Our first introduction off the beaten path in Finland. A few miles outside Oulu, we visited Saarelan rantasauna, a bath house where we dug further into product ideas with our client and learned about the sacred tradition of Sauna.

Jumping into this sauna with 4 seasoned fins was the hottest thing I had ever experienced. I was only able to last about 5 minutes for the first session. Then it was straight out to the Oulu River for a dip… freezing. Then rinse off in the shower and repeat the process. 3 times.

After the first time, we started to understand the feeling and began to sit a little longer with our native guides in complete silence. We felt so finnish. Except we still had some trunks on which was more than I can say for our hosts…

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