More Belgium!

Enjoying a kitsch viking dinner.

I left Belgium for Finland, only to get more Belgium! My dear Flemish friend, Marijke, was waiting for me in Helsinki when I arrived. She had planned a week-long vacation in Finland...the place where we first met. Back in 2007, while living in Tampere, we were randomly selected as flatmates in student housing. At that time she was on an Erasmus exchange program for 4 months and I was doing a semester of my Masters degree at the University of Tampere. Every since then we have kept in touch and have seen each other every year. Sometimes we would meet for a few hours in Brussels and other times for week-long holidays together. Here are the blog entries highlighting our trips together:  
July 2011- Brussels, Belgium
June 2010- Paris, France & Alicante, Spain
December 2009- Brussels, Belgium
 May 2008- Gent, Belgium 

It is just so nice to connect with someone so easily. You know what I mean? I love when special people step into your life so naturally and without effort. Every time we meet it is as if no time has passed, which was again the case this week.

On our way, through the forest, to the sauna.

We will soon be swimming in this lake!

We met in Helsinki and took the train to Tampere to revisit our old stomping grounds. While living in Tampere we frequented a favorite Finnish sauna and decided we should visit it again this trip. So, we caught the #3 bus headed to IKEA, got off at the Kaupinkatu stop, walked through the forest, asked a few people along the way if we were going in the right direction, and finally arrived at the big lake with the sauna resting peacefully on the shore. Ah yeah! Before jumping on the bus we had prepared appropriately: sandwiches and water. We paid 6 euro as we entered the familiar sauna, undressed in the women's dressing room, showered quickly, grabbed a wooden seat and washed it off, and entered the steamy sauna reading 76 degrees Celsius. Once we were dripping with sweat and heated to the core, we walked outside, continued to walk down the stairs to the lake and before you knew it the stairs disappeared in the water (AHHHHHHH!). YES, cold-water swimming!!! It never gets easier, really it doesn't.

Ahhhhhh, cold water lake swimming!

But, the Finns swear that you do not reap the FULL benefits of sauna unless you experience the absolute shock to your situation (the cold, hot, cold, hot combo increases blood circulation=health benefits).

Visions at the sauna...

Charlie & Marijke in the winter wonderland of Jyväskylä.

Okay, so we did it and I continue to go back for more (I have to admit that the adrenalin rush keeps me going back for more!) After four dips in the cold water lake, we were peaced out and ready to walk through the forest and catch the bus to the train station.




The rest of the week we spent in Jyväskylä and enjoyed a nice little snow storm, a Finnish Christmas carol show, card games, and Harald's viking restaurant.