Breaststroke, Literally in Magical Realism

• We landed in Finnish Lapland from Helsinki early afternoon. Even the airport was really festive, welcoming swimmers coming into town.

• The town of Rovaniemi is marketed as the "Hometown of Santa Claus" so there were Santa things everywhere. I may have a coal-black heart but I found this really creepy for some reason.

• We checked into the hotel and the first thing I noticed was a stuffed reindeer toy decorating the bed. The second thing I noticed was that interestingly, the back wall of the bathroom was separated from the bedroom by a glass wall with full view of the tub and shower. If you got the right angle you could also see the toilet. Ha!

• We were both zonked so settled in for a nice nap. Woke up in the early evening and took a walk around town to get our bearings. Went down to the lake where you could see the pool cut out of the ice already, it was by a very pretty, modern looking bridge

• In town there were a ton of bars and restaurants, and almost everything was open but close to empty. Strange. In unfamiliar places, I like to choose bars/restaurants by looking in at how many people are inside, if I like the look of the people inside, etc., but every place here seemed to be vacant or have only 1-2 tables occupied.

• We were really hungry so we ended up choosing Hai Long mainly because I liked the over the top chinoiserie decor. Food was okay, nothing amazing but probably could have been a lot worse.

• We went down the street to Oluthuone which was kind of a rustic feeling bar. Ordered two types of beers and a shot of Fernet-Branca each, for some reason the night just called for that herb/medicinal type of taste.

• The next day we went grocery shopping, picked up my swim registration materials, and attended a safety briefing where they went over the procedures for the swims. Mostly Russian and Finnish people with the usual small but vocal British contingent.

• Walked over the bridge to the pool to check it out again, this time the pool was mostly finished, they had cut it out of the ice with big trucks the week before but were still adding in sides, lane-lines, timing mats:

• Next to the pool they were also carving out a mini-stadium for spectators and doing ice carvings/sculptures for decoration. Here is A with Lumikko the snowman (his name means "weasel"?)

• After that we went back to the hotel, had a quick dinner, then put on snowpants/big coats for the opening ceremony in the town square.

• It was seriously one of the most bizarre displays I've ever seen! They had a lot of announcements, then a modern dance troupe came on and did an interpretive dance in swimsuits/goggles/caps over pants, striped shirts, and red caps...kind of like dancing, swimming mimes is the best way I can describe it?

• At one point they brought a hollowed out fridge onto the stage and the dancers were coming in and out of it. Then Santa Claus came out, it was completely wacky and amazing. After they were finished, one of the emcees announced that the dance was named, "YOLO." YOLO indeed. More announcements, some lights and fireworks, then the festivities concluded and everyone headed to the bars.

• Venue of choice this night was Oliver's Corner, an Irish pub. There is something oddly comforting in the fact you can go pretty much anywhere in the world and there will be an Irish bar. Had a few beers, met lots of crazy swimmers, but kept it a fairly early night.

• The next day was time to brave the ice pool!

• We had assigned swim times throughout the day and a pretty specific protocol to follow: badges were labeled with the time we were supposed to show up, get assigned to a changing cabin (basically a trailer), 20 minutes to change, then head down to the staging tent where you'd line up by row based on your assigned lane by start group (heat) and then move through a series of rows of chairs until it was your time to parade out.

• The changing cabins were pretty wild - lots of stressed out people and the Russian swimmers had a lot of handlers that would come in, massage them, bring them carb drinks, etc. All the female Russian swimmers in my age group were really fit, gorgeous, and wearing full makeup!

• After the staging tent, you'd come out in (mostly) full clothing, stand in front of your lane, then the announcer would say, "Take off your clothes."

• There was one male, one female announcer and hearing the female announcer saying "Take off your clothes" in a monotone, clinical voice (a la Arnold Schwartzenegger in Terminator) was pretty much the funniest thing ever.

• At that command, you'd strip down to your speedo and put everything else in a little basket at the end of the lane.

• 3 seconds later, the next command was "Get in the water" and that was the hard part - climbing down an icy ladder and submerging your shoulders.

• Once everyone was in it was "Take Your Marks..." and then the beep. Whole process goes pretty quickly, but nothing seems quick when you're in +1degree C/34degrees F water. I start to shake immediately when I'm in cold water but not moving, so between steps 2 and 3 was the hardest for me.

• Stripping down (I am the plain black speedo in front of red banner slightly left of center, please notice I am pulling up the straps of my suit...foreshadowing!)

• Some music is playing and they tell us to get in the water, I climb down the ladder and it's not unbearable, but it's not pleasant (between races they have helpers skimming the pool for ice chunks that are continuously forming)

• Starting beep sounds and I get a crap push off, can't put my head underwater, so just moving my arms/legs as fast as I can. The Russians are way ahead of me already and I am even with people in knitted caps. Knitted caps!

• I catch the knitted caps and am trying to chase the Russian girls when I realize that something is very wrong with my swimsuit. As in, it's somehow fallen down and my boobs have completely popped out the top. Grreeeeeeat. There was no dive or even a good push off so I'm not sure if it's just an old suit, defective, or the super-cold water had something to do with this, but I frantically try and pull the suit up and it's just not happening. WTF. And of course there is a photographer at the end of my lane, snapping away. I manage to finish but am mortified.

• Put on my towel, walk over to A and commence freaking out. After a few minutes I feel a bit better but am still freaked out about the photographer. I have visions of ending up on some blooper reel or "look at these crazy topless ice-swimmers" type thing. In the end I calmed myself down. I was disappointed in myself for swimming crappily and flashing everyone on that end of the pool to boot, but in the end it's not really a big deal.
• Changed out of my wet/defective speedo, alternating between reassuring myself that no one noticed, with thinking about gorgeous Nathan Adrian's similar swimsuit malfunction.
• Threw the offending swimsuit into the garbage, had some hot tea and crepes with cloudberry jam (YUM) then went home to do it all again the next day.
• The next day it was snowing but still sunny and while I was still mediocre in the freestyle events, at least no once saw my nipples.
• I saw some swimmers I know from NYC and had some amazing grilled salmon and beers at the outdoor bar/restaurant.
• After the last day there was a gala dinner at the Hotel Santa Claus' Restaurant Gaissa. There was a light snow and pop-up ice bar, and a disco into the week hours. So much fun.
• After the festivities concluded, we climbed a huge mount of snow that was in the town square, then went to play pool at our hotel.
• The next day the town was completely empty again, we had dinner at a completely random but strangely decent Mexican (?) restaurant, Amarillo.
• Had an early night and woke up in plenty of time to hit the grocery store, walk to the bus station and catch the next bus even further North for more chilly adventures!

To be continued...