HOTELS (2)

Before you read (Video quiz):

Watch a short clip about the famous IceHotel in Sweden. After you have finished
watching the clip, take a short quiz below and see how much you know about the Ice
Hotel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eUiR7fhIIBI

Questions:

1. How many weeks does it take to build the Ice Hotel?

(a) 5 weeks
(b) 6 weeks
(c) 7 weeks

2. What feature is the same year after year?

(a) The chandelier

(b) The lobby
(c) The rooms

3. How long is the Ice Hotel open?

(a) 1 month
(b) 2 months
(c) 3 months

4. How many guests stay at least one night?

(a) 12 thousand
(b) 11 thousand
(c) Tens of thousands

5. What are the drinking glasses made of?

(a) Glass
(b) Plastic
(c) Ice

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 http://www.eslvideo.com/esl_video_quiz_low_intermediate.php?id=2241

TEACHERS Transcript:

Over six incredible weeks, this colossal complex of snow and ice has risen from the
banks of the Torne river in far northern Sweden, as it has each year for the last
decade and a half. It is, without doubt, a frozen wonder of the world.

Thousands of tons of snow and ice, designed, built, and sculpted by an international
team. It's the biggest igloo on the planet. The giant ice chandelier hanging in the
main hall is the only feature that remains the same year after year. Everything else is
created as a unique piece, just for this year's Ice Hotel. Fiber optic and LED lighting
transform each room into a fantasy land.

It's D-Day in Lapland, and the first guests check into one of the most amazing hotels
on the planet. It'll only be open for three months, and then it will melt. Before it does,
twelve thousand guests will stay here for at least one night. Tens of thousands more
will visit for a day. This is literally a once in a lifetime experience, because in just a
few months time all this will have melted to nothing.

Experience a bar where the drinks don't come with ice, they come on ice, and in ice.
Every glass is made of the same ice as the hotel. In the nearby ice factory, the ice
blades are working full time to create thousands of these one use only ice glasses. In
a single season, around 800 tons of Torne river ice will be turned into these glasses,
nearly a million in total. They're used, then they melt, just as everything here will
eventually melt.

To its creators, the ice hotel is not so much a building, it's an inspiration that's frozen
once a year, shines briefly, then returns to nature from whence it came.

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Reading

Sweden's IceHotel: Love in a cold climate

Sweden's Icehotel, made anew every year, is very romantic you can even marry in its
ice chapel. The downside, says Alistair Fraser, is there's no plumbing and it's undeniably
chilly.

By Alistair Fraser 20 Jan 2013

The best bit about staying in the Icehotel is getting into one of its sleeping bags. Your
bedroom might be a teeth-chattering -5C, but these polar-tested sacks are so good, you're
as warm as toast the moment you zip up.

The worst bit is getting out of one a few hours later to go to the loo a 100-yard dash in
sub-zero temperatures wearing nothing but your long johns.
You see, there's no plumbing at this hotel in the village of Jukkasjrvi (pronounced you-
kas-yayr-vi), in northern Sweden, as it's made anew from snow and ice each year. In fact,
there's nothing you'd find in a normal hotel room: no TV or minibar, no air-conditioning,
no bible in the bedside drawer no bedside drawer.

There is just the room. But what a room. Its thick walls, floor and ceiling are made of ice, as
is the bed; the fixtures and dcor are sculpted from ice; the pictures are carved from it. And
as no two rooms are the same, the beauty of each is unique. It might feel like a fridge, but
your room is actually a work of art.
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Sometime in November, when the temperature here, 120 miles inside the Arctic Circle, is
already well below freezing, artists and engineers begin the construction, using snow and
ice from the nearby Torne River. Besides bedrooms, they build a bar, where you can drink
vodka from a glass made of ice, and an ice chapel that is popular with marrying couples
(less so, perhaps, with aged relatives in the congregation).

A conventional hotel complex next door has warm, chalet-style bedrooms, a lounge and
sauna, plus a building in which you are issued with your sleeping bag. At bedtime, after
stripping down to your thermal underwear and storing your clothes, you nip outside in the
bitter cold, cross to the Icehotel, and hurry down a ghostly blue-white corridor to find,
through the billowing fog of your breath, the icy chamber that's yours for the night.

But once inside your snug cocoon, sleep comes quickly and before you know it, a member
of staff is bringing you an early-morning cup of warm lingonberry juice (the Swedes are
very fond of these sharp, red berries; very fond indeed).

DID YOU KNOW?

There are now more than 10 ice hotels around the world but the Swedish version is
the original
Cotton clothing traps moisture, so it will chill rather than warm you.
Don't shower or take a sauna before heading out on a winter activity because of the
extreme drop in temperature.
Avoid using water-based moisturisers on your face as these can cause frostbite in
really cold weather, it's advisable not to use facial moisturisers at all.

Adapted from www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/sweden/9811602/Swedens-Icehotel-Love-in-a-cold-climate.html

Dictionary work
Find the meanings of the words, phrases and expressions below:

extreme drop:-

frostbite:-

advisable:-

anew:-

undeniably chilly:-

fixtures:-

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sculpted:-

construction:-

congregation:-

conventional hotel:-

chalet:-

issue:-

nip:-

billowing fog:-

icy chamber:-

snug cocoon:-

Answer the questions about Icehotel.

1. What is the text about?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. Who wrote the article about Icehotel?

____________________________________________________________

3. How cold does the bedroom in the Icehotel get? Which phrase or expression tells you
that the room is very cold?
____________________________________________________________

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4. According to the author, what is the main disadvantage of staying at the Icehotel?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

5. Polar-tested sacks refers to ___________________________ .

6. The downside, says Alistair Fraser, is theres .. Find a phrase in the text
which has the same meaning as The downside.
____________________________________________________________

7. What would you expect to find in a typical hotel room of which you would not find in
the Icehotel?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

8. When does construction of the Icehotel begin?

____________________________________________________________

9. Where do builders get the snow from to build the Icehotel?

____________________________________________________________

10. According to the author, who would less likely enjoy the idea of getting married in an ice
chapel?
____________________________________________________________

11. TRUE or FALSE?

i. You get a Queen-size bed to sleep in. _________________
ii. The bathroom/toilet is in the hotel room. _______________
iii. Ice artists paint the pictures in the hotel rooms. _______________
iv. All the rooms are different. ________________
v. There is a sauna at the Icehotel. ________________
vi. You get complimentary breakfast as a guest staying at the Icehotel. ____________

12. Find and circle all the words in the text which the author uses to describe the COLD.