I had my birthday on the 20th of December, which this year meant I was turning 20+12 on the 20.12.2012 😀 I thought that was a good reason to celebrate, so I threw a party. On the way home from buying drinks and snacks, I noticed the sky and raced home to grab my camera and tripod. Look at this… I got pretty spoilt on my birthday with presents and a great party, but I think my favourite and most memorable gift was the colour of the sky that day…

The next day was Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year – from now on we will be gaining light. Twilight at first, but in a month, the sun will be back too. Paul was flying home for Christmas that day (I still have a few days left at work), so I took him to the airport and afterwards I went to the Maritime school to get some photos of the view over Tromsø. The light was fantastic again! I’ve never seen anything like it, the camera couldn’t quite cope with it either. Earlier in the day the sky had been a deep red – a fitting colour for the day the world was supposed to end 😉

There was a half moon, Tromsdalstinden was glowing pink, and it was just magical…

The next day I went on a trip to Kjølen with Hannah. We hiked – there’s very little snow at the moment. At times it was tough though, as we kept going through the crust on top of the snow layer. On top of Kjølen, there is a small cabin with floor heating (it gets electricity from the flight radar), which was very welcome on that cold and windy day. Unfortunately we chose the only cloudy day in weeks, but we still got a golden lining underneath the clouds to the west… so pretty!

I’m not sure what’s causing this magical light, the colours aren’t always this intense in the dark time. Perhaps there’s been a volcano eruption somewhere?? Either way, it makes the dark time a lot more enjoyable 🙂