December 8, 2000

7:31 AM

Only 24 more days til the Ice Hotel Quebec opens! You may have heard of the Swedish Ice Hotel, well now they are building one in Canada. A hotel built from ice and snow, and rebuilt every year. It looks beautiful, but I have to wonder, do they bother putting ice machines out in the hall next to the soda machine? Are hair dryers and irons banned? Would you spend a night at an ice hotel? Just remember to pack your fur lined footie pyjamas!
posted by ljc (7 comments total)

Looks fun, in that weird way.
posted by tiaka at 8:57 AM on December 8, 2000

Must ... keep... from... making... blue... ball... joke...

damn too late.

posted by tj at 12:34 PM on December 8, 2000

I've been to Carnaval de Quebec three times... I have never, ever been colder in my life. My daily reprieve was knowing that I would have a warm hotel room to return to each evening... This just seems wrong! Take a space heater!
posted by heather at 12:41 PM on December 8, 2000

Will it have an ice sauna? (Aside: one of my favorite scenes in Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica involves the main characters sliding (naked, of course) down a pitch-black underground ice tunnel at the South Pole station into a geothermal sauna scooped out of the ice. I want to do this.)
posted by rodii at 12:55 PM on December 8, 2000

Heather, I think the proper way to combat the cold at Carnaval is to drink enough Caribou...

Ugh. Pack Tylenol too.
posted by mikel at 1:47 PM on December 8, 2000

Michael.... you are going to have to explain the joys of warm Caribou to everyone... oh, and don't forget those plastic horns. It's my understanding that the horn and Caribou go hand in hand. Last year I wanted to take someone's horn and stick it... um, sorry. I better stop there.
posted by heather at 1:51 PM on December 8, 2000

...where the sun don't shine, I know. Those damn horns will be the death of me. My goodness we're into the minutiae of Quebec/Canadian cultchah here.

Caribou is an alcoholic concoction (and when I say alcoholic I mean don't light a match around it - it'll burn) made supposedly of rum and mulled wine, but I've heard sometimes it's additionally fortified or cut with grain alcohol. It's served in canes with little snowman (Bonhomme de Carnaval) heads that screw off, and are made of plastic like the horns.

Ugh.
posted by mikel at 3:54 PM on December 8, 2000