Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

We are getting close to the midnight sun season, and last Friday the sun set was at 22:55 and sunrise only 3.5 hours later, at 02:25. The sky was beautiful around midnight and I decided to stay up to watch the sunrise.

I stopped for a panorama of the mountains of Kvaløya reflected in the calm water, before continuing to Langnes. There were lots of wading birds looking for food in the shallow water here, and I managed to capture the scene before splashing around the water myself and scaring every bird in the vicinity 😉

The moon was setting behind the mountains on Kvaløya in the west, while towards the south the sky was a beautiful combination of pastel colours…

Then slowly, the first sunlight appeared on the top of the mountains and moved down until everything turned pink!

I also took a few before & after sunrise photos of the same scene, like this ridiculously long (180 degrees) panorama…

And of the often-photographed lone cabin with tree…

It was pure magic to witness the sunrise in the middle of the night 🙂 Soon we won’t have any sunsets of sunrises, so I was glad I used this opportunity. Inspired by the beautiful weather, we decided to go on the first boat trip of the season, but unfortunately all we found were low clouds and eventually even rain… You can see some photos here.

Late April/early May is the hardest time for me in Tromsø. While I keep hearing stories of 20+ degrees, green trees and flowers from people further south, up here winter won’t let go yet. The Norwegians even have a word for this: værsyk (literally weather-sick) or sometimes also spelled as vårsyk (spring-sick) – often referring to an intense longing for Spring!

We’ve had bad weather for weeks. Showers, showers, showers, and not much sunshine. The temperatures have been mild though, so the snow is slowly melting. Yesterday I woke up to a nice surprise: sunshine and blue sky! I went for a walk to Telegrafbukta to enjoy the spring weather 🙂

Spring is slowly arriving, these flowers are popping up everywhere, and lots of birds have returned as well. Oh how I love birdsong, it’s what I’ve come to miss most up here. We don’t get much (and usually the sea gulls are overpowering everything with their screams), but during the last days I have heard lots of chirping and singing and it makes me happy 🙂

Yesterday’s spring was short-lived though – today Tromsø woke up to fresh snow!! It was quite extreme, with some heavy snow showers, making everything white. Then the sun would come out and the snow would melt in record time – meltwater thundering through the drain pipes. Until the next shower… etc. It doesn’t get totally dark anymore, but the bright lights of the football field in front of our house showed the snowfall very well – I had fun playing with exposure times to show the falling snow flakes.

I’m excited that the long term forecast shows SUNSHINE and relatively warm weather for next week – we might even get double digit temperatures 😀 (some people argue that this qualifies as “summer weather” in Tromsø…)