last night i couldn't sleep at all i probably got a maximum of two hours of sleep and that is
because we've agreed to go ice swimming today or at least try to go ice swimming and after
spending the entire night watching countless videos of people jumping into the baltic sea
completely covered in these massive chunks of ice i don't know how we came to this agreement
but i'm so nervous to do it so it is currently 10 degrees fahrenheit here in helsinki finland
we are in our seventh country out of our 50 country goal and as claire said we will be going
ice swimming today which i'm very terrified about especially because of how cold it is outside but
before we hop into the icy water we are actually going to be experiencing a traditional sauna and
in order to get over to the sauna we're going to bundle up nice and warm since it's so cold outside
we are currently walking to the train station it's around 9 00 a.m and the sun is rising i
have a beautiful sunrise behind me and we will be taking a 50 minute ride via their public transport
to villa furuvik which is going to be hosting our ice swimming and sauna experience
so we made it into the metro station honestly it was very inconspicuous
you would have never known it was here but i guess there's a whole underground
train system here yeah i thought we were going into a library
so we made it off the bus and the first thing we're noticing is how quiet it is and the air is
extremely dry yeah all you can hear are the birds and like us walking through the snow is so loud
welcome to villa furuvik i'm going to give you guys a quick little tour of our cute cabin sauna
all right so through this door we have our own private sauna area first with a changing room
and through this area we have our own private shower so that we can rinse off before we get
in the sauna and also after this is where the magic happens this is the sauna room it is already
nice and warm in here and all we have to do is put some water on these hot stones and steam
up the place and i'm gonna give it a try oh my gosh this ladle is way longer than i expected
that sound oh my goodness oh wow it's really hot i know there goes the lens we have made our
way outdoors to the ice swimming area and what's really throwing me off is like they've got little
bubbles going in there making it seem like a nice little hot tub but i already know it's gonna be
absolutely freezing and the owner was saying that it's gonna be like stepping into fire which is not
making me feel much better yes but we have now set up the tripod so we're gonna go back in warm
up and then come to the ice pool i'm so nervous i don't think i've been so nervous in my entire life
so i think we're gonna go in slowly so that we don't hyperventilate because
i'm not hyperventilating on my first day in
finland no ma'am not today come on let's go let's get this over with
all right come on what do you mean we're doing it at the same time yes come on
okay not not too bad oh it hurts
it feels like a million knives are my legs oh no i'm actually lasting over i know
let me break that ice cream oh my goodness
my mom's gonna kill me when she sees this all right nipple time
oh it feels like i have no body parts whoa i think we did it longer than we thought
how long did we do it for right now it's four minutes
we did it they were saying that you'd feel kind of warm once you get out i feel okay yeah
huge accomplishment for the both of us coming from the south in the u.s. we barely ever see
snow i can see why people like doing that though yeah you do feel pretty good afterwards i will say
we're just relieved that it's over yeah i think that's been like the biggest pressure
just like worrying about doing that but now i feel great let's go in the sun
we are now switching saunas and we are walking up the hill so we have moved up
the hill to another private sauna which is super convenient it's in this little
villa that has a lot of natural and reclaimed wood which you always love to see but it is very
cozy especially with the snow surrounding us so i think we're gonna go thaw out a little bit more
before we go into the sauna i actually have a fun fact for you there are 5.5 million people here
in finland and there are 3.3 million saunas so that kind of shows you how much the finns love
their saunas and i can totally see why they're very therapeutic very relaxing and you drain
yourself of all the toxins and my skin has been feeling really really nice so traditionally the
fins are really into mixing extreme heat with extreme coldness hence why they go ice swimming
or ice dipping while enjoying a sauna and so another thing that they also do is they go
out and they roll in the freaking snow so we might as well give it a try while we're in finland
oh my gosh it's gonna be so hard to get chad to go roll in the snow
run
so we have now moved the party back outside to this little kitchenette area and the owner
actually surprised us with these sausages that we're going to roast over a fire that i built
yay sausages she also gave us this massive tube of what looks
to be mustard and i think you coat these sausages with mustard and eat it together
oh no snow how annoying
oh no snow says chad
cheers
cheers to surviving the baltic sea yes indeed
plain sausage with plain mustard is so overrated this is really
really good finnish mustard is incredible though way better than american mustard
our little day trip to the sauna has sadly come to an end and we are going to head back
to helsinki through public transportation and we will catch you up on all our thoughts once
we get back what a striking way to start our time here in finland we got to check off some
experiences that have been on our bucket list for so long and i can't believe that we gathered up
the courage to do something that was way out of our comfort zone something we were really
scared about so i'm really proud of us both took a lot of sisu which we've actually been reading
about which is a finnish word for courage is that like the best way to describe it it's definitely
very difficult to translate into english because there's not a word in english that pairs perfectly
with it i'm actually reading this book that was gifted to us from our amazon wishlist from a very
kind person and i've been reading it ever since we got to finland but sisu is actually a part
of the finnish lifestyle i guess you could say and if i were to try to describe it it's kind
of like the importance of going through things that test us or challenge us and allowing those
things to help us see what we're actually capable of and it's kind of like the foundation of
grit or perseverance or resilience and that is something that the finnish people definitely have
and i really admire that i could not have said that any better and i really look forward to our
time here in finland because i know there's going to be a lot more things that are going to test us
and push us outside of our comfort zone yeah for sure and i do want to say a really big thank you
to tea the owner of villa furuvik for having us and for hosting us in such a remarkable way
this was the perfect start to our time here in finland and because we did have such a great
experience we're actually gonna link the website in the description box below so if you do come to
finland you can find it and experience something similar to what we showed here in this video today
but with that we have had a very very long day and we're actually extremely tired and i know we're
gonna sleep so well tonight so we're gonna end it here and we'll catch you guys in the next one