Kiruna .. The northern most town in Sweden. It runs throughout the year on the money that comes from its mining industry and has been doing so over the last 100 years. But then around 20 years back some minds with similar creative cravings got together and a masterpiece was born .. THE ICE HOTEL !
When you create something to challenge your own standards then more than often, new standards are set and others simply follow you sooner or later. I don’t know who originally devised the ice hotel and I really don’t want to go thru the history of it. The true creator is not interested in personal recognition, he just wants people to see what he has created and for them to enjoy it .. while he steps aside and watches them wonder at it because by this time he has already moved on, to something else.
The guide at the Ice Hotel, told me that normally the temperature, this time of the year is around – 30 deg centigrade .. it’s the 15th Dec and the temperature today in Kiruna is – 2 Deg .. There is a whole other discussion about the effects of global warming in the Arctics and I am not getting into it. As far as I go ,its just that I got to see an incomplete ice hotel and the term global warming made a whole lot of sense than just cribbing about the + 38 deg in Mumbai ,in December.
Looking at the ice hotel from a distance .. I thot its rather rough, with the cranes still moving the huge blocks of ice .. As I walked through the rooms the outside view didn’t matter. I could feel the warmth of the reindeer skin which covered the entire length and breath of the bed.. all the people including me clicked the pictures lying on the ice bed .. I never thot how it would be to sleep the night on the bed .. I never wanted to stay in that room .. much like I don’t want to touch an object so beautiful that, to just look at it from a distance is enough !
I want to write about how involved, the people working in the ice hotel were in their jobs .. the lady at the reception to the man sculpting a guitar from a block of ice in the ‘Rock n Roll Suite’ of the ice hotel (the suites in the hotel are theme based). But they were just doing what they like .. coz everyone believed in the ICE HOTEL .. just like its creators believed in it !
When you love your work .. the belief comes with it .. and with belief comes joy .. Success and money are just byproduct’s ! The people from around the world look at the ice hotel and applaud the human engineering and the success the many ICE Bars have achieved around the world.
For me, I just applaud all those who love their work and believe that an hotel is possible from a block of ICE !
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