Lost in transit

Aufguss

I spent the better part of yesterday naked among strangers at a spa, and much of that sweating in various saunas.

Sauna etiquette was one of the bigger surprises when I moved to Austria; I had not suspected there was such a thing. Basically, it consists of two main elements:

1. you must do it naked, and
   
2. the Aufguss

Element 1 should be self-explanatory, so I'll describe the second part.

Most saunas here are of the dry, Finnish type. With such low humidity, you don't sweat much and the high temperatures are more bearable. You sit on a bench in the sauna and watch the other people in the sauna while pretending to watch the stones on the heater at the center of the room.

After ten or fifteen minutes of everyone peering about out the corners of their eyes, a man will stand up, you know the type, a showoff type, wrap a towel around his waist, take another towel in hand and walk over to the heater. Then he repeatedly ladles water, or crushed ice, over the stones. This is known as the Aufguss, which would mean "the pouring on" of water. Anyway. Besides an entertaining sizzling sound, the hot air instantly humidifies. Suddenly, the extreme heat is less bearable. Everyone in the sauna sweats profusely.

The others, mostly seasoned retirees with leathery skin, do not seem to mind this.

Then the Aufguss man waves his second towel around in circles over his head. The hot, moist breeze intensifies the experience. Then he waves his towel at each person individually.

Then the applause. Everyone applauds this, and he asks if he should do it again, and they all say yes so he repeats it. The guy yesterday did it three times. Then they all sit around for a few minutes to enjoy the intense heat while I stagger out to take a cold shower.

It's one of the wonderful things about living in Austria.

Posted by Mig at April 3, 2003 09:43 AM