Yesterday we began our first study tour through Sweden and Finland. We had a lot of driving yesterday followed by a ride on a huge cruise ship (the bus came too.) Today we saw three buildings: Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Sanitorium, a hospital built for tuburculosis patients, the Petajavesi Old Church, an old wooden church with a big bell tower, and the Alvar Aalto museum.
It is strange visiting all of these buildings that I learned about in Jerry Larson’s history class like Paimio Sanitorium. After having studied it, I was underwhelmed by the sanatorium. There were certain things like the staircase and the signature Paimio chairs that I did like. The Paimio Sanatorium was built at the beginning of Modernism. The style has evolved a lot since then. At the time that the building was built it was innovative, modern, and revolutionary. Now, however, it seems a bit ordinary.
Tonight we are staying at a hostel near a sauna. We went to the sauna earlier tonight with groceries and everyone cooked dinner over an indoor fire. Cooking took a lot longer than we all expected, so a lot of people just gave up on their food and used the sauna. There were tons of leftovers on the fire when we left.
The sauna was a traditional Finish sauna next to a lake. We were supposed to go into the boiling hot sauna for as long as we could stand it, then run outside and jump in the freezing cold lake. I went into the sauna a couple times but never got up the nerve to jump in the lake. Everyone said the water felt great though. Maybe next time.
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