Ice Hotel - Suprise Engagement

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Leanne thought we were going to London to enjoy a stage show, 24 hours later she was engaged and in the sureal setting of the Ice Hotel 200km inside the arctic circle. A holiday to beat all holidays, the most amazing place we have ever been to. At it coldest the temparature was a chilling -28F.

DAY 1
We woke up at 5:30 on Monday morning, we packed our bags and headed for central London to visit the capital ;-).
Leanne was supirsed to see me pulling into Heathrow airport and started asking questions. We boarded a plan to Stockholm and enjoyed the flight. At Stockholm airport the suprise was out of the bag and Leanne started worrying about The Ice Hotel lol. We enjoyed a pint in the bar before boarding a plane to Kiruna. When we arrived at Kiruna we disembarked the plane onto a frozen runway and our breath was took away by the freezing air. A husky sledge was waiting for us and we dressed into our warm gear which Mason had pre bought in a shopping trip with the Leannes family. The sledge ride took 45 minutesfrom Kiruna to Jukkasarvi and the beauty on the place became apparent, we can best describe it as a winter Narnia.
We pulled upto the Ice Hotel and enjoyed a warm drink, Mase picked the Iceicles off his face and we began our tour of the Ice Hotel. After our How to survive a night in the Ice Hotel talk, we headed off around the Hotel and enjoyed the amazing rooms and quickly snapped loads of pictures (thanks Mam&Dad Mason for the camera). We then went to the restaurant and ate possibly the nicest meat we have ever tasted - Reindeer meat in red wine sauce. It was pricey but we more than made up for it in free bread lol. After the meal we got our warm clothes back on went for several vodka drinks in the frozen ice bar. After drinking too much Vodka/Lingleberry juice we fetched our sleeping bag and made the run of shame in our bed clothes to the Ice Suite:Room 101. It was the fastest i have seen Leanne move in my life, but it was -6 inside the hotel and we only had thermal underwear on. Waiting in the room for Leanne was a rose and a heart shaped box carved from ice, inside she found her engagment ring, and Leanne accepted the propasal for marriage. We quickly jumped into our sleeping bags and settled down for the night on our bed of ice.

DAY 2
We were woken at 7am by a lovely Swedish lady who gave us a cup full warm Lingleberry juise, tastes a bit like Cranberry juice. The sleeping bags kept us really warm, although Paul's head was out of the sleeping bag and Leanne decided to take off the hat in the middle of the night as he looked warm ??? Hence to say Pauls head was a little frosted over in the morning.
We took quickly ran off to the warm room to get changed for breakfast. The buffet breakfat got hammered in true Leanne Taylor style. Once the waitors had finished watching in amazment as Leanne polished off 5 plates we decided to go for a walk around the Ice Hotel. It was only minus 20 today, we picked up our room keys for our warm accomadation, the rooms were really modern and we quickly made ourselves at home. Later in the day we went on a Reindeer safari with the local sami guide, we were the only 2 people on the tour so we got loads more time on the reinderer sleighs, our local Sami guide was the same age as us, he invited us inside his large wigwam style tent and started a fire, we chatted for hours about local life and we answered his questions about the UK. When we looked it was time to go back to the hotel the sun had went down (it is only above the horizon for 2hours a day at this time of year)and we jumped in the back of the snow sledge. When we got back we had a shower and went to the Ice Bar. We chatted with a couple from Aberdeen, and also drank more than a few vodkas, the place seemed a bit quiet so we started on own little party, and soon had the japanese up and dancing with us. When the bar closed we rolled off home, and polished off a bottle of champagne, Mase decided to dive naked into the snow to sober himself up. He quickly jumped back into the shower to heat himself back up, the snow was like fire touching his skin.

DAY3
Woke up to another clear day and headed off for breakfast. We decided to make the walk to Jukkasjarvi, the tiny local village down the road. We visited to local church which was beutifal and took tons of pictures, we also popped into the local homestead restaurant for drinks and cake, the lady arranged for us to go around the local sami musuem on our own (maner's get you everywere). After throwing Leanne into a snow pile we headed off back to the hotel for some food. Tonight we went in search of the Northern Lights by snowmobile, this was absolute class, the machines can fly let me tell you. The activity lasted 3 hours and was well worth the money, we stopped at the local wilderness hut for smoked salmon rolls and moose soup. We got talking to another young couple who knew a bit more about snowmobiling than us and gave us a few tips on how to thrash the machines. After a more than exciting return (Leanne even had a go) we headed off to the cellar bar for drinks with our new found freinds, several cocktails later we were all a little worse for wair and headed off home, not before polishing off a bottle of wine back at the hotel room with our freinds.

DAY4
Packed our bags, Mase was devasted about leaving. Went around the Ice Hotel one last time and spent our remaining Kronas in the gift shop. We said our goodbyes to our freinds and headed off to the airport. Two flights later and a 4 hour car journey and we were tooked up in bed at home.

You can check out some proffesional photos of the Icet Hotel 2007 by using this link http://www.icehotel.com/

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