In Finland, in the middle of the forest, there is always something to do. That´s the land full of winter activities and has "only" 187,000 lakes, one of which is just right next to Hubfeenix, it takes only ten minutes to get there. We have got plenty of ice skates in our room store so each volunteer can find a proper size for him and even if you have never done that, there is always a possibility to learn. After our morning activities, it came up a beautifully pure, blue sky and sun. We have found a perfect moment to enjoy the beauty of a frozen lake. The ice was thick and flat enough to fully enjoy ice skating. We could even take a ride to another site of the lake. We have been dancing, played a game of hockey and doing an ice speedball competition. It was a perfect afternoon activity surrounded by marvellous landscapes.

Once there was a small little Village called Antskog. Noone ever heard of it, but if was close to a well known finish tourist attraction, Fiskars Village.
In the little village lived two strange creatures. They had found each other in ways more bizzare than can be described here, had build a life, a little BnB, and were for lack of a better work, happy.

Then one lovely fools-day, one of them was clicking around in the internet, and found a Hospital, an old Sanatorium for sale. holly smoke, can this be real, and it was so they went looking. It was HUGE.

After long deliberation, and i mean many hours later, they decided to make a bid on the auction site.
And since no-one else was quite as crazy, they bought the place and started making plans.

The moral of the story: Be careful where you click !!!

Many Nordic countries believe that winter swimming can be used as a mood booster and anti-depressant medicine during long, dark days. We were fascinated by that idea. We took it as a sort of ice breakers equipment and went to the lake. It was around -5 degrees chilly enough to experience a cold water plunge. However, we need it to make a nice hole in the lake and that was quite challenging, breaking a 15 cm ice cover was a great warm-up. Some volunteers have done this first time in their life. We did a few jumping jacks and squats. In the beginning, our bodies were in a huge shock. Our breaths speeded up. The most important thing is was start controlling our breaths and calm down. After a few seconds, our bodies adopted the temperature difference. We were staying in the water for around two minutes which was enough to feel that our level of endorphins is going up. After that, we were feeling really energized. Well, a cold water plunge can wake us up better than a cup of coffee !