Annie enjoys surprises. On a recent visit I decided that I’d surprise her with a visit to the Badeschiff—a river barge that has been converted into a swimming pool floating in the icy waters of the Spree.

Because it is winter, the proprietors of the Badeschiff have converted it into something more resembling a spa than a swimming pool. The various docks and the floating barge/pool itself have been covered with a modernist plywood and plastic sheeting structure that serves to keep the heat in. There are recliners and magazines, a bar with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, big fluffy towels and bathrobes, a masseuse, and two saunas that are kept so breathtakingly hot that Annie and I could not quite manage the fifteen minutes till the scheduled steaming (every hour on the hour).

The pool is probably (necessarily) heated, but was still shockingly cold (especially after the sauna). On either end, it is possible to swim out from under the afore-mentioned modernist plywood/plastic enclosure and into the open air, from which vantage you can gaze curiously at the chunks of ice floating by, and at the ducks on said ice chunks staring intently back at you with an envious longing twinkling in their beady little ducky eyes.

The saunas and the lounge chairs seemed to be the most popular accoutrements.

And this brings me to an interesting point, a cultural difference that I knew about in the abstract, but some how contrived not to think about when planning the surprise: everyone was nekkid. This included Annie and me after the first swim ‘cause, well, swim suits just seemed silly under the circumstances.

Thus it was that I myself was surprised by my surprise.

After the initial shock it was fairly nice. And there were the fluffy towels and bathrobes when everyone was not actually swimming or in the sauna. Which is good, since there are really very few people I want to see naked. And even fewer who I want to see me naked.

I think Annie enjoyed the sauna and the deck chairs more than the pool. She was quite a wimp about the pool, actually, and I only managed to coax her into the water once after the sauna. One of my enduring memories—one of the ones that will be sure to flit through my brain as my life flashes before my eyes on my deathbed (or as that bus bears down on me)—will be of Annie clinging to that ladder, bare-ass naked, one foot in the water, covered in chicken skin, as a couple of German men bobbing in the pool below her shout words of encouragement.

There were kinder and gentler ways of cooling down after the sauna.

And so we found ourselves enjoying the odd experience of standing on a little patio at 10 o’clock at night with our fellow over-heated sauna-goers, steaming gently in the winter air and exposing ourselves to the incredulous scrutiny of the ducks—who were probably wondering why we didn’t go back inside, or grow some feathers, or just go home already so that they could try to sneak into the pool.