Right now, each day has six fewer minutes of daylight than the one before. On the Winter Solstice, December 21, the day will be four and a half hours long, with the sun rising at 10 AM.
The average temperature in Trondheim drops until February, where it bottoms out just below freezing (it’s much colder away from the coast or with more altitude). Most of the time, then, the consistently overcast skies deliver not light-reflecting snow, but rain. Upon starting at NTNU, I was given a welcome packet; included were six reflective slap bracelets to increase my family’s visibility in the dark and the rain.
This week at lunch I asked my native colleagues if they looked forward to winter, or if it was just a long wait until summer. To a man, unequivocally, with no hesitation: winter is best.
We’ve learned that in elementary schools, in order to facilitate the growth of a proper Norwegian, parents are asked to provide a wide variety of all-weather gear; unstructured time outside is prioritized on the order of several hours a day, and weather is never an impediment. Norwegians believe there is no bad weather, only bad clothes.
Adults will often take a long lunch break to enjoy the brief sunlight, returning to the office later in the afternoon at dusk. Many cross country ski trails are lit with streetlights, allowing for full-day enjoyment, and we’ve been invited to join a weekly Thursday evening jogging/cross country skiing outing, in which participants are reminded to bring their headlamps.
Aside from frequent outdoor exposure, the other national defense against the winter is the national virtue of hyggelig, a word that Duolingo first translated to us as “pleasant,” but really better refers to a coziness of the body and soul. A fire, some candles, a warm sweater, a blanket, a cup of coffee or a bit of aquavit, and dark cold evenings might become something to be looked forward to.
Today is the autumnal equinox; tomorrow, for the first time in our stay, our day will be shorter than Maryland’s. The daily high temperature has dropped to about 50. The adventure continues!
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[…] autumn, we were afraid of the winter. Self-deprecating Norwegians were worried about us — surely, we would find Trondheim cold, dark, wet, and depressing, and we would absolutely need to get away in February to somewhere warm and sunny. This turned […]