alice in wonderland, and other strange journeys

As a poor student, the working holiday remains my most cost effective way to travel, which is how I found myself living directly in a new culture as a live in au-pair in Finland. Finns are a quiet, direct people and by the end of my four months of home-stay and travel with the family I'd learned to listen more than speak and was more economic with my words. But the one encounter that perhaps most changed my perspective on myself, was the way in which the Finnish sauna changed my view of my body. My charges were both competitive swimmers and twice a week I was had to take them to their lessons at the local pool and was encouraged to swim with them. My first time in the change room I nearly died, as all the women simply stripped and headed off to the showers, with no shame of whatever was on display. Beyond swim culture, sauna culture is even larger, as the sauna originated in Finland. All public pools we visited during my stay had at least two saunas, and many Finnish families have one in their home, cottage or both. And while the shower nudity rule seemed implied, there were explicit NO SWIMSUITS pictograms above each sauna door so that even foreigners like myself knew they were not okay. The first time my charges brought me in there, I have to admit I was a wimp and kept my suit on. That night I searched online and learned of health reasons why they're prohibited, and promised myself that I was going to learn to accept my body the Finnish way. That is, alongside the bodies of others, accepting that each was in their own emotional sauna trance, taking the steam in through each open pore of their body, too busy relaxing their minds to believe that the woman next to them was judging their body. Slowly in that modern, Scandinavian designed public pool I inched towards comfort, and eventually like any good Finn, came to love the sauna, a naked sweat followed by a cool shower suddenly became ideal to me. As the summer marched on into cottage season, I learned the joys of a woodburning sauna followed by a skinny dip in the lake, and then back and forth between the two repeatedly. I was also fortunate to try many saunas throughout Finland, the most memorable in the quiet of no-man's land near Russia. What had started as cultural body shock for me soon became the embodiment of bliss, as I rejected the notion that my body is anything less than acceptable, so long as it can swim and sweat and my legs can carry me off on more travels, I will be thankful for every bit