The oldest and simplest story

Jumping naked into the Baltic Sea in Swedish November

NOT the steps to the naked bathhouse (photos not allowed there, obvs!) but steps on a similar pier into the same freezing sea.

The naked bathhouse sits at the end of a pier over the Baltic Sea in Malmö, Sweden. It is a long, low wooden structure painted pale mint green, and it looks like something from pre-World War I, where ladies in little hats and brown dresses might have tea and discuss marriage prospects.

In 2024, the naked bathhouse consists of extremely hardy and stoic older Swedes, dipping silently in and out of the freezing sea and then baking silently in the sauna; extremely hardy and stoic younger Swedes, dipping silently in and out of the freezing sea and reading depressing-looking novels in the sauna; and a hodgepodge of giddy, shrieking foreigners, of which Elena and I were two.