Ice hotel? More like Nice Snowtel.

23 Feb

I wonder how the Quebec Ice Hotel stacks up against the Swedish, Iceland, and Finnish ones. If I had to rank them I bet the Finnish one would be the best because Finns are masters of the ice – be it with their powerful boats that smash it in the harbour or in the vodka drinks that contain their famous Vodka (Finlandia: it’s a quality vodka *and* tone poem). Also, what is one supposed to do in the Finnish winter besides build a house out of ice and then watch it melt in the summertime.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that we survived last night’s minus fifteen degrees celsius with almost no major problems as the training course adequately prepared us for the experience of trying to sleep in the cold. The instructor Claudine showed us how to use the sleeping bag (a minus thirty degrees rated North Face) and she also suggested we wear a hat. So everything was good on the physical comfort front.

Where we ran into problems was with the acoustics in the room. I figured that the snow walls would muffle my snoring to a quite, almost musical-like whisper – a sound so pleasant it would lull everyone within earshot into a peaceful slumber. This turned out to be true for the people in the other rooms but for one half of the guests staying in our room, it was problematic. This is because the snow structure seemed to amplify the sounds not quieten them.

So my apologies to Sarah. I promise the next time we stay overnight in hotel made from snow, I will bring ear plugs, a white noise generator, some Ambien, and a separate igloo for me to sleep in.