Martinlaakso swim

Another swimming hall visit! This time in Martinlaakso, a suburb of Vantaa. They have a nice swimming hall, and at least now in the summer it seemed almost completely empty. But open, unlike most of the other community swimming halls sigh...

They have a 25 meter pool and a kiddie pool. In the saunas there's ample space for showers, a bit cramped space perhaps for dressing, and two quite nice Finnish-style saunas. One is milder temperature, the other one hotter. I didn't detect a big difference though.

The city's official page for this swimming hall is here.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of saunagoers or swimmers, all photos are taken from the outside or when the facility is closed or empty.  The pool picture is by Vantaan kaupunki, all rights reserved for them.

OSL lounge

As I was flying out of Norway's Oslo / Gardemoen airport, I got a chance to visit the lounge that Finnair had a deal with for people with frequent flier status: the OSL lounge. The international side OSL lounge (there's two, the other one is at the domestic side).

It was a nice and quiet lounge, with enough power sockets around. And open long enough for my delayed flight time. Some salad, soups, pasta, bread, and snacks were available. And a shower! I really, really needed this because I had been hiking, and had been unable to find a swimming pool or sauna open to the public anywhere on my trip from outskirts of Oslo to the airport.

Such bliss to be able to have a shower after a long day, before joining a flight. Probably also good for the people sitting next to me in the plane :-) 

But I ended up walking from one end of the airport to another and back to get there. The ticket said "airport lounge", and I didn't pay attention to the fact that the airport had a domestic and international section... or the "near gates E" note in the ticket. When I passed through security, I just saw "SAS lounge" to the right and "OSL lounge" to the left. At the very end on the left (a long walk), I realized that I was at the wrong place. So now I needed to walk back past the exit from security, and still forward to the other end of the airport, indeed near gates E. Maybe they could add some more signage, there was nothing at the security exit about international or domestic, or the other OSL lounge. 

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Volvo's 10 year paint anniversary, and ... a breakdown

 

Facebook reminded me that the Volvo came out of paint shop in 2015... and now it is 2025. Can you spot the difference? :-)

Also, we were driving home from the cottage and, as always, worried about the car lasting to the end of the trip. It almost did, just few kilometers from home it refused to run. At an intersection. Fortunately we got to a bus stop. Starting the car was difficult, and if it started it would immediately stop running if we tried to engage a forward gear. Reversing was OK.. hmm.... 

Anyway, after few minutes the car agreed to run home just fine. Even more odd. It was raining heavily, so this could be humidity related.

Here's the comparison.

Left is 2015 when it was just re-painted due to rust, etc.

Right is 2025. Not waxed, etc., but still clean-ish.

More car stories in the Planetskier blog series at Blogspot. The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko.

Throwing water to the stove in the sauna

A common sauna discussion is the one about the effect of throwing water on the sauna stove, and how it affects the temperature in the sauna: whether it just feels hotter due to the humidity, or if the temperature actually rises?

I read an excellent blog article about the topic, from the Saunologia blog (link).

To begin with, there are multiple effects at play:

• Water on the stove will rapidly transfer heat from the stove to the air, in the form of steam and hot, humid air. This will raise the temperature.

• Longer term, the overall heat input from the stove does not change, the same energy is still put into the system through the wood burning in the stove.

• Humans feel increased heat, even beyond the increased temperature due to (1) hot steam condensing on colder skin surface, and (2) our natural cooling system (sweating) not being able to cope as efficiently with the increased humidity.

In short, there is an actual temperature increase, but it is perhaps not as big as one might think, typically in the order of few degrees, however, that and the interaction with human skin will make the sauna feel hotter. And can of course affect the skin negatively, if done in excessive amounts.

The linked blog article explains the physics of heat transfer from the stove, and how it affects the temperature and humidity in the sauna. There's an excellent Mollier diagram showing the impact of throwing water at a 80 or 120 degree sauna, and how it slightly increases the temperature and significantly increases humidity. The diagram is by Unto Hakkarainen:

Pictures from my cottage trip where one of these discussions happened :-)

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.