Back in Norway

To give you an idea of just how bright it is, ponder the idea of waking up at 1:30am to see that the sun has already risen. During summer solstice on a clear day I could read a book at 11:30pm without switching a light on. The bright side (pun intended) is that the midnight sun gives you more time to enjoy the outdoors and you feel quite safe walking around the city at ‘night’. On the other hand, constantly losing track of time and having to wear an eye-mask to sleep is a little annoying! It also feels strange to not see any stars for three months. However, spare a thought for the far north of Norway… where the sun doesn’t set at all for three months. (See below for my photograph of the sun at midnight in the Arctic Circle city of Tromsø.)


“You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine”
The flip side is that, in winter, the country is plunged into darkness. In the north of Norway, the sun won’t rise from November to January. In the south, I consider myself lucky that I will get ‘hmm-yeah-daylight-ish’ between 10am and 3pm during winter. (Nonetheless, arriving at work when it’s dark and leaving when it’s already dark doesn’t do much for your spirits.) Knowing that a forced winter hibernation is lurking around the corner, Norwegians go absolutely mad for summer: they need to take advantage of the sunshine while they can get it. Although my first summer here in 2006 was perfectly lovely, the summers last year and this year have been fraught with constant rainy days – which only adds to everyone’s desperation.

The beaches here (and by that I mean ‘places where the ocean washes up on strange and uncomfortable gravel’) present an interesting point of cultural contrast between Australia and Norway. Your prototype Aussie goes to the beach in summer to cool down or participate in water sports. Norwegians similarly flock to the beach, though looking a little more pale and desperate for Vitamin D in the process. However, the unusual thing is that it’s the shore part of the beach that Norwegians are preoccupied with; the water is often completely empty (see above). At first I assumed with smug satisfaction that the locals found the water just as cold as I did. (My first attempt at swimming here was more like curling up in the foetal position.) However, what I soon realised is that Norwegians go to the beach just for the sake of being out in the sunshine. (And it’s probably a good thing the locals are so easily pleased, because – with no waves for surfing and only the prospect of ‘gravel castles’ – there isn’t really that much to do at the beach in Norway.)

The Norwegian addiction to sunshine is something I’m unaccustomed to. Australians take good weather for granted (and we have a nation-wide drought to prove it). I have tried to explain to people here that as an Australian, and moreover as a red-headed Australian, I have been brought up to fear the sun. (This may have been exacerbated when, every time I came home sunburnt as a kid, my mother would fume at me, “You’re going to die of skin cancer, you know!”) I’ve regaled my European colleagues with explanations of melanomas, tales of Australian weather reports that include UV indexes, and even sung them the ‘slip slop slap’ song once or twice. Early on, they scoffed and predicted that following year, after enduring the Norwegian winter, I would become just as wild for sun as everyone else. I can report now that it might still take a few years to convert me .

“You Make Me Happy When Skies Are Grey”
To fully experience Norway’s midnight sun, I journeyed to northern Norway with a friend the weekend before last. Tune in next time for my experiences in the Arctic Circle!