Finnish Sauna

"The Finnish sauna is a substantial part of Finnish culture. There are five million inhabitants and over two million saunas in Finland - an average of one per household. For Finnish people the sauna is a place to relax in with friends and family, and a place for physical and mental relaxation as well. Finns think of saunas not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Before the rise of public health care and nursery facilities, almost all Finnish mothers gave birth in saunas."

http://www.sauna.fi/40.html

This is fun.

1. Get a birch whisk and beat yourself lightly with it.
2. Warm up, Sweat, take vapor (?), whisk, wash, cool off.
3. For a Finn, sauna is a sacrosanct. That means no sex. Behave.
4. Finns usually bathe (in the sauna) once or twice a week.
5. In 1936, a sauna was built at the Döbernitz Olympic Village for Finnish athletes participating in the Berlin Olympic Games. The design was Finnish, and the venture gave publicity to the idea of the sauna in Central Europe.
6. In the countryside of Finland, women gave birth in Sauna.
7. It was also the place in Finland where the dead were "prepared" for their "journey".
8. People performed MAGIC! in sauna, to help young women with their "marriageability."
9. Finnish boats and car ferries have saunas in them. They are also looking into the possibility of building train saunas.

I want some rye bread, some Mämmi.

http://www.sauna.fi/40.html