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nwhikerApricity is that special warmth if winter sunshine, and this was something that was wonderful, experienced on and off through the trip.
The other was the light. Winter light is unique and immediately recognizable if you are in the Northern Hemisphere (well, I suppose the Southern too) by which I mean you know, because of a combination of the slant and color of the light that it is winter. I personally think it's something that is part of some kind of eye memory, that situates us in time, so seeing that kind of light, we know we are in the winter. Anyhow, I love it, and OMG, this whole vacation was bathing in this wonderful, low and often white or blue light... I'm not talking about the low light of golden hour, but the low light when the sun doesn't get that far above the horizon...
Because of time we didn't get to the National Museum in Oslo, but I have to wonder if painters there, who've lived in those latitudes, have captured that special feel.
That light was magical. It was sunshine that didn't hurt, didn't aggress, light you could embrace rather than hide from. It was light that lingered long after sunset, dragging blue "hour" into an extended and gentle glide into dark.
I loved that.
We had incredible weather for the whole trip. February, so we knew we might end up with days of socked in misery, but no. There was some cold days and times (I saw -1F, 1F, and 3F at various times on my phone. Yes, F. COLD.) but overall, the temps tended towards teens and 20s so completely ok and easy to dress for. (A note on C vs F at the end of this post.) We had snow one afternoon in Tromso, but it was a perfect kind of snow, just a little bit one afternoon, it cleared up before we headed out to chase the lights that evening, and it did not bring with it the promise of a snarled commute, potential power outages, or days of "waiting until it melts" for the roads to be clear. 😂
Temp: F vs C. I'm a big believer in metric. I do metric happily and easily, but I have to say that over the years I've become a convert to F for day-to-day living, obviously NOT for lab work, LOL. There are more graduations, giving more precise information in the temperature band that we live in. I mean, this was something I read somewhere: 0C to 100C is freezing to you're dead. 0F to 100F is cold to hot but all a livable range. F is a scale that is adapted to humans going about their lives, though again, it should never rear its ugly confusing head in science. While I balk at the ugliness of water freezing at 32F and boiling at 212F, I can't get away from the fact that when checking the weather, it rules.
Some photos of light from the trip. They may not be the best photos but they're some where I tried to catch something of the magical quality of light.
Munch Museum from the Opera House. Note the finger, sigh. I have more that one photo ruined by that finger: for the trip, I swapped out my regular case for one with a PopSocket since I knew there would be photos taken over boats, edges, etc, and while that worked really well for gripping, the position of the PopSocket on my phone meant that fingers sometimes got in the way. But eh, kept the phone safe and considering the amount of phome manipulation I did with mittens, I'm not complaining.
Just before noon in Tromso. The polar night was over 28 Jan, and the sun had been clearing the top of the mountain for a while, bringing sunlight to dh Tromso. Almost 70 degrees North.
Fjord cruise. It was cold.
Strokkur geyser, Iceland.
The other was the light. Winter light is unique and immediately recognizable if you are in the Northern Hemisphere (well, I suppose the Southern too) by which I mean you know, because of a combination of the slant and color of the light that it is winter. I personally think it's something that is part of some kind of eye memory, that situates us in time, so seeing that kind of light, we know we are in the winter. Anyhow, I love it, and OMG, this whole vacation was bathing in this wonderful, low and often white or blue light... I'm not talking about the low light of golden hour, but the low light when the sun doesn't get that far above the horizon...
Because of time we didn't get to the National Museum in Oslo, but I have to wonder if painters there, who've lived in those latitudes, have captured that special feel.
That light was magical. It was sunshine that didn't hurt, didn't aggress, light you could embrace rather than hide from. It was light that lingered long after sunset, dragging blue "hour" into an extended and gentle glide into dark.
I loved that.
We had incredible weather for the whole trip. February, so we knew we might end up with days of socked in misery, but no. There was some cold days and times (I saw -1F, 1F, and 3F at various times on my phone. Yes, F. COLD.) but overall, the temps tended towards teens and 20s so completely ok and easy to dress for. (A note on C vs F at the end of this post.) We had snow one afternoon in Tromso, but it was a perfect kind of snow, just a little bit one afternoon, it cleared up before we headed out to chase the lights that evening, and it did not bring with it the promise of a snarled commute, potential power outages, or days of "waiting until it melts" for the roads to be clear. 😂
Temp: F vs C. I'm a big believer in metric. I do metric happily and easily, but I have to say that over the years I've become a convert to F for day-to-day living, obviously NOT for lab work, LOL. There are more graduations, giving more precise information in the temperature band that we live in. I mean, this was something I read somewhere: 0C to 100C is freezing to you're dead. 0F to 100F is cold to hot but all a livable range. F is a scale that is adapted to humans going about their lives, though again, it should never rear its ugly confusing head in science. While I balk at the ugliness of water freezing at 32F and boiling at 212F, I can't get away from the fact that when checking the weather, it rules.
Some photos of light from the trip. They may not be the best photos but they're some where I tried to catch something of the magical quality of light.
Munch Museum from the Opera House. Note the finger, sigh. I have more that one photo ruined by that finger: for the trip, I swapped out my regular case for one with a PopSocket since I knew there would be photos taken over boats, edges, etc, and while that worked really well for gripping, the position of the PopSocket on my phone meant that fingers sometimes got in the way. But eh, kept the phone safe and considering the amount of phome manipulation I did with mittens, I'm not complaining. Just before noon in Tromso. The polar night was over 28 Jan, and the sun had been clearing the top of the mountain for a while, bringing sunlight to dh Tromso. Almost 70 degrees North. Fjord cruise. It was cold. Strokkur geyser, Iceland.![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}