The Blithe Traveler

Icehotel Logistics

I quite agree with Gwynna's comment yesterday that traveling can be really fab if you can get outside your comfort zone. The great news (for my immediate family, that is, as opposed to the world at large) is that I did get outside of my comfort zone for this trip. It was cold. Right there that's a huge deal for me. I really don't like the cold, so agreeing to go anywhere where we would be required to haul fluffy jackets, boots, mittens and hats for the whole gang is daunting. Particularly given that certain members of this gang have trouble hanging onto their winter wear (<--foreshadowing!). However, it was a grand trip and I am openly declaring that I would be delighted to do more cold weather travel. This is particularly good news for the Skiing Contingent in my household.

The Icehotel, however, goes out of its way to stay as far inside comfort zones as it is possible and still have people sleep on a cube of ice. Or maybe, more accurately, a stay there is outside comfort zones for people for whom not having access to a blowdryer is outside their comfort zones. Oh, wait, they did have blow dryers.

No blow dryers here! Random hallway inside the hotel

So, flush toilets abounded! True, you did need to put on your mukluks and walk in your long undies in -5C temperatures from your hotel room to the sauna area to access one, but, did you see the word "sauna" ten words back?? Consider that a clue.

But, let's start at the beginning. The Icehotel is situated next to to a "lobby" area that is complete with aforementioned sauna, a series of private and semi private loos, a really nice showering facility, and a locker room/dressing room facility where you store your luggage. I don't have any photos of this area (hello! dressing room! which translates to people in various states of undress!), but it was certainly nicer than the last youth hostel you stayed in.

This lobby area had a few tables and chairs, a toasty fire and hot ligonberry juice on tap. So, not exactly the Ritz Carlton, but, very comfy.  The walk from this cozy oasis to the Insiders Door to the Icehotel is probably not more than ten meters and while it is certainly not a covered causeway, it is well sheltered from the wind.

Back to the rooms themselves, all of the bed are in fact made of blocks of ice. The ice has a wee thin mattress on it (although frankly no worse than many a board I have slept on in Mongolia or many places in China) covered by reindeer hides for an extra layer of protection. Or to impress the tourists. I'm not totally clear, although the reindeer hides do play a key role in the indigenous Sami people, so certainly they have a history in the area.

 It presents quite a pretty picture as your tour the different rooms. Each room does have an "air hole" and also a series of electric lights. The "off" switch is always located on the bed. I am sure I don't need to give you any more details on why that would be, right?

The room below was quite fun. Tom is sitting underneath a fishing hook and what you cannot see terribly well is the enormous fish he is sitting in front of. Very clever!

As previously mentioned, the Icehotel is an Art Gallery by day. As a guest, we were able to wander though the rooms at will. While you are able to move into your luggage locker and use the sauna as soon as you arrive, you don't get rights to your bedroom until after 6pm. At that point, you are welcome to move in at any time.

 Check out the car! This photo was taken with a flash. Note that the bed is in the back seat. Clever, clever, clever!

And even more clever, this photo, taken without a flash with the car lights on. I'm drivin' in my car, I turn on the radio ...

So, the day is waning, you have had dinner at the very splendid Icehotel Restaurant, what exactly do you do next? I promise you, there is nothing else open within almost 20 kilometers. Some people take this opportunity to head out to try to see the Northern Lights. You can do this in a mini-van, via snow mobile, by dog sled, and the ever popular horse drawn carriage. Of course, the mode of transportation matters not one whit. You see the northern lights only if they happen to be out and about that night.

But, for many folks, taking shelter at the Icebar is part of the experience. The Icebar is sponsored by Absolute has been a staple at the Icehotel since the mid-1990s. And in a concept that I don't quite get, there are sister Icebars, all under the Icehotel marketing umbrella in Jukkasjärvi, Stockholm, London, Copenhagen, Tokyo and Oslo. I'm not at all clear if these are seasonal pubs, or if they are somehow kept in refrigerated warehouses, but, hey, there might just be an Icebar near you!

Everything in the bar is ice, natch. From tables, to chair to bar and even the glasses are made of ice. Interesting concept. If you make a "glass" out of ice, does it become an "ice?" One imagines the guides tire of responding to these sorts of queries, n'est-ce pas??

Icebar! Belly up; if you have the equivelent of $15US, that is. I have no idea what an Absolute beverage costs anywhere on the planet, but that struck me as a bit steep. Even if they throw in the "ice" it's not like it's the sort of souvenir you can really take home and pass around the office.

For the likes of us, after dinner we all hit the sauna. That is actually not recommended, as shifting your body temperature just before you are about to sleep in -5C temperatures is, well, not recommended. But, we figured we'd all sauna, shower and dress for bed then hang around the lobby re-stabilizing our core body temperatures until we were ready to face heading off to bed.

Which we did. And Hope and I wisely blow dried our hair to prevent freezing.  Next, you might ask, "Dress for bed? Pray tell, what exactly does that mean?"

Good of you to ask! And delighted to share. The Icehotel provides for every guest an appropriate sleeping bag, suitable for the -5C temperatures inside the hotel. The recommendation is that you slip on a set of thermal underwear, warm socks, a cozy hat, grab your sleeping bag, slip on your mukluks and make a mad dash for it. Think about it; there is no where in your "room" to store a coat. Whatever footwear you have chosen will be frozen in the morning. 

Which is pretty much what most people did. They put on their long underwear, stood around a bit looking sheepish, marched up to the desk for their sleeping bag and then headed out to find their room. Jeff decided that he wanted to stay up a bit (not the best sleeper under optimal circumstances, he figured if he could stay warm and comfortable for a few hours longer, he might get something of a night sleep out of it). But the children and I were ready to hit the ice (ha!) by 9pm.

Jeff helped us all get ready and rounded up our sleeping bags, and we marched off wearing on long johns and boots to find our room. Note: all used the washroom before we went to bed. Getting up at 4am and trying to find your way out of the rabbit warren of snice could be dicey.

Finding our room, we quick shucked off our boots, crawled into our bags, Jeff secured us (pulling snug the little draw strings around our heads) and the children and I mumbled a quick good night before boarding the Sleepytime Express. You might wonder, though, if there were any issues getting to sleep in what had to be uncomfortable sleeping quarters?? Naw.

Jeff walked back to the lobby, picked up his camera and came back to the room. We were all asleep.

Here's the flash version of the same photo if you have any interest in checking out the sleep patterns of the North American Frozen Loony Birds. You can probably guess that I am the largest blue lump.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

More Tomorrow!

 

The Ice Hotel, Kiruna, Sweden

Kiruna, Sweden is located 200 kilometers above the Arctic Circle. It is first and foremost a mining town, hosting the largest underground mine (iron ore) in the world as well as Spaceport Sweden. Being that far north of the Arctic Circle means polar nights of darkness during December and January, as well as temperatures that can run -30C for weeks at a time. Not exactly my idea of nirvana, but different strokes, as they say.

Kiruna is also the proud developer of the world's first Icehotel. The Icehotel is an Art Gallery by day and sleeping quarters at night.

Entrance leading to the lobby

It is posh, well designed and set up for, frankly, pretty easy sleeping in -5C temperatures. I will confess that while I am still quite glad we did this, my key takeaway is that if I feel the need to sleep in freezing temperatures, I should get myself a nice thermal sleeping bag, pitch a tent in a cold place and call it a night. Really.

Don't get me wrong; it was a fascinating experience. But, the Icehotel is not any kind of endurance test; it's a fancy schmancy place for people with more money than sense. There. I said it. I've been dancing around that sentence for an hour. But a large part of the reason I'm glad we went it is exactly that: I got the clear message that I need to be a little more sensible when I am thinking about "cool" and "interesting" activities. This was fun, I had a great time, but fancy schmancy, hand-holding "adventure travel" is really not my gig. (PS: I take total responsibility for planning the trip; Jeff only did it because I wanted to.) Okay, enough about my personal introspection.

The history of the oddity that is the Icehotel (and there are more in the world now that Kiruna has been successful with it) is quite interesting. Like many developments in human history, this one started by accident. A little more than twenty years ago Kiruna decided to join the "winter tourist" bandwagon and started by hosting an Ice Sculpture Show. Part of the show was apparently that it was inside of an "ice igloo" sort of structure. Given that there wasn't a lot going on in the area otherwise (mining is not generally a huge "winter tourist" draw), there were limited tourist accommodations in the area. One cold night a bunch of tourists arrived to see the Ice Show and discovered that there was no more room at the inn.

With temperatures hovering well below freezing, the tourists suggested to the nice folks running that ice show that it might be nicer for them to sleep inside the art exhibition hall than outside. In a town like Kiruna one imagines that it wasn't too hard to round up a few below 0 sleeping bags. The tourists were tucked in by some worried townfolk, who were quite relieved to find them all alive the following morning.

Some clever person with a bent for marketing realized that here was potential. Not only could they host an Ice Show, they could build "cold sleeping quarters" for tourists! The next year, an Ice Igloo was built. Not terribly large and not at all what the Icehotel is today, it was successful enough that the planning committee put their head together and built a bigger, better Icehotel the following year. And so on, and so on.

Twenty years later, this is what you get:

 

It's gorgeous inside. Freezing, too. But that's fairly obvious, isn't it? If it weren't freezing, it would rain on you all night. Or at least until the roof collapsed.

The exterior shell of the hotel is built in December using metal forms and spraying what our tour guide referred to as "snice" (snow and ice) around the forms. Combining cold temps water and air results in a structure that is far more resilient to melting than either snow or ice alone.

The interior consists of regular rooms, which are basically little snow caves with an ice bed in the center and the Art Rooms. The Art Rooms are designed and executed by artists around the world who have submitted designs. The artists are required to execute the designs themselves, so submitting and winning means you get a small stipend and you have to spend about two weeks in Kiruna carving out an ice/snice room. Hope was very excited by the idea of submitting a design, but we have discouraged her until she is old enough to use a chain saw properly.

The art rooms are cool. I love this: the bear art on the wall is carved out of ice, the snice stove is a hilarious touch as are the carved moose antlers hanging on the wall.

This was probably my favorite room: no brainer, you're sleeping in the fridge tonight! And, hey! Cute purple jacket, kid! (<--foreshadowing) The large tag Hope is wearing around her neck is a signal to the people who are touring the hotel as an art gallary that we are Insiders; we are actually guests at the hotel.   *sniff*

Chandalier and decorative ice sculputre in the lobby.

This room was called the Bubble Room.

Well, that's all I have time for today. I'll go into details on the facility and how the sleeping actually works, but feel free to ask any questions! I'm happy to share the experience to save you the bother.

Tauplitzalm

"Alm" means alpine pasture in German. The town we were heading to in Austria was Tauplitz. but we were staying in Tauplitzalm. Which means, Tauplitz, but the bit up on the mountain. No cars up there.

What you do is drive up the very long, steep road, switchbackswitchbackswitchback (groaning quietly if you are the sort who is subject to carsickness, like I am) and arrive at the parking area. Where you park your car and call your hotel who comes to get you with their ski-doo and trailer.

Every hotel in Tauplitzalm is a "ski out the door" sort of place. Which I have come to realize, as a sking newbie, is quite stellar. The best bit is that if you need to use the loo, or if you are a wee bit tired, you can drop into your hotel and have small espresso and recharge your batteries.

This was our hotel. It was a charming chalet with a very attentive staff of folks who seemingly never leave. Which makes sense; how could they? I would love to explore how these places manage labor because it did seems as though the same five people were working every day we were there. The hotel is not open year round (it has a winter ski season and a summer hiking season), so perhaps people work shifts that are a few months long, then they have a few months off?

The little wooden house in the foreground is the ski school. After her Ski School experience the prior weekend, we dragged Hope kicking and screaming for an entire day with the school here. She was still on the fence about the whole thing, but she is nothing if she is not resilient and put up a good face that a day on the slopes with a bunch of other children *could* be fun.

Hope, by the way, is the sort who does not find lack of a common language a barrier to friendship. The tall girl in orange on her right became her best friend and the two happily skied together all weekend when ever they could manage it. And yes, no common language. 

I headed off to manage as best I could while the boys hit the slopes that actually go down.

I picked Hope up at the end of the school day, which left us with about half an hour of slope time before things shut down. She requested that we "ski." I took her over to the bunny slope (hello, old friend!). And watched her grow little wings and fly. I would also like to point out her pretty purple Columbia jacket. Nice jacket, eh? <--foreshadowing

She would not stop until the t-bar stopped running. As we were making our way back to the hotel, she said. "So, maybe I won't be an artist when I grow up. Maybe I can be a ski instructor."

A skier was born. The next day, we kicked Tom into an all day ski school and I started the day skiing with Hope. This did not go well, as I could not keep up with her (nor could I offer her much in the way of practical advice beyond. "SLOW DOWN!"), so Jeff took over while I leisurely skied to the hotel, had cup of coffee, repeat ad infinitum.

I had a lesson scheduled at noon, and I mention this only to provide context for a later note on the Wee Skier Hope. My instructor was impressed with my ski abilities given my age and limited slope time; she thought I was doing quite well and should be delighted with my progress. I will say that after years and years of riding lesson, I am good at taking lesson. I listen attentively, execute all exercises to the best of my ability and ask questions designed to insure that I have exercises I can practice on my own between lessons.

Puffed up with my own stellar lesson taking ability, I joined the rest of the crew up on the mountain, thinking that I could probably at least keep up. Good news! I won the award for fastest run down the mountain! Bad news? I did not actually manage it in a vertical position. Rather, as we faced what turned out to be an advanced slope, I made like a tumbleweed and headed straight down. Ouch. Humbled.

I met with my instructor the next day and told her my sad tale of sliding down the mountain face, bum, face, bum, tumble, tumble, tumble. She suggested that maybe I should limit myself to slopes  that were in keeping with my ability (hello!) and (since she had met both of my children at the ski school) mentioned in a wondering kind of way why I was having trouble keeping up with a couple of beginning skiers?

At the end of our lesson, we happened to meet up with the other members of my family at the top of the slope. The instructor introduced herself and watched as Hope and Tom zipped confidently off down the intermediate slope. As she watched, she turned to Jeff and I and asked incredulously, "Why was Hope stuck in the beginner class on Friday??" "Because," we answered in unison, "On Friday, she was a beginner!"

She looked at me again and said, "Oh, and you? Don't go down this slope; head over to the left and go down the easier one, ok?"

Doomed. I'm doomed.

Next: we leave Austria and head for Sweden! Finally, the Ice Hotel!

 

 

The Winds of Change

Sunday, our last day in Bad Kleinkirchheim, dawned as warm and gorgeous as the previous few days had been. Alas, Jeff was felled by a bad back. What to do?? We had ski passes for the day and one child who was desperate for a little more slope time. With great trepidation, Jeff and I swapped children. I took Tom skiing and he took Hope off for a ladies lunch in town.

It went about as expected. Tom was bored to tears and Jeff, one of the better sales men on the planet, convinced Hope to try Ski School.

The ski schools in Austria are phenomenal. They are astro turfed assembly lines designed to get incredibly tiny children comfortable on skis. As Jeff noted, "What on earth do you do with a kid who doesn't like skiing if you live in Austria?" To which I replied, "Every kid in Austria learns to ski when they learn to walk, so no kid doesn't like skiing because none of them remember ever not doing it." Convoluted, but one imagines you can work out what I mean by that.

No kidding, there must have been a hundred kids in the school. And this was in a small, no crowded resort on Sunday afternoon. Basically, they rank them by ability and begin at the beginning. Kids learn to put on their skis, to climb the astro turf and then snowplow down. From snowplowing, they learn stopping, then they learn to turn. As the progress, they "graduate" to the next group over. The "advanced" kids are all motoring down the bunny slope just out of sight, following their instructor like little snowplowing ducklings.

Maybe it works this way in the US, too. My experience with skiing there is pretty limited. But this is an industry. The instructors were fantastic, picking up small wailing children and cajoling them to get with the program. They were teaching in three languages that we could hear (German, Italian and English). And one imagines they could easily wrangle up a Spanish, French and Czech instructor with a few minutes warning.

When her instructor asked her where she was from, Hope said "The Czech Republic!" To which the instructors said, "My goodness, Hope, your English is so good!" We modestly agreed.

Hope, who had actually had two lessons back when we skiied in the CR, was a bit bored and turned out to be the star of the class. Sandbagger, maybe, but it gave her confidence, which was a huge win.

This little dude had trouble staying on his feet, but his solution was to crawl up the astro turf. These were some seriously tough kids.

And down she goes!

The lesson lasted an hour and a half and Hope "graduated" all the way to the mini-tow rope that they use to acclimate children to t-bars and the like. Tom had long ago given up on trying to ski with me (he kept getting cold waiting at the bottom of the slope for me to catch up) so the rest of us spent the afternoon cheering her on and trying not to pee ourselves as we watched the Tiny Ones bombing around in a slow motion toddler free for all. 

We all crossed our fingers, hoping that this would be the moment when the child awakened her Internal Viking and became a Skier. The wee Warrior herself was reticent about the experience. "A bit boring," she yawned. And left it at that.

Next: We return to Austria for one final ski outing before heading north to Sweden.

 

 

The Hills Are Alive

And now we roll back the hands of time and return to our lives Pre-Ice Hotel. Sweden was quite grand, but we got there via a couple of trips to snowy Austria, so lets' just settle down with a cup o' Joe and backtrack.

When last we left our intrepid band, we had netted out at Two Skiers to Two Non-Skiers. With that accounting, we packed up four sets of skis, a great deal of optimism and headed for the Austrian Alps. The children had (another! random!) three day weekend. As an experienced foreigner, I am used to random holidays. In China we would occasionally have a random long weekend for things as odd as a UK Bank Holiday. Now why on earth would a UK Bank Holiday result in a day off from school for the children in Nanjing?

In this case, I think it had something to do with end of term. Does that mean we are half way through the school year? I have no idea, but a long weekend is a long weekend and we booked a totally kid friendly ski out the door onto the slopes hotel in Bad Kleinkirchheim, one of a seemingly untold number of darling little ski towns in Austria. It was about a five hour drive from home, and maybe three hours from Vienna.

This is the view from our hotel driveway. Nice. There is a little t-bar on the right side that brings you back to the hotel at the end of the day. Assuming one is clever enough to get on it by 3:59pm. If one is not clever enough, however, one is required to hike back up the steepish slope wearing ski boots dragging skis and poles. It takes about 25 minutes, assuming you don't stop to catch your breath too often. You can ask me how I know this, but I suspect you've worked it out.

The weather was quite spectacular, unlike our first skiing foray in the CR. The sun shone, the sky was bluer than blue and the skiers had quite a nice time. Jeff and Tom spent two solid days riding up, skiing down, riding up, skiing down. I completely forgot to pack sunscreen, by the way.

The town was smallish, and the slopes weren't terribly crowded. The hotel was very accommodating and, best of all, had this terrific children's room with an indoor climbing frame and a host of other kid friendly activities.

So while all that sun was shining, Hope was hanging out indoors.

There was a formal Kids Club that operated from 2pm onward, so I was able to get out on the slopes in the afternoon for a couple of hours. Although I should perhaps clarify that: I was able to get out on the Bunny Slope next to the hotel and try not to trip up any of the three and four year olds who whizzed past me. At the end of two days, I was awarded a trophy by the t-bar operator for the Most Runs Down the Bunny Slope by a Grown Up. Gah, awkward.

Hope, though, was adamant. She did not want to ski. She did, however, want to ice skate. Thinking I might get to see the sun for a tiny bit during the day, we packed up our ice skates and headed for the outdoor rink. No dice. Too much sun; the outdoor ice had melted. But, we were in luck! There was an indoor ice hall in the next town over. Oh, goodie.

The girl had never been on ice skates before (they were starting a PE session at school on ice skating the following week which is the only reason she even possesses ice skates), so it was interesting, to say the least. I learned to ice skate in Rockerfeller Center on an old-timey set of skates that strapped to my shoes and had four blades. No kidding. My memories are of zooming around under the lights like a tiny Tasmanian Peggy Fleming.

 Hope's have more to do with clinging like a tick to the edge. And to me.

We did have a lovely time, though, despite the lack of sun and Hope is quite determined to learn to be a good ice skater. As am I. There is a chance here, at least.

Tomorrow: The Winds of Change

 

The Ice Hotel: A Sneak Preview

Greetings, from Kiruna, Sweden. It has been a grand winter adventure so far, with more to come. With a bit of internet access, and a few minutes indoors while the children romp in the snow outside, I bring you a few snapshots of the Ice Hotel. A very interesting place.

The Ice Hotel, exterior.

The lobby.

And one of the "Art Rooms." One imagines you can guess what is represented here?

We return to warmer climes in a few days, whereup I will update.

I will say, I have turned a corner of sorts. Suddenly, winter holidays don't seem such a bad idea.

Green, Blue, Red, Black

What color is your ski trail? Ideally, mine would be sea blue, white sand, and green palm. Wait, that's a beach I just described, isn't it, not a ski slope? Ah, well, that speaks volumes.

I am not a skier. The first winter I was in graduate school, an old high school friend of mine and I were both living not far from the Catskills and we decided we would use the opportunity graduate school afforded us (re: limited class time) to hone our Snow Bunny skills. We both had the day off from school on Wednesdays, so we'd head up to Bel Air and spend the day plowing down the deserted slopes, enjoying the undivided attention of any ski instructor who happened to be on duty and just generally enjoying life. It was a pretty terrific winter.

But at the end of the season, after a disastrous final run that left a rather large swath of bloody snow, an entire traumatized pee-wee ski school and one seriously mashed up schnoz (mine), I came to the realization that while the social aspects were neat, the lodge was a great place to hang out, and long leisurely Wednesday's were rather pleasant, I just didn't like skiing all that much. I mean, it was generally cold, often combined with damp, and I was fairly prone to falling down.

So, I sold my skis, waved goodbye to my ski buddy and moved to NYC, never to ski again.

Or so I thought.

Jeff is a skier. When we first met, he mentioned that he was a skier and I wrinkled my nose. Nope, I said, not a skier. And please don't ask again. I had put a good effort into it back in the day, but I could say with a clear conscience, "I don't like skiing." I did happily take up cross-country skiing, which I quite enjoyed (there is simply much less falling down). But I declined to downhill.

Fast forward to the present, which includes 6 and 8 year old children. I would argue that children should be exposed to many different things. The idea, of course, is to find, ignite and nurture their passions. We live five hours from the Austrian Alps. The children are young enough that they still bounce; what better time to introduce them to the fine sport of skiing?

It so happened that we have friends in Brno who are skiers. And with a three day weekend coming up in February, a ski trip was expertly arranged by our friends-in-the-know. Not to the Alps, though. We decided that for our first ski adventure, we would keep it local and to Špindlerův Mlýn we went.

Špindlerův Mlýn: the cutest place on earth. It is snugged up against the Polish border, and is quite the poshest skiing in all of the Czech Republic. While the mountains aren't actually all that high (1300m max) and there are only 20 runs, that happens to constitute the largest, highest ski resort in the country. It turned out to be a grand place to start.

Seriously, this place was cuter than cute. Although, I did not take this particular photograph, nor did I ever see this darling town in such a bright sort of light. It was snowing or raining the entire time we were there, so it was quite a bit greyer. The snow was not much of a problem, but, frankly, if you are one who is not so keen on skiing to begin with, I don't actually recommend spending a morning "Skiing in the Rain."

Here's a more accurate representation of the weather from our apartment:

Cute, but decidedly grey.

So, the skiing. We may have found a passion. Tom grabbed on and would not let go. He braved a two hour lesson in the pouring rain on Sunday and was chatting all the three hour ride home about the next time we could go.

On the other hand, perhaps Hope is her mother's daughter?

I did two hours of ski lessons for three days straight. I made some progress, but skiing is, in truth, a bit hard for me. I still fall down a lot, and now require significant ingestion of ibuprofen the following day in order to stagger down the stairs to get to my morning coffee.

But I am nothing if not practical. Hope is never going to get the hang of it if I give up right away. And we want to give her a good shot at learning. So, I have decided that I will keep it up until I am good enough to feel confident on the slopes or until Hope decides she loves it. At which point I can decide if I really don't like it. Stubborn much?

Of course, the best bit was apres ski. Aw, aren't they cute?

The Museum of Broken Relationships

I have seen a lot of strange things in my life, but this really takes the baklava.

Maybe if it were the "Muzej Prekinutih Veza," it might have made more sense (that would be "the Museum of Broken Relationships" in Croatian). But such a strange thing, in English no less, in the middle of Zagreb stopped me right in my tracks.

What exactly, you ask, is the Museum of Broken Relationships? Well, the New York Times describes it as a museum of "bits of romantic detritus." This is worth repeating (I suggest reading it out loud, slowly with a furrowed brow):  a museum full of bits of romantic detritus. I really do think someone has too much time on their hands.

What sort of things might you find in the museum? How about a tiny container filled with tears, collected by a German man while mourning a four-year relationship with “a wonderful but sneaky woman.”

 Lovely, eh? Here's a link to the article, it's really worth a click:  A Poignant Trail of Broken Hearts, All On Display. And look! All kinds of fun things are on display! All kinds of romantic detritus. Although looking at those orange knickers, I might argue, simply "detritus."

I confess, we did not go in.

Just to Clarify

This is baklava.

This is a balaclava.

 

There are subtle, but important differences. Particularly if you are traversing the always slippery slope of a Language Learning curve. 

I think the guy in the ski shop might still be laughing.