Ushering In the New Year In Estonia With Another Icy Winter Dip

This time — Sunday, New Year’s day 2003 — it was in a beautiful, large outdoor public pool, ice chopped away from the sides (a few inches thick on the inner surface), allowing swimmers access to the water.

You may recall my first immersion in the frigid winter waters of northern Europe was in Finland, where I learned, after the initial plunge, how long-lasting the refreshing the effects of a plunge into near-freezing waters can be.

Note (I understand at least some viewers can’t load the video. I just posted it on Facebook. Here’s a link):

https://youtube.com/shorts/cuC7QfIvPcc?feature=share

Jelena, my lovely Airbnb host in Tallinn, said it’s a New Year’s Day tradition for her family and invited me along. She not only cooked roast duck for dinner on New Year’s Eve, she took the video and photo.

This was different than my recent Finnish immersion, in the Kemi river, in that here there was a hot water tub close by that you could alternate with the cold water pool. I took a second dip in the pool after the hot tub. The tingling sensation going from cold to hot to cold again was exhilarating.

The positive effects on my mental and physical disposition lasted for several days in Rovaniemi. I’m looking forward to the impact this latest plunge will have.

Otherwise, the New Year’s celebration was sparkling with booming aerial fireworks displays in neighborhoods throughout the city at midnight, lasting up to half an hour, but without the incessant cacophony of firecrackers throughout the day and night that I’ve lived through in so many other New Year’s Eve celebrations in different places in my travels.

I was hoping to get this post done sooner but I struggled with getting the video to load. Still not the way it should be, I’m afraid, but I’m working on it. Hope it worked for you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!