The Displaced New Mexican

Salt baths, swimming pools and MASS NUDITY

So, did I get your attention there? Yesterday evening a small group of us went to the Wischlingen swimming pool facility here in Dortmund. There are tons of pools around here as swimming is very popular amoung zee Germans, but Wischlingen is a step beyond a normal Hallenbad. A bit costly at 10� per two-and-a-half hour session, it's not something to repeat often, but I had not been there so I tried it. The place is quite large with a huge assortment of pools of different shapes, water compositions and temperatures. We swam in a large pool of saltwater adorned with a little waterfall and some swirling jets. Then, after the group went for a short trip to a heated outdoor pool and I went back to the salt bath to retrieve my goggles, the group split up and a few of us went to the sauna park. Que mass nudity. Funny thing about being naked in a big group of naked people, you really don't think about it at all. Most of the saunas are outside, so we had to walk across concrete pathways on a fairly chilly night with nothing but a towel between us and the cold. It felt pretty good to get into the sauna after that, which was a huge one and not relatively hot. After we were all good and sweaty we headed out for the Eiskeller, sort of like a walk-in freezer with a sink full of crumbled ice to put on yourself. Brought back memories of the old sweat lodge days, for those of you who remember that (we should build another one). Of course Mikko, from Finland where no home is complete without a sauna, was eager to get back into the sweat chambers, but was a little disappointed that there was no water to throw on the rocks. We spent the rest of the evening going in and out of saunas of different temperatures and chatting with a bartender whose only interest seemed to be when there were the most girls there. We ended up staying about 20 minutes too long, so we had to give a couple Euros to a machine at the exit before it would let us out. But it's okay, I'm not going to be going back there every week or anything. Sorry, no pictures today, kids ;)