加拿大丈母孃出奇招:女婿建個彩虹冰屋吧!
A New ZeAland man who has spent the past five weeks in Edmonton found a unique way to spend his time.
一個新西蘭小夥兒在過去的五週裏，在加拿大的埃德蒙頓以一種特別的方式打發了時間。Daniel Gray and his girlfriend Kathleen Starrie came to Edmonton from New Zealand to spend the holidays with Starrie's family. Never in a million years did Gray think he'd end up spending his time building an igloo.
丹尼爾-格雷和女友凱瑟琳-斯達麗從新西蘭來埃德蒙頓與凱瑟琳的家人一起度假。丹尼爾肯定絕對沒有想到，他的時間會都花來建造一個冰屋。"My girlfriend's mother had a brilliant idea of building an igloo and thought it would keep me busy, away from her daughter in some respect," said Gray.
格雷笑談道：“我女朋友的媽媽有一個特別聰明的主意，她讓我建一個冰屋，這樣我就會特別忙，就沒有時間一直纏着凱瑟琳了。”
"I wanted to keep him occupied, not with my daughter necessarily. I wanted to keep him busy with something else," Starrie's mother Brigid Burton said with a laugh, "I didn't want (Dan) to just be twiddling his thumbs while he's here in Canada."
凱瑟琳的媽媽布麗吉德-伯頓大笑着說道：“我想讓他有事做，這樣肯定就沒空一直跟我女兒在一起，我得讓他忙點別的。我不想讓丹尼爾來一趟加拿大就閒着什麼都不做。”"It's pretty typical. I wasn't really too shocked," Starrie said of her mother's request. "It wasn't presented as an optional thing," she added with a laugh.
凱瑟琳說自己對媽媽的要求一點不感到驚訝，“這絕對是我媽媽會做出來的事情，而且這不是你說願不願意的事兒，必須得做。”
Preparation on the igloo began months ago. Anticipating the couple's visit, Burton started collecting milk cartons in October, filling them with coloured water and freezing them to make ice blocks. "You need to collect hundreds of cartons, hundreds and hundreds of cartons," said Starrie.
做冰屋的準備活動其實幾個月前就開始了。布麗吉德因爲知道女兒和男朋友會來看他們，所以早早在十月份就開始收集牛奶盒，把有顏色的水灌到牛奶盒中去，然後冷凍它們製成冰磚。凱瑟琳說：“這可得收集好多好多的牛奶盒，超多的。”And so the construction began. The couple, along with help from Starrie's parents and a neighbour, spent five days building the giant ice structure in the Burtons' backyard. Much of the work was done during Edmonton's cold snap, when the temperature hovered around the -25 degree mark.
彩虹冰屋的建造工程就這樣開始了，丹尼爾和凱瑟琳，再加上凱瑟琳的父母和一位鄰居的幫忙，五個人花了五天的時間在凱瑟琳家的後院裏建造了這個巨大的冰屋。當時的埃德蒙頓氣溫低至零下25度，大部分的工作都是在嚴寒的天氣下完成。"We kind of prepared well and went to the store and got some toe warmers and hand warmers and all of that and just dressed warmly. We'd only work for about two hours maximum at a time, and then go inside and warm up," explained Gray.
丹尼爾解釋道：“我們的準備工作做的還是挺充分的，我們去商店買了一些暖腳器和暖手寶，大家都穿得非常厚非常暖和，我們每天最多隻工作兩小時，然後就進屋去暖和一下。”While it started as a bit of a tedious job, the engineer grew to enjoy the job. "Once I started building it, it was something I just really wanted to finish, because you can't just leave something like that unfinished," said Gray.
一開始可能是有些枯燥的工作，但做着做着這位工程師也愛上了這個工作。“開始建冰屋以後，我就特別想好好完成它，因爲這樣的東西，你真的不想半途而廢。”In total, the group spent about 150 hours carefully putting about 500 ice blocks together, one by one, to build the colourful igloo.
這個團隊一共花了150個小時，仔細地將500塊冰磚一塊塊地放到了一起，終於建成了這個彩虹冰屋。
"I thought we'd just take the bricks of ice and just kind of, almost throw them out there and make an igloo," Burton said with a hearty laugh."(It was) a lot more difficult, truly."
準岳母布麗吉德也坦誠這個工作比她想得要難得多：“我開始以爲我們只要拿着冰磚，扔到那裏就能造一個冰屋。” 布麗吉德大笑着說道。But, it appears there's now a bit of a different tune to Burton's motives. "The reason that she's given since she decided it was such a big job was that she would allow me to marry her daughter, so I guess I've accomplished that," Gray said.
不過丹尼爾的辛苦沒有白費，布麗吉德的態度也發生了轉變。“當凱瑟琳的媽媽意識到這是個大工程的時候，她就決定如果我完成了，就讓我跟凱瑟琳結婚，我成功的做到了。”"(I said) to Dan, you know if you want my daughter's hand you have to complete this, and he did it!" Burton added.
布麗吉德說：“我對丹尼爾說，你要是想娶我女兒，你就得把這個做完，而他真的做到了！”Although the couple has been together for nearly four years, it doesn't appear as though Gray and Starrie are in any rush to tie the knot.
不過雖然丹尼爾和凱瑟琳在一起有差不多四年了，他們也並沒有急着要結婚。
