Thursday, January 07, 2016

Day 8 - Part 2: Ice, Ice Baby!

First look inside
Here it is.  Your moment of zen.  What you've been waiting for.  Its Snow Hotel-time!!

Lets go.....through the keyhole!

But... wait!  First.....

A few fun facts about our lodgings for the evening.  Its really quite impressive what they manage to achieve in the 7 weeks they have from when its cold enough for the ice to freeze to when the first visitor rocks up for the winter season!  The ice carvers are actually from China, home of the world's largest and best ice scuplting festival.  Here's the blurb about the SnowHotel on their website http://www.kirkenessnowhotel.com/:

Everyone is welcome for a fun and exciting stay in our amazing winter wonderland.

Kirkenes Snowhotel opened for the first time in 2006, and since then we have been giving our guests a wonderful experience in one of Norway’s most beautiful surroundings.  


"is it time to go in yet?!"
Snow is a very good insulator, so when it is minus thirty degrees outside, the SnowHotel remains a stable minus four degrees. This special ability of snow insulation can also be seen in Mother Nature. For example, the snow grouse makes caves in the deep snow during winter to keep warm and save its energy inside the shelter. Husky dogs also cover themselves in snow to keep warm.

Every room in Kirkenes Snowhotel is like a small treasure. The rooms are five metres in diameter, and they are equipped with everything needed for a comfortable night. Photos appear to look like you are sleeping on ice, but that would be too cold and too hard for your back.  The beds are framed with ice blocks and the beds have comfortable mattresses with thermal insulation on top. You sleep inside a sleeping bag graded for -35 degrees Celsius.

All of our 25 rooms have a different theme from our Arctic culture or nature. The lighted ice sculptures give the SnowHotel a very cosy and special atmosphere.   In every room there are decorations and sculptures made from ice and snow. These beautiful designs are created by artists from the specialist ice-sculpting Chinese city of Harbin.

In constructing the hotel’s Icebar and sculptures, more than 15 tonnes of ice is used. Once again the expertise of the Chinese ice artists are used, and every year, we are astonished at their creations and attention to detail.  All the ice comes from the frozen lake close to the SnowHotel. We cut the ice with chainsaws and pull it with snowmobiles into the SnowHotel. In the middle of winter this ice is 70 centimetres thick. The Icebar and the sculptures are designed differently every year. It is always exciting to see what kind of sculptures the artists find hidden in the ice.

You ready to go inside yet?

Oh, go on, then.  Here's a quick video of our first look inside - the largest room in the hotel, the Ice Bar.

Pretty cool (ahem), eh?  This part is the main chamber of the hotel, serving as the IceBar after dinner where we were to enjoy one (or two) shots of icy-cold vodka later on out of shot glasses made of ice!  This was still in the early part of the day, though, so instead we were handed little glasses full of winterberry juice instead, which was dark purple, sweetly thick and delicious!

Our guide talked for a few minutes to tell us more about how the hotel was constructed - the walls of the main dome are six meters thick down at the base, three meters thick at the top and its built out of a mixture of snow and ice, called sn'ice - which is nice!  I asked what happens when it melts and whether it gets unsafe to be in, and our guide told us that it actually melts from the top down.  After it starts to get warmer outside and things start to melt, one day you'll just see a little hole in the roof - and this hole will get progressively bigger and bigger each day until the whole structure has melted down and you are left with a kind of icy ring-fence on the ground.  After that happens, then they demolish the rest of it and cart the ice away so that the ground has time to dry up ahead of the whole process beginning again the next year.  Fascinating stuff.
the bar was carved in the shape of a viking
boat - this was the prow, carved like a dragon
ManpanionTM checking out the bar scene
Me, feeling cool.
Icy torch, lighting up the room
And curiously, a shovel handle buried in the
snow tunnel ceiling.  Didn't spot a little
gloved hand nearby fortunately....
After she finished her spiel, we were then free to wander about and go and explore the 25 different rooms, all uniquely decorated with different carvings and sculptures.  I'm not entirely sure what some of the themes have to do with either the Arctic or nature (Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, I'm looking at you!) but all were just incredible.  Most of the rooms were set up for 2 people but there were a few that could accommodate larger groups or families, with 3 or 4 little pillows set out, side by side.  Here are pics of some of the rooms: enjoy!











Eeek!!  Don't blink!!




Each room number was etched onto the wall
outside - privacy was provided by little fleecy
curtains forming a "door"
Frozen, anyone?


ManpanionTM tries to chat up the local talent.
She was a little frosty.

This turned out to be our room
The Taj Nippal
Minds out of the gutter, please.
I was admiring the beautiful carved
pattern on the side of the bar
 It really was incredibly impressive.  Especially done in such a short space of time.
First course for dinner - reindeer tartare and snow.
S'no joke.  

But I know what you are thinking.  Where on earth do you pee??

Just moo-sing about after dinner
Good question - and this is where the rest of the structure that is helpfully not made of ice comes in!  So right at the end of the corridor where the rooms are is another door - and this one leads into the barn structure, restaurant and lounge areas I was telling you about in my previous blog.  It also houses the loos, showers and sauna area as well as a luggage storage facility AND, most importantly, the place where you collected the sleeping bag that was going to keep you alive through the night!

Comfy cosy sitting area by the restaurant
During dinner, our guide (who's name I've forgotten - sorry!) went through what to expect and how to stay warm during our overnight sleep.  Each of us was to get one of the big sleeping bags (properly fitted to our height) and instructed on the best way to use it - basically, the fewer layers on you have, the better and warmer you will be.  The sleeping bag is warmed up through direct contact with your body, so if you went to sleep wearing all the layers you were wearing outside, you'd wake up cold a couple of hours later, as your body heat would not have been able to warm up the bag.  We also had access to additional thick woolen socks and balaclava hats and - with that - we were assured we would be just fine!

Our CouchpanionTM
Now - back to the loos.  Obviously there are no loos within the actual snowy ice bit of the hotel itself - all the bathrooms are in the permanent structure.  The rooms were handed out via a lottery - and the trick here was to get a room with a higher number (in the 20's preferably) rather than a lower number, because that would mean that your room would be much closer to the bathroom end of the corridor, rather than the ice bar end!  And you definitely wanted that in case you had to get up in the middle of the night for a pee!

Our number was 12 - just right near the Ice Angel - and was the room with the crazy-eyed fox carved onto the wall.  OK - could have been better, but could have been much worse (ugh for Room 1!).  But then, in a twist of fate that again had us wondering if they had ever done this before, it turned out they had TWO bookings for us.  One in my name, and one in Matt's!  On learning we'd gotten room 12, I asked if there was any possibility to get a room closer to the bathroom - but as it happened, Matt's duplicate booking had been assigned room 22!!!  Bonza!!!  So we ended up sleeping under the skirts of Marilyn Monroe for the night, just a couple of doors down from the bathroom - result!!

After dinner, of course we had to partake in a few rounds of shots in the ice bar.  Matt brought his guitar out and we ended up having a little informal jam session, sitting on chairs carved out of ice, covered in a fur rug.  we'd made friends with this very chirpy British couple during dinner, so it was fun to hang out with them for a bit too.  The bar wasn't open very long (its not really the kind of place you'd chill out in for a couple of hours) but we made good use of it while it was open for business!  Drinking icy-cold Norwegian vodka shots, flavored by sweet blueberries, out of shot glasses carved of ice was, well, very cool!  (and eye-wateringly expensive, but what the hell - once in a lifetime experience, right!).

The upper barn restaurant where
we'd had reindeer sausages and apple
cider earlier on
After about an hour, the bar closed up and we retired upstairs to the comfy warm lounge for a bit, to defrost and mentally prepare ourselves for our impending icy slumbers!  After everyone else had gone to bed, we figured we couldn't put it off any longer and headed downstairs to our snowquarters. We'd already laid our sleeping bags out ready on the bed, so all we had to do was get VERY quickly undressed to our thermal underlayers and hop inside, remembering to put our outer layer of clothes inside the bag, so they'd be warm to put back on the next morning.  Our boots?  Well, they had to be left by the side of the bed, so would be a bit chilly in the morning, but we'd survive.  And then, with a kiss goodnight and wishing each other luck, we bedded down for the night.  There was no light to turn off - just the soft illumination shining right up Marilyn's skirt behind the bed.  Fortunately, snuggling down into the sleeping bag blocked that out, so it wasn't a problem.

The huskies get everywhere here...
And how did we sleep?  Well, for my part, remarkably well - at least initially.  You really were nicely warm and toasty and snuggly in your (individual) sleeping bags - sometimes even too hot!  Then you would just try and vent some of the heat by exposing more of your face to the air - until it then got too chilly on your nose, so you'd burrow back down, d.mouse-like, into your sleeping bag again!  I did have to get up in the middle of the night for a pee but given our proximity, it was no big deal and within a few minutes I was back in my bag again.  I did accidentally slam my right knee into the corner of the ice-carved platform though, which was very painful.  My delightful ManpanionTM suggested I put ice on it - thanks, my darling.  VERY helpful suggestion.

And so that was it.  We survived our night in the SnowHotel!  I won't say it was the most comfortable experience I've ever been through - but it was certainly memorable and one that I am very glad I did! The next morning, there was time for a shower, a very welcome hot cup of tea and toast before catching the bus back into Kirkenes.

Tomorrow, its time to start the long, long journey back home to Chicago - and to SUNLIGHT!!!!
Wool rocks.

I packed one of these as a souvenir but I can't
find it anymore.  Must have lost it en route...
One of the crazily chirpy British contingent
Our guide and mixologist for the evening
Bottoms-up!!
Huddled against the cold with my
WarmpanionTM
...and with friends!
"Is this the way out?"

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Day 8 - Part 1: "Don't wear anything you don't want covered in poo"

So went the advice given to us by our dining table companions, Annisa and Jack, on learning about our plans following their dog-sledding adventure the day previously. "Wear the coats they give you.  Wear the gloves they give you.  Wear the boots!  Wear everything!"

Um. OK.   Obviously brown is going to be the new black today.

Frigidly cold, stunning Kirkenes landscape.
What could that possibly be?  Surely not a hotel made of
snow and ice??
So, yes, today was a big day, in which we got to break out of our tiny cabin and leave the ship for the comforting icy embrace of the Snowhotel!  Whoo hoo!!  We were up bright and early (well, I was - ManpanionTM was less enthused by the early start!) to shower and have breakfast, ahead of having to vacate our cabins around 8am.  We'd put our main suitcases outside the cabin the night before, so all we had to do was gather our last few bits and pieces and wait til we docked at Kirkenes to disembark.  Despite trying to get some clarity about the sequence and order of events of the day, it was all still a bit confusing - we were obviously staying overnight at the Snow Hotel, but had also booked a husky ride from 1-3pm, so we weren't entirely sure what was supposed to happen on either side of that!   We'd been told to take the shuttle bus at the dock marked up for the Snow Hotel, so we figured to hell with it, we'll do that and see what happens!



We'd also been advised that the disembarkation process was a little, well, chaotic!  And they were right!  There were probably at least a couple of hundred people getting off at Kirkenes - firstly looking to be reunited with their luggage (which was lined up along the dockside) and secondly, trying to figure out which of the masses of buses they should get on!!  We managed to struggle through and found ourselves on the right bus so, after only about a half hour of fannying about, we were underway, heading off to the last part of our adventure!!

ManpanionTM meets Dogpanion for the
 first time
Here's what the Lonely Planet says about Kirkenes:
This is it: you're as far east as Cairo, further east than most of Finland, a mere 15km from the border with Russia – and at the end of the line for the Hurtigruten coastal ferry. It's also road's end for the E6, the highway that runs all the way down to Oslo.
This tiny, nondescript place, anticlimactic for many, has a distinct frontier feel. You'll see street signs in Norwegian and Cyrillic script and hear Russian spoken by trans-border visitors and fishermen, who enjoy better prices for their catch here than in their home ports further to the east.
The town reels with around 100,000 visitors every year, most stepping off the Hurtigruten to spend a couple of hours in the town before travelling onward. But you should linger a while here, not primarily for the town's sake but to take one of the many excursions and activities on offer.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/norway/finnmark/kirkenes#ixzz3wWQJwA9C

Be careful of those chocolate kisses!
It only took us about 20mins, driving through the icy cold and snowy countryside to reach the location of the Kirkenes Snow Hotel, which was also where the huskies were kenneled.  We passed a number of lakes ("this first lake we are going past... is called First Lake"......"this next lake we are going past is called....yes, Second Lake") that were surprisingly unfrozen.  Apparently this is because the gulfstream current keeps this region "warm" - otherwise everything would be frozen solid like Siberia and none of the trees & vegetation & wildlife would be able to survive the winter.  Thank God for the gulfstream, is all I can say.  Even with it, it was plenty cold enough!!

We arrived at the SnowHotel just after 10am, by which case it had got just a tiny bit lighter.  This far north, forget about seeing the actual sun!  There were about 20 of us on the bus, some of whom were overnight guests like us, others just there for a tour of the SnowHotel before returning back to town later on in the day.

Our guide was a lovely friendly chap called Milly who was wonderfully enthusiastic about his dogs - he told us all about how they should be cared for, so they don't overheat and also how they are incredibly loyal and competitive.  Huskies just live to run so he was telling us that you have to be very careful not to let them overrun, otherwise they will just keep going until they overheat and actually die.  In case you ever fancy getting an Alaskan or Siberian Husky, here are a few things you should know first: http://www.wikihow.com/Take-Care-of-an-Alaskan-Husky

Husky Nation as far as the eye can see!
As he was telling us some of this, we couldn't see the dogs - but oh, could we hear them!!  There was a tour going out as we arrived, so we could hear the huskies in full voice, baying and howling with either excitement about their impending outing, or in frustration that they were kept leashed up while their doggie-mates were having fun!  As we headed over towards them, it got louder and louder - the cacophony was incredible!  One of the most surprising things was how friendly they were.  I'm not a massive doggy person, but even I had to admit they were incredibly endearing.  PLUS they didn't seem covered in poo at all!!  I kept my distance to be on the safe side, but ManpanionTM finally couldn't resist their canine charms and had some snuggles and he seemed not to be covered in husky nuggets, so not sure what Annisa and Jack were on about!!

Look into my eyes.... you are feeling very
sleeeeeeepy............
After oo-ing and ah-ing over the huskies for a while, we then went and had a look at the reindeer, including a very rare white one that is revered by the native Sami people.  Apparently a white reindeer is thought to thought to represent change in one of two ways - either a baby or death.  Awesome.  Good job I'm not a Sami or I'd be worried.  After looking at the reindeer, it was finally time to take a look round the snowhotel.......

....but more on that later! (in part 2!)

After our tour of the Snowhotel (which was incredible, btw), we all regrouped and warmed up in the building attached to it (a converted old barn) where we snacked on hot apple cider and reindeer sausages wrapped in this thin little potato pancake with mustard.  Then it was time for the non-overnight guests to leave and Matt and I were just left hanging about in the barn, with a couple of hours to kill before our husky tour.  There really was not much else to do, so we found ourselves a comfy couch in the lounge area and - yes, you guessed it - had a nap (or at least tried to).  Again, it was a real struggle to stay awake (it was pretty much dark again by midday) so we made ourselves as cosy as possible to snooze it out.
Proof that huskies can, indeed, grin from
ear to ear!

Around 12pm, we decided to go in search of food.  In our tour earlier that morning, we'd gone past one of the little restaurants, called Gabba housed in a Sami-style hut.  Here's the official description from the Snow Hotel's website:

This is how it all started – a few benches around a crackling bonfire.

Today, Gabba is the obvious choice for lunch in the winter season. Seating 40 people around the open fire in the middle, and built as a traditional Sami “lavvu”, Gabba Restaurant is truly special.


After a long day in the snow – what could be better than warming up with a bowl of hot fish soup, warmed over the fire?


Rolling in snow - that's one happy doggie!
Gabba restaurant was, indeed, truly special as it seemed to be a restaurant that specialized in the art of not serving any food!  When we went in, just after midday, there was only one guy there.  Now, I'm not sure if it was his first day or not, but he seemed utterly confused by our request to order some food.  He made some sort of comment that he was putting away dishes for the moment, so his confusion rubbed off on us, and we confusedly went and sat down at one of the wooden tables next to the central fire.   After a few minutes, we came to, thought "this is ridiculous" and went to ask if he had any menus and can we order some food?  He gave us a menu which had a total of 4 things on it - basically soup, sandwiches, sausage or cake and went back to arranging dishes with an even more harried air.  To cut a long story short, there then was a very confusing exchange where we tried to order soup, before being told it wasn't available, only for the people ordering after us to order - and receive - some soup!!   Fortunately to save us from our spiral of confusion and despair over ever getting fed, back-up arrived in the form of a young NZ guy (we guessed his nationality right in the end!) who thankfully took our order - and who brought us food, semi-warmed up over the fire, a mere 30mins later.  What a palava.  If you didn't know better, you'd think this was the first time they'd ever done this and they were making this stuff up as they went along!!  And - the biggest irony of all?  When we were ordering drinks, Manpanion wanted a whiskey on the rocks - but, guess what?  THEY HAD NO ICE!!!!

Milly and his favorite husky
By this stage, it was 1pm and lunch had taken so long it was then time for us to go for our husky ride!  Yippee!!  Our tour was to run from 1pm - 3pm and we'd been told to get there at 1.10pm - which we duly did.  Shame no-one else turned up to take care of us and get us dressed and ready until almost 2pm!!  Again, it seemed almost comically disorganized - you have one job to do - get the huskies ready for a tour at 1pm.  How is it that you can't get your collective acts together when this is all you do??  But finally, someone came to get us and shoehorn us into the massive (oh so sexy) oversuits and hats and gloves that were necessary to keep us warm on our trip.  And to protect us from flying poo, obviously.

We had a different musher to Milly - a seasoned pro who lived for his dogs, taking them out training 5-6 days a week, for runs of 70-100km each time.  He was talking about competing in the Iditarod and other long-distance challenges, so again, you got a deep appreciation for the sheer power and athleticism of these incredible animals.  We only had 5 dogs hooked up to our sled (most of the others had 6 and a few had 8) but this dog team was truly professional, so i guess 5 is all we needed.

Feeling slightly guilty about our supper on NYE
We got loaded into the sled, were told very clearly where to keep our hands and feet (so they wouldnt get caught under the runners and snap off) and, with very little pre-amble, we were off!!  WHOOOSH!!!  Man, it was FAST!!  Unfortunately my iPhone had run out of juice by this stage, so I dont have video of our sled taking off, but you can see in one of the vids I took of another one doing just that  - and boy don't they shift!!!  I spent the first half of the trip concentrating my head off making sure I didn't fall off, as it was super bumpy, especially going over the rolling hills and little bumps in the ground at high speed.  The musher had his brakes on pretty much the whole time to stop the dogs going too quickly - and just as well as it was fast enough for my liking!  We cut it close a few times to some branches and marker poles, but neither of us ended up losing any fingers, toes or eyes so all was well.  The second half of the trip, I started to relax a bit - but, before we knew it, we were back at the snowhotel and the ride was over!  Wait, what??  We were probably only out for about 20mins, so it felt a little disappointing and a bit of a swizz, given it was pegged as a 2hr tour.  I guess we just had different expectations going into it.  But, nevertheless, it was a fantastic experience and still well worth doing - but it would have been nice to have had a bit longer, given all the waiting around and build up.

An incredibly rare, and rather eventful, white reindeer
By this stage it was 3pm, so we had another couple of hours to kill until the final overnight guests arrived and we were due to attend orientation about "how to survive a night in a snowhotel" so, yep, we headed back to our couch and picked up the ZZZ's where we left off.

And...at last... 5pm rolled around, so it was finally time for Snowmaggedon and the snowhotel!!   I can't wait to tell you about it tomorrow.....

Crushing on the reindeer socks
The sophisticated oven in the kitchen in the
restaurant where food is more a concept than
an actual reality
After a long wait, ManpanionTM and I were
mildly hysterical about ACTUALLY GETTING
SOME FOOD TO EAT FOR LUNCH!
Our musher proving that he made the right choice
not pursing photography as a career.  That's actually
me and Matt in the sledge.
Looking a little nervous before the off!

Assorted husky vids so you can get a sense of how noisy and excitable these incredible animals are.  After being around them and watching them in action, the cruelty would be keeping them confined and not to let them run.  These are friendly and tame, but wild at heart, creatures that - in the words of the great man himself - were Born To Run.  I hope you get to meet one one day.