Kalinka Moya!

Graptolite's Sailing Log
Martyn Pickup & Heike Richter
Tue 26 Apr 2011 14:38
44:04.61N 012:34.35E Rimini, Italy, Tuesday 26th April 2011. The skipper is
in Berlin.

I'm as English as they come and so it came as a bit of a shock to find
myself yesterday in a "sauna park" resort to the southeast of Berlin at a
lake called Schaermutzelsee. It was a Christmas gift from Frank and Micki,
Heike's sister. I had never really imagined myself willingly strutting about
in the altogether with a crowd of Germans but, with a few exceptions, nobody
really justified much of a second glance so it was easy to fit in.

A "sauna park" has a selection of saunas to cater for all tastes and
temperatures. One was a Siberian banja where you go to be thrashed with
twigs while loudly singing "ka-linka, ka-linka, kalinka moya". Another sauna
was done out like a mine-working where the Aufguss girl leaps around while
sloshing bottles of slivovitz and throwing snowballs on the hot coals in an
old mine cart. Very strange. Very German.

M