Imagine being mildly jet lagged. Imagine the same dazed feeling you get when you drag yourself to your 10 a.m. class after moving the clocks ahead an hour in the spring and your professor mentions something about losing an hour of the weekend and you emerge from your state of being half-asleep. Now imagine this except this feeling never really goes away. That’s what it’s like to live in Norway in the winter.
Before I left for my exchange, people kept telling me how dark and cold it will be in Norway. Oslo’s latitude is about 60 degrees north, a whole 10 degrees higher than Vancouver, which is easy to read on a map, but harder to really understand.
While the weather is not as cold as you’d expect, hovering around -1 degrees, the difference in daylight is clearly noticeable. When I first stepped off the plane in early January, it was around 3 p.m. and it was already dark. The sun was rising at around 9:30 a.m. and setting around 2:30 p.m. during my first week here, which definitely did not help with the time difference and general confusion that comes with moving your life across the Atlantic ocean.
The sun barely rose overhead and barely came out of the clouds at that. When it did, it was at that annoying eye level that’s killer without sunglasses.
Now, about a month later, I am already noticing a huge difference in daylight time — and the clocks have not even changed. The sun is now rising closer to 8:15 a.m. and setting at 4:45 p.m. Even though it's just brighter for 10 minutes more every single day, it makes a big difference.
So it really is like adjusting to living in a different time zone every single day. Relying on daylight for scheduling cues doesn’t work anymore — it’s too unpredictable. It’s very hard not to get sleepy when it gets dark so early and the sun never really comes out. I used to consider myself an afternoon person, but now I’m not really sure — with my messy student sleep schedule and strange new daylight cycles, I’m never sure what time of the day it is anymore.
A recent trip up north revealed that darkness in Oslo is really just an introduction. In Tromsø, a town in northern Norway above the Arctic Circle, at 69 degrees latitude, the day lasted just about four measly hours, and the “polar night” lasted the remaining twenty while I was there.
What I find most interesting though, is that instead of complaining about the weather and the lack of sun as we do in gloomy “Raincouver,” Norwegians embrace the winter season and all the darkness that it brings.
People are out skiing, walking and jogging at all hours. Restaurants put out blankets and heat lamps on their patios and many cafes light their fireplaces to create a cozy atmosphere to enjoy a warm winter drink — Oslo is the unofficial capital of light roast coffee and Norway has one of the highest coffee rates in the world, so needless to say the choice of cafes here is next level.
As they say, “when in Rome, do as the Romans” — so, for the next five months I have decided to heed this piece of wisdom, disregard the clock, live on a flexible, caffeinated schedule and make the most of it, in sunlight or moonlight.