Sauna Etiquette for Non Finns/Estonians/Russians

If the only thing you could hear in the gym sauna today was my palm slapping my forehead, then all would have been well. But it wasn’t. I don’t know, to sit in the sauna today, watching 3 fully grown but plainly dysfunctional men, unable to be away from their i-phones for 5 minutes, bleeping away I could not but despair - Tyler Durton was right, and by the look of the way western manhood is going, he’s getting more right by the second.

Your lack of Sauna etiquette is not your fault, dear Americans. I understand they don’t teach you it at school and you’re too ignorant to read what it says outside the sauna. If it’s any consolation, Brits are just the same (on a less loud/high five level admittedly), when it comes to knowing how to behave in that sacred Baltic Grotto, so I think its time I tell the world a little about how it should be in there…

Ok lets start at the beginning.  The sauna, to take it back to its roots, really is a sacred, serene place in Nordic/Baltic culture. It’s where many babies were traditionally born. Its where business is conducted, vodka drunk, even relationships consummated. But all in all it’s a place where the family, or close friends congregate to relax, meditate, sweat out the bad stuff, and contemplate the meaning of life. In silence – i.e. not sitting tweeting on their i-phones. And definitely not shaving your armpits in front of everyone. Or sitting fully clothed with shoes on.

Ok lets put some bullet points in so next time you go to take a sauna, you know what to do.

1.     Go naked. The point of the sauna is to sweat out your toxins not to dirty your clothes and skin. If you’re in mixed company,  ladies will tend to wear a towel round to protect modesty (although they will get to see your parts, guys, is it such a bad thing?) If you’re with a bunch of guys, sweating and naked, it’s not a gay thing despite your insecurities, unless you’re actually gay, in which case you probably visit a very different kind of sauna. However if a guy gets a hard on, then you probably don’t want to invite him next time. And if the girls don’t towel up, then you’re probably on a promise. Or in Sweden.

2.     Don’t talk loudly at people. Especially not strangers. Ok I understand it’s not easy to shut up for a second, but really, its not that hard.

3.     Actually, don’t talk at all. That’s really not the point of the sauna. You have bars to shout at each other and hug strangers.

4.     Don’t bring headphones, ipods or phones into the sauna.  Apart from the fact that its not very good for them, its also pretty bad manners.

5.     Pour water on the sauna, to increase the humidity and open your pores. Ignore the warnings on American saunas to not pour water on it. They are plainly idiots and don’t know anything, not least the whole point of a sauna.

6.     If you can increase the temperature, do so. This will get rid of unwanted men on iphones. Or at least will break their iphones which serves them right.

7.     I know this sounds hard, but after the sauna, jump in a VERY cold shower, or run out and roll in the snow. The sauna (when you pour water on it) opens the pores, and so the biting cold will close them again, and leave you feeling (afterwards) pretty amazing. Your girlfriend will thank you.

8.     Use birch branches to both waft (to increase the ‘burn’) and to beat yourself or others. You really need to take turns on this – basically lie down and get another to beat you with the birch branch all over. It helps the pores again, makes it hotter, and pretty much doubles the whole sauna experience. If there are no birch leaves, just beat the guy with the i-phone with his phone until he leaves.

9.     You should repeat the hot/cold combination 2,3 even 4 times if you can. Don’t stay out in the snow for more than 5 minutes though. It can feel great, and you want to go to sleep. But that’s because you have hypothermia.

10. Don’t wear shoes and socks in the sauna. It defeats the whole purpose. I mean do I really have to say this?

11. Fat people – sauna does not lose you weight or get you fit. You just lose sweat, which comes back in a few hours.  Fat guy in the sauna today – Please try not to fart in the sauna, it was disgusting.

Ok so now everyone in Western New York is educated on Sauna etiquette, I’m looking forward to going into the sauna next week and having birch leaves waiting and the ultimate zen experience….

The Weirdness of Life in USA

Is it just me or is there a real wish for the western world to rip itself out of the banality of its current non-existance based around sporting events and soap operas?

I'd like to think i add a little to the inane distractions of life, by writing posts about obese Americans or about Russian girls living on Coffee and cigarettes so they keep slim and get a husband. Today i'll enrich your lives, dear reader, with some more observations on American life (which translates as more Europeans guffawing at the silliness that happens in USA) since i've been stuck here for over a month now...


1. Sauna culture.

US, despite being cold in many places has no Sauna culture. This is possibly connected to the fact that you don't really want to see most American girls naked. In my gym, there is a sauna though, where people turn up with their training shoes on, and full tracksuit, and sit down...kind of missing the point. You can't put water on the Sauna either (for no good reason actually, because i do it all the time when there are no litiganous yanks to whinge)

2. World Travel.

It took 20 minutes in the bank the other day for the tellers to check my ID. They had never seen a foreign passport before. I kid you not. What does this say about the broad/narrow mindedness of the population? I actually told someone I was a Scottish refugee and they believed me. Funny but not funny. It seems that the vast majority of the CNN/Fox watching population have absolutely no interest in or wish to visit anywhere in the outside world. Of course the media tells them it's dangerous (they don't tell you that this is primarily due to US military intervention in the outside world) but these aren't people who are putting 2+2 together. So basically, yet another reason why the world has, and always will have a majority 'slave class'. Which i'm personally, quite alright with.

3. High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The biggest ingredient in pretty much everything in a working class Americans diet, the middle classes woke up to this trick a while back, but being good libertarians, all they do is just buy other (more expensive) stuff and let the working man continue drinking/eating his Pepsi and Burgers. So basically, the taxpayer, pays for Obamacare, which in turn pumps poor/ignorant Americans full of drugs, because they gave themselves diabetes/heart problems, because they eat the food in the supermarket/fast food place. Kind of brings up the shortcomings of the selfish American culture in a nutshell. Of course, this healthcare for the poor wouldn't be needed so much  if, for example, food that is in fact toxic was not legal (like other countries who actually care about their citizens) but of course, who would pay for the election campaign costs if Pharm and Food companies lobby groups weren't getting their way? Personally i'm quite ok with all this, so long as the people who choose to poison themselves, are taxed to hell to pay for the healthcare bills, so I don't have to pay for them. So, why not tax High Fructose Corn Syrup the same as Alcohol or Narcotics? Then maybe the intensive care wards of American hospitals wouldn't be full of fat alcoholics and drug users, wasting US taxpayers dollars...

4. Guns

I'm all for guns. I'm sure I wouldn't last long as a burglar if householders all had guns. Even semi-automatics, why the hell not? And it seems to me to be a good way to get rid of bad people (let them shoot each other all the time, like in Chicago.)

Perhaps Hollywood and the Pharmaceutical Industry have more to answer for on the 'mass shootings' that Americans love, than actual normal people who have guns to protect themselves from burglars and the US government.

If I lived in a country like USA where the only thing I know for sure is that I cant trust the government, then i'd be doing every single thing that they want to ban, as i'd know there's a negative reason for it.

Piers Morgan, who left the UK embroiled in scandal, is completely wrong about getting rid of guns in USA. It won't disarm criminals, it won't disarm the insane prescription drug killers, it will disarm law abiding responsible citizens - soft targets for the authorities.

The UK doesn't have a gun culture. But we don't need one. The bad guys, by and large, don't have guns. Our Police don't have guns either. And we have no real need to be afraid of our bike riding softy Prime ministers (If Labour got in then thats a different story...)

However, living in Buffalo. It seems to me that no one actually has a gun anyway...I must visit Alabama or Texas sometime ;o) But the point is that the problem is the culture here, not the guns.

5. Conspiracy Theories.

I find this pretty funny. Especially the conspiracy theory that the city of London is a law unto itself, and the Queen is the evil reptile Nazi ruler of the world. The tragedy is that most of them are true (like 9/11 or basically any other 'coincidental' scandal just when a new law needs to come out (mass shooting anyone?) But someone must have laced these forums with dodgy kool aid (or more likely they're infiltrated, Philip K Dick style with CIA goons) who put the more crazy ones out there to make fools of the poor sods...

6. Swimming - can someone tell me why does no one in USA swim?

Helsinki - Pulling it off despite serious In-Breeding

Helsinki, and Finland as a whole, despite having a population so in-bred it makes Alabama blush with envy, does actually manage to pull itself together on a lovely May day like today.

I spent the morning working with normal well adjusted Helsinki Architects, who speak languages, went to university, know where Venezuala is and all the normal western norms of a society, then wandered round the posh-arty area to the West of the centre - what a great place, you turn a corner and you arent sure if you'll see a beautiful building, an interesting cafe, a cool gallery, a shop selling gilded cages (true story) or a hideously in-bred, white as a sheet Finn with little porky glasses and a belly to match the pig they just ate.

There are plenty of hotties too here though, and educated ones, who speak usually with kind of cockney accent for some reason. This phenomenon of good looking twentysomthing intelligent cultured girls is something i miss, living in Tallinn - even finding a single girl over 22 is pretty hard there (i'm afraid if she tells you shes single shes lying, shes just waiting to check that you are richer then she'll ruthlessly dump her existing boyfriend and turn up at yours with her suitcases, i think all you expats know what im talking about!)

Maybe im overromanticising but i beleive even in Helsinki there are even women who understand my jokes.

The city itself is quite compact. You can catch a tram across the main parts and buses all round. At the back end of the centre theres a great little rollercoaster park and a tram that circles all the main sites (you can even get a tram that has bar in it, true endemically alcoholic Finnish style) You can walk or even cycle when its not minus 40, but the main cool part seems to be this little neighbourhood on the hill to the west of the harbour - like a little piece of San Fransisco it nestles in there with its esoteric bookshop (i bought my first 'Rudolph Steiner' book there 2 years ago) and its comic shops, art galleries, and weird old postcard, knick nack, and second hand trumpet selling emporiums.

The centre itself is a pretty boring mix of Hesburgers (Finnish hamburger chain) and crappy chain stores. But it is a funny opportunity to see black people speaking Finnish, which is as funny as when you go to Glasgow for the first time and see Indian Guys with unintellligable Glasgow accents.

Theres another cheaper and intersting area to the NE of the city centre- just follow the road up East from the railway station, and past the awful Molly Malones pub, and jump on the tram. I used to stay in this crazy part of town when i was en route to Tallinn (when there were no direct flights to London, back in the glory days) While the area is a wee bit scabby if the truth be told, there is a public sauna which is an interesting experience (be sure to get drunk in there) and a whole load of rocky student bars around.
This is also the area for cheaper hotels as the centre is upwards of 100 euro a night usually, apart from one street next to the station full of small hotels (where they dont let you take ladies back, which connects to a totally different story about my first ever trip to Helsinki and a guy i met on the plane and reindeer meat and this guys girlfriends porn star friend but that story is too naughty to be told here)

Where a lot of people knock Helsinki, is on its party scene. Finns are seen as a pretty dour bunch, and they have a habit of drinking silently, being mildy freindly for 5 minutes, then falling down and passing out. This Finnish activity was the primary economic driver of Estonias post independance boom as they poured over for cheap booze and cheaper Russian women.

However re Helsinki as a bad place to go out, I beg to differ from the naysayers.

I used to go out drinking here on my own, and always made good friends (since everyone looks alike then its easy to be freindly to strangers as you think you already know them) The bars can vary from the posh ones (like the Swedish Theatre in the centre where there are a lot of Swedes but still quite a few inbred chinless wonders quaffing champagne) to the down and dirty drinking halls in East Helsinki (which arent actually so cheap but its all relative) For adventures, I personally prefer the Rock clubs (of which there are many) as i always seem to end up at some afterparty at 7am in a random suburb or with some Serbian girl eating breakfast in a 24 hr macdonalds.

So the overall image of Finns are that they are a boring honest and serious bunch, who dont say a peep until an expensive 15 vodkas after which they become friendly/horny and actually become themselves. Id add the cosmopolitan mix of that Helsinki Bohem set and the fact that the whole population loves death metal and has bad eyesight (another inbreeding thing) then you pretty much have it.

But really, despite or because of its quirks, somehow Helsinki does make the grade.