WHEN IN SWEDEN, DO AS THE VIKINGS DO

† today was easily the highlight of my whole trip so far. i signed up for the "viking sauna tour" with my hostel. it was me, my tour guide lena (pronouned 'liana') and 4 other european guys. what this entails is trekking out to the forest, walking across a frozen lake, axing open a hole in the ice, then stripping down to your swimsuit, sitting in a hot sauna that's heated to 100 degrees centigrade (212 degrees fahrenheit) and then lowering yourself into the freezing water beneath the ice. the water is at about 1 to 2 degrees centigrade (33.8 degrees fahrenheit).
this sounds like death but it was singlehandedly one of the most amazing experiences i've had. the best part of it, after you've gone into the ice water, your body then re-releases all the heat back into your bloodstream and there is this amazing sense of calm that comes over you. as i sat there next to the ice hole in the snow in my bikini, i closed my eyes and listened. what i realized was that for the first time in a reallllly long time, i heard absolutely nothing. the snow was falling and it muffled any far-off environmental noises there might be. and when it's this cold, there are no animals around, so you don't even hear birds chirping or rustling in the bushes. this is complete, deafening silence. i would kill for an hour of silence like that in the city. this sounds super corny but it was so silent i could almost hear my body speaking to me, thanking me for the entire experience.
i did the sauna to ice dip for about 2 rounds... mostly sat in the sauna sweating. but as this experience came to a close, i thought to myself, "i'm really happy i'm here, in sweden, in the wintertime, by myself." i remember being extremely apprehensive about traveling in the dead of winter, but i feel i couldn't have come at a better time. sure, it's cold and i have to bundle up and snow blows into my eyes from time to time... but hell, i'm in temperate weather all the time in california. coming here in the wintertime allowed me to experience something completely different and new. anyway, enough with the rambling, here are the photos.
†i am blessed.

  

† also here's a silly video of me picking at the ice.

signing off,
†mich