
.
and benchpress jayne
one rep, three times per day, drool optional
sorry
my #24 crossed Caine’s #23
…probably doesn’t really matter much
@Caine, I know how you feel. I have been underweight all my life and it is not fun. Partly because many people who are combatting overweight think this is a marvelous thing to be, and many others think that it is easy to solve because gaining weight is just, well, easy, don’t you know? Just eat more, exercise!
Well, no, it is not easy. I endured years of bullying by schoolmates and by gym teachers so when I got the opportunity I pumped iron in the gym like there were no tomorrow and ate all the right stuff in right ammounts, virtually everything short of steroids. Nothing. I gained about one-tenth of the muscle mass others have gained. I have read up on how to lose weight and have done everything opposite -- eating big portions, before going to bed, a lot of fat and sugar. Nothing. I did not gain an ounce of fat, ever.
I am in my forties now and I slowly gained about 4 kilos (9 pounds) over the last few years in muscle mass. And I lose some whenever I fall ill or, during wintere when I cannot work in the garden. In poor light and from favorable angle I could probably still pass for an eighteen years old who just grew too fast too long and too thin. My brother is slightly better off, probably because he was not seriously ill as a child.
I still have to listen to jokes now and then how I should eat something -- or jokes how I always eat somethnig whenever they come into my office. Because I do, in fact, eat completely adequate ammounts of food, only I eat small portions throughout the day.
And I do not even want to get started about all the pushy advertising about weight loss that is everywhere…
Well, if only I could transport some pounds to all your ribs, we’d all be happy.
Once this terror at work is over, I’ll go beck to swimming, because I’ve decided that being healthy is better than being thin.
Well, diets don’t work either, so that’s no wonder…
Spring is officialy here, hooray! I just saw first robin and first wagtail. Unfortunately they scampered before I got to make any pictures. They are strict insectivores, so they cannot be lured in by feeder.
Congrats on the arrival of the spring, Charly! Here it’s sunny but frosty and the wind comes from north.
[Waves.] [Off to work he goes.]
Charly:
Yep, all that. I can barely bring it up, because people who want to lose weight automatically brush you off, and completely dismiss that it’s about health, and that being so damn thin is not ideal when it comes to health. I’ve had so many people over the years give me shit if I bring it up, it conditions you to just not say anything, and worry in silence.
My visit last week, my oncologist pinched a bit of my abdomen, and said “that’s your abdomen wall, right there!” That’s why I got the comment about a knife being dropped would go straight into my intestines. Sounds like you’re the same, or close to anyway. Right now, gaining 5 pounds seems like an impossible dream, and I need to gain 16 to put me back into the “okay, you aren’t going to die” range.
Yeah, that’s going on here, too. I always eat before going to bed, and it’s not helping much. Well, nothing for it, is there? Just have to keep eating and hope.
Charly
Interesting. Here the robin isn’t migratory and yes, likes the feeder.
But I noticed that the birds are getting picky. Yesterday I saw a nuthatch fly into the feeder, realise it’s only oats left and fly out of it again, giving me a dirty look.
Caine
I’m not going to give you shit, you know that. I got a sister who was once so dangerously thin that her body started to metabolize itself, so I know about the dangers.
I’m not sure if I’m wording this well, but I think the difference (and why many fat people often don’t react with the necessary compassion and kindness) is the institutionalised discrimination part of being fat and thin.
Both can be bad for your health, both will make you encounter assholes, but one comes with added social stigma and consequences that are completely unrelated to your actual body. Like I couldn’t get tenure in Germany because I’m considered “too much of a health risk” for no other reason than being fat.
Society’s view that “thin = virtuous” of course also kills girls and young women because they will be encouraged in a lot of unhealthy things and praised even when they’re already dangerously thin.
It is snowing.
Caine I’d add anything with lots of mayonnaise. Personally I am partial to plain boiled potatoes with mayonnaise and a crumbly tart cheese like Lancashire. Though cheese and crackers is pretty good too for weight gain. Oh and butter drenched crumpets or hot cross buns when it’s still chilly. Would it be helpful to post recipes for fattening savoury food that you may not have tried? I am not sure that in your position I would want to be trying new things, but I’m obviously not you and if it would help I’d be more than happy to offer some things that might tickle your taste buds, but that wouldn’t take a lot of effort.
I wanted to write something around weight and culture, but Jake is barking and interrupting my train of thought. I have a brother who has had asthma since he was a child who has aways struggled to maintain his weight, unlike the rest of the family, so I do know how unhealthy it can be, quite apart from the danger to, especially, girls from the pressure to be thin. Poor bro has now developed coeliac disease (in his early sixties) so now can’t even eat all the cake, biscuits (cookies) and bread he used to use to help keep his weight up.
Poor Nüsschen (or one of its mates) is dead.
I just found it run over by a car in front of our house, thankfully before the kids did.
I dug it a grave in the garden.
At least it looked like the car caught it square in the head so it died immediately.
Feels like I lost a small friend.
Giliell:
Oh no! Such sadness, especially as you feel like you really get to know them, all their little quirks and personalities. I’m glad the kids didn’t see, sorry you did.
Jazzlet:
I’ve been doing mayo! Been eating monster sized tunafish sandwiches lately, with a ton of mayo.
Oh fuck yes. Thin is seriously overrated, and it’s more often than not unhealthy. I am seriously sporting the ‘skeleton with skin’ look, and it’s not nice, and at least to me, it’s obviously not healthy, but every day there are girls starving themselves to look like this. It’s a fucking travesty. Much better to be a healthy weight, with the emphasis on healthy.
The problem is that an awfull lot of people look for universal solutions for problems. Everybody is different and everybody needs individual approach to their health problems. What works for one cannot work for someone else etc.
One of my schoolmates in highschool was an asshole towards me about this all the time. Always belittling me because I could not be as muscular as he was. He was very beautiful, like an Adonis, with curly hair, muscular but not too much and athletic. And he thought that fitness and health are purely determined by how well and how much one exercises. So it was my fault that I cannot get 40 cm circumference on my biceps like he does, and that I cannot be as good at basketball as he is etc. etc.
The truth is that an awful lot about us is decided by the roll of dice at Dunmanifestin and we can do near nothing about it.
Some news items of possible interest to folks here :
***
Grim if interesting reading :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-03-27/corruption-population-impact-biodiversity-loss/9586556
***
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/3-billboards/9593154
Inspired by ‘3 Billboards’, NY woman buys her own to call out rapist WARNING : Sexual assault references.
***
Hopefully interesting news on Indigenous Australian languages :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-28/indigenous-language-comes-from-a-single-root-tongue/9594414
Oh & its less than a month now till World Tapir Day comes round again -- April 27th.
Testing comment to chekc whether e-mail notifications work or not.
Charly, if you’re testing for wordpress notifications, they aren’t functional right now. This happens now and then, and after a considerable absence, will start working again. If it’s FTB that’s broken, don’t hold your breath for a fix. I’ve been screaming my head off about all the fuck ups and malfunctions, but as usual, it goes nowhere.
A HUGE storm has blown in. Wowsa, it’s almost white out conditions. My fault, I should have known better than fill the feeding stations.
Hello?
Anybody still here or are you all busy like me?
1. The good news: Nüsschen is still alive. Saw it today with another, smaller squirrel.
2. The bad news. There’s still a dead squirrel buried in my garden. Poor thing.
3. Hawfinch invasion. I spotted at least 8 of them today.
4. We ordered “Easter gifts*”: Mr got new shoes, I got a new jigsaw.
5. I finally got windowsills downstairs
6. Dinner suggestion: oger bogeys
Also known as bears garlic Spätzle. blend bears garlic (or herb of choice) with olive oil. Make a batter: 1 egg per 100g flour, more salt than you think reasonable, milk to make a thick batter. use a sieve or anything with big holes and always pour a small quanitity through the sieve into boiling water. Themove after two minutes or so, repaeat. put cheese between the different layers.
*Stuff we needed anyway.
I was busy shredding, cutting and chopping wood. Yesterday all I could do was to lift my hands to waist level.
Also windows 10 on my parent’s PC has decided to go on strike and it took multiple attempts over two days to install the last updates and I am still not finished.
I had a week off of work to do some stuff and I was thwarted by fate at every turn, so not one half is finished of what should be.
I forced myself to ride the bicycle for 50km in the most beautiful 1st April conditions you could imagine, 27 degrees maximum, light winds and no hills on the route. The sore throat part of the week long cold has abated. I hope to sleep well tonight.
Hello hello!
Wasn’t really busy, but visited a friend of mine yesterday and we went to a sauna (I also went to sauna on Friday, I don’t usually go every day, just three times a week). After getting home, felt a bit “short of words”. Seems there’s a limit how much I can socialize in a day.
If I had been able to buy polyurethane lacquer on Thursday, I would have mixed it with linseed oil and applied it to some of my furniture, today.
I did manage to do my laundry today. Clean trousers, yay.
Here, buried under piles of Aged Mum’s paperwork. We’re currently going up there once a week so she can sign another wodge, hoping to finish before the counseling certificate expires.
I’m not getting notifications either. Caine, I thought it was something I’d done, so thank you for clarifying.
Last week I was visiting relatives on the other side of the Lake (Michigan). Then the usual end of the month business when I returned. Just getting caught up.
Today I need to take a hard look at the basement, and what areas I need to clear out for the installation of a new furnace with AC. Should be interesting. The 98 year old house originally had a coal fired furnace, and duct work and vents/registers reflects that. The present furnace dates back to before the Redhead and I bought the place, which was 30 years ago. It would probably be a good idea to find someone who specializes in old houses for one quote.
I just tried for the first time in my life welding (MMA). Not the easiest thing to do and I wonder whether I will ever get the knack of it. But for temporarily connecting two pieces of steel or for connecting them where it does not show, like welding a tang extension on a knife it should suffice. I think. I hope.
The snowstorm is here now (Easter Monday, 2 pm). The web pages of Finnish Meteorological Institute are down due to excessive load. Snowfall isn’t really out of normal in early April here (the boundaries of “normal” are quite loose).
Charly @ 49
I respect people who can weld, as I’ve found that it’s hard to see anything through the filter glass of the welding helmet, also you can do a lot of things with metal if you can weld. I haven’t really tried it, just soldering with an iron and brazing with a torch. Also, my old home town is home to a welding equipment manufacturer.
A reasonable quality auto darkening welding helmet makes it much easier to see your job before you strike an arc. I’ve just bought a new one, compared to the dusty old relic that has just been retired it’s truly wonderful.
Just went ferocious cold here, and is snowing again. Eeesh, tired of this. Just saw Goldfinches, getting their lemon yellow summer plumage already. Do they ever look out of place.
It’s absolutely pissing it down here, though it’s snowing not that far away where it’s higher.
I came accross the Guardian April Fool about San Serif if any one is interested https://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/archive-educational-resource-april-2012 It’s from 1977 and the link is to the map of San serif which shows that the two main islands are a semi colon, the typographical jokes go on from there.
These are truly extraordinary little plants -- the fastest in the world and they scared Charles Darwin himself -- as this explains :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-04-01/carnivorous-plants-drosera-insect-killers/9596170
Then this is at the whole other end of the scale in size, well okay, those plants are macroscopic but still :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-03/nasa-hubble-detects-star-icarus-halfway-across-universe/9612442
Wow! If this is true and it really is one star not a tight cluster then this is absolutely staggering!
Oh and this :
https://www.livescience.com/62203-antarctica-underwater-ice-loss.html?utm_source=notification
is somewhere in between the two other stories in scale but seriously worrying for our immediate global future & seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the media. Where given what it implies I really think it shouldn’t have been so ignored.
We spent the day at the zoo (prepare for incoming fotos) and now I’m completely exhausted.
But I want a day when stupid people are banned from visiting the zoo and by stupid I mean “woefully uneducated and unwilling to read the fucking names while loudly telling their kids bullshit”.
Last conversation happened in front of the jaguars.
A kid, twoish, proclaimed “doggie!”
Mother: No, it’s a cheetah!*
*’Since she was American and the conversation took place in English she didn’t even gfet the benefit that “Leopard” and “Gepard” are close in name, even though the animal was neither.
Giliell:
Oh FFS.
First day of splendid weather and I have spent it all at work, in the office. I could not resist however and I have spent two hours in the garden afterwards.
So tired. Need sleep.
Zzzzzzz.
*waves from pillow fort* Aged Mum finished the signing on Sunday. I filled in dates and the rest of the data and assembled the application package yesterday and dropped it off at FedEx this morning. So that part is over with.
I want to mention that I really enjoy all the photos, everybody.
StevoR those drosera are gorgeous.
Raining again.
In French, is “tant pis” crude?
chigau
Not so far as I know, but I only ever learned québecois.
Winter is hanging on here. Cold, with a threat of snow.
Milestone today -- I have successfully completed my job as a parent*. Son turned 18 today.
*Being facetious :-) I will always be “a parent”
Belated congratulations to Jimb son and Jimb.
Heavens, I finished grading my 9th grade class tests. If I appear to be no longer competent to grammar that’s why.
I just found a dead blackbird in the garden. Probably a cat, because it was not eaten.
Well, nothing can be done about it. I will try and prepare the skeleton.
I just saw a magpie in the garden for the first time. Not that they are particularly rare birds here, I just never saw any in the garden. Just like the sparrows, who,live in a noisy colony on the other side of the road.
Anyone interested in the private life of birds can tune in here, it’s a link to the Latvian Nature Foundation (I translate loosely) website, which keeps an eye on two white-tailed eagle families, and one osprey, Bubo bubo (I love the Latin), northern goshawk, black stork and lesser spotted eagle family each. Big events like fledglings attempting flight or falling out of the nest make headlines, this year the biggest event so far is the addition of the lesser spotted eagle to the list of birds’ nests you can spy on from the comfort of your own home.
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