Kim Wilbanks

I’m experiencing the most unusual thing.  I’m writing this blog at four o’clock in the afternoon and it is pitch black dark outside.  Not only is it dark now, but it started getting dark an hour ago.  Even more strange, it was dark at eight o’clock when we got here this morning.  The sun didn’t rise until ten.  It’s a very strange thing for a Floridian to experience.

You have probably guessed I am somewhere up north.  I am!  I’m in the little Norwegian town of Narvik, on the other side of the arctic circle.

My husband and I are on a cruise with some other family members to see the Northern lights.  I was planning on using this blog post to share my experience, but, alas, we haven’t seen them yet.  We have to travel a little farther north.  Please, check back next week.

I have experienced the short, dark days of winter to some extent before.  My two children live in Birmingham, Alabama and Nashville, Tennessee with their spouses.  I have been there when it got dark very early, by five in the afternoon.  My husband and I visited our daughter and son-in-law in Edinburgh one December and marveled at the short days.  But, this trip is extreme.  We are a month past the winter solstice when the days are getting longer and yet “today” was only four hours long! I can’t imagine what it must have been like here a month ago.

I don’t know how people do it.  I‘m a native Floridian so I’m used to my sunshine.  I suppose all my scrapbooks would be up to date, I wouldn’t get behind in my Bible study and I would have more time to write if I lived this far north.  I would never want to go outside in the winter.  Of course, I may have a different problem in the summer with almost continuous daylight.

Tea Time

Good Morning Narvik

Narvik,Norway

Good Evening Narvik

How about you? Do you live in a part of the world with short, dark winter days or in a more sunny climate? How does the lack of sunlight in the winter affect you?  What are some things you do to enhance your life in the winter?