Recipe for complete relaxation: sit in a wood fired sauna until well done (i.e. sopping with sweat) complete with lashings from wilted thin birch branches, then jump into cool water of a lake in Finland. Lather, rinse, repeat. Did I mention we we're doing this at midnight? Because it was still light out?
I admit, I was reticent about hopping into the cool water, the thermocline was pretty shallow and even colder water lay deeper. But it was such a wonderful experience, the water felt great and even when I hopped out of the water I wasn't chilled, I was so warmed by the sauna.
I don't think we could have picked a more perfect place if we tried. Since we're here for a few days most of what we're doing involves a lot of low impact and probably not that exciting to others, but exciting to us sort of stuff. Like laying around in the sun, floating on the water, being in the water, reading some brain candy (truth be told, I'm taking this time to re-read the last two tome-like Harry Potter's to refresh my memory before the next book and movie come out), eating lightly (at least that's the plan) and taking photos, lots of photos, these posts are going to be largely photographic
A dragonfly in flight while we went out for a paddle in the row boat, the thousands of tadpoles in our little lake that would delicately nibble on your hands and feet when we dipped them into the water, one of the many small orange butterflies flitting from spot to spot and the shiny emerald of a beetle:
