It would be an understatement to say that we had fun this past week. I never really went to summer camp as a kid, but I’m sure children have a ball running through the forest, swimming, and doing all kinds of activities. This past week of summer school was like that…but for adults. We could stay up as long as we wanted, partake in consuming a few beverages, and socialize to our heart’s content. One of the features of graduate education is that your professors treat you like colleagues rather than students and the truth of that approach was brought home this week.
Whoever says theatre kids don’t do well at sports certainly didn’t meet our group of MAIPRs. We took part in just about everything there was to do activity wise. The first evening we played some Ultimate Frisbee while waiting for the last group of students to arrive; we played a game of soccer most days of the week; we messed around in the gym; and we even jogged a bit around the football pitch. While there wasn’t much time to fit these activities in, they provided a great way to transition from the demanding school schedule. Sometimes it got a bit competitive, but only enough to make things interesting. For me, the highlight of the sport activities was taking the rowboat out on the lake and rowing around taking photos. We went out on the water for the first three nights. Lotte and I took the boat out at 2am on Monday evening – it seemed like a good idea at the time.
In addition to sports, we had social events planned every evening. These nights usually involved heading down to the sauna, grilling food over the bonfire, and then sitting around joking and laughing the night away. You’d think that this combination would get old, but nothing could be further from the truth. On Monday and Tuesday we had sauna and bonfire nights, Wednesday we were invited to a party by the Forestry students, Thursday was chilling and sauna after our environmental theatre pieces, and Friday was our final party at “Sausage Rock.” Yeahhhh, I have no idea about the name.
With breakfast at 8am and a full schedule, you’d think we’d at least have some concern with getting a decent night’s sleep, but it obviously was not so. I’d say that the average time for bed was 3:00am. Those of us dedicated to the cause were averaging about five hours of good sleep. Part of this was the energy of being with our fellow program mates, but it was also determined by the number of hours of sunlight. By the time 11 o’clock rolled around one could see the sun was a faint glow of red; at midnight the sun had set but the sky was light blue; at 2am the sky was a blueberry colour, and by 3:30am the sun was already starting to rise. There was not one point in the week where there was no light outside – a deep powder blue is as dark as it got. It was fantastic living in this environment. You feel pretty invinsible with the sun not setting. It gives new meaning to the term “never going home.”
Part of the reason for the late nights was the feature of the week: the Finnish sauna. It put all the other saunas I’ve been in to shame. Not only was the temperature 10 -20 degrees warmer (if you’re sitting on the top level when water was added to the coals the air you breathe in is warm and soft) but the combination of the warm sauna with the cold lake was refreshing every time. Add in a few beverages and there was no need to head to bed anytime soon. It was great seeing such an international group embrace such a culturally specific tradition – our professors also joined in on some evenings and made the 3am trek home with us. Sauna, sauna, sauna was the highlight of the week.
We were sharing the conference site with fifty forestry students who spend ten weeks studying and living in the environment. We shared the dining facilities, sauna, and all the sports equipment with them. They were really interested to chat with us about what theatre students could possibly be doing in the forest (I don’t think the site gets a lot of non-biology folk) so it was great to have some other people around. On Wednesday night they invited us to their weekly party, the theme of which was “Kid’s Party.” Now, I’ve been to a few theme parties at Queen’s, but I’ve never heard of the re-creation of a children’s party being appealing for 20 somethings. I was proved wrong; it was a blast. We pieced together costumes as best as possible and joined them in the main dining room where they played great music, had some games, and even asked us to perform. I took the lead and emceed a hilarious game of Freeze Tag to involve the whole group. Fins + MAIPRs = success. They loved the game and were eager to continue.
On Friday, we had a day of reflection on the academic pursuits covered over the week and finished with a wonderful sit down dinner, a bonfire, some boating, and one more trip to the sauna. At 4:00am, as the sun was rising, the last group (professors included) sat outside around the picnic table post-sauna and chatted about the success of the week. It was really quite special.
Today we packed up and left the site at 10am, stopped through Helsinki and returned to Amsterdam. It was really tough to come to terms with the idea that the week was over. Twenty-nine of us embarked on this crazy program for the first time and five full days just doesn’t seem long enough to be the only time when we’re all congregated together. It was really difficult to part ways, and really brought home for me just how privileged I am to be having such a perspective changing opportunity. The week was the best of 2009 and is something I’ll remember for years to come.
Some pictures of the Finnish sunset coming soon…
Doc’s Prescription of the Day: It’s a Finnish tradition to fashion a bundle of birch branches into a whip like structure and hit yourself with it in the sauna. They say it opens up pores, but to me it felt like I was hitting myself with tree branches. At the same time, when in Finland...
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