Sauna Sweat

Hi all,

So...last night Flo rings me up and asks if I want to go to the sauna with him. Now, I'm a pretty low-heat tolerant person, so I expressed some hesitancy to the suggestion. He assured me he'd only done it once or twice before and it wouldn't get too hot. Plus, he'd invited Bean and another co-worker. He also suggested I could ask Sam. This was shot down, however, as there were several flaws with it. 1. You never just get one German, they travel in a pack. 2. They, like the rest of the world outside of America (yes, it exists...), don't see the point of covering up in a mixed-sex sauna. 3. Recovering from my allergic reaction rash still, and so even in a swimsuit (not my favorite!) I'm going to feel awkward. So, no.

Flo arrived at 9 and we made the long trek to the sauna. Apparently it takes about 1/2 an hour to warm up (but I'm not into the heat thing, so was totally fine with it), but we found it already warm when we showed up. There's even a calendar inside for marking down use, although no one was marked. So, we decided - should there be a German invasion, we'd make like the French and flee. However, the only one to eventually turn up was Bean. We were having a great time talking, and it stayed toasty, but never anywhere near the hot hot hot saunas that my uncle likes to run. So I was pretty comfortable, Flo wasn't. Even though he's from the South (Tex-arcana), he said that the whole "sweating just to sweat thing" wasn't his idea of fun. I readily agreed and Bean burst out laughing at our ridiculousness: "Then why on earth would you decide to go and use the sauna?!"

It's all in the novelty of the experience?

Sometimes, there just aren't any good answers. However, we had a lot of fun laughing and with conversational tangents and we didn't get out of there for a couple of hours. Not sure if we'd do it again, but makes for a nice memory...

Today was pretty good - we had muesli for breakfast and Sam did a decent job - although I could've lived without the sunflower seeds, to be honest. At least he didn't put the pumpkin seeds in. The funny part is that he refuses to put nuts in it...not sure why. "Muesli" here, is not what it is in Germany - where it's mainly like granola. Here you soak oats (a year-round affair...) overnight, drain them, add yogurt and your choice of other things (raisins, apple, nuts, coconut, and sunflower and pumpkin seeds...apparently) and then eat the sludgy mass. So far, despite my texture hang-ups, I've been able to manage to eat it.

During morning work (since we're out to lunch for cafe...), I made yogurt, granola (hopefully without a cumin aftertaste this time...) and a fantastic chocolate cake. I will take a picture tomorrow. I'm calling it my "Death by Chocolate" cake and it's for celebrating with Flo tonight for the birthday he missed here. It has a "Hershey's chocolate cake" with a chocolate mocha frosting, dark chocolate ganache (liqueur-free, unfortunately), and drizzled with white chocolate. I hope it tastes as amazing as it looks!

I had cafe lunch (which was edible today), and finally didn't have any drama at my table. So that was a nice change. Afterward, I spent most of my rest hour laughing and saying "Awwww" at the pictures my mom scanned in of my youngest brother online. It also made me feel old.

So I was in a sentimental feeling as I went to work in the co-op. We managed putting away the order in good time and it was an all-round good afternoon.

Hope all is well,
Steph