the midnight…ahem…"sun"

Did you know some of Norway lies above the Arctic Circle? Crazy, right? 

That means that during the summer, much of Norway has very, very long days. And in cities like Tromsø, the sun never actually goes below the horizon. The midnight sun! 

I was lucky enough to spend mid-summer there last week with my lovely linguist-colleagues. Before I left, more than one of you asked for a picture of the midnight sun. 

So. Here it is!

What's the matter? Isn't it SO sunny?!

This photo was taken at about 1:30 in the morning after a lovely evening at Rorbua, "Norges mest kjente pub."

It really was quite light outside, you just can't really tell, because it was extremely cloudy. Like my whole four days were (although sometimes there was also rain and fog).

So although I didn't get to really "see" the midnight sun in a perceptual sense, I could feel it there behind the cold and the clouds and the rain and the fog.

The scenery in Tromsø was quite lovely though apart from the weather. Lovely gardens, dramatic mountain landscapes, snow...

The arctic botanical garden.

I definitely cannot wait to visit again…maybe this winter?