Loosing Light

This is something that people ask me about almost all the time.  For some reason people think that we go from 100% light to 100% dark over night, but just like back in PA, it’s a gradual thing.  There is a much more significant time shift here than back in PA obviously but it’s still not all at once.  We have been steadily loosing light since we got here and will continue to do so until there is none for a couple of days/weeks.  I have not been too affected by this shift in light, but it does still mess with your sense of time.  Just like back in PA, when there is very little light in the sky, it is also cold, this means you stay inside.  And just like in PA, when you are in the house, you turn the lights on.  So like I said it is not as noticeable (until you look outside at 330 and it’s as dark out as it would be at 5 or 6 back in PA).  We don’t have television (ok we have a television but all we can do with it is watch DVDs) so we spend a lot of time doing other things (you know, those million and one hobbies that Andrew and I seem to torture ourselves with). 

There are advantages to being here with the light waning though.  The biggest one is that you are actually awake when the sunrises!  And that is something that is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!! The sunrises and sunsets stretch as far as the eye can see and because it is sooo flat here, it goes for literally 360 degrees.  The colors of the sunrises/sunsets are AMAZING!  They are so intense and there are so many colors at once.  It’s almost like a rainbow every time (ok well minus the greens and not in “rainbow” order). 

Another advantage is that when you want to take a nap in the middle of the day, you don’t have to struggle trying to block the sun out of your bedroom! 

We are now getting quite a bit of light.  It's crazy how fast it seems to return.  Yesterday had the most amazing sunrise (at around 1030am).  I wish I had a camera with me but I was in the middle of work and I didn't have a chance to get back to an outside window before it went away.  I will try to describe what it looked like.  The whole sky was a brilliant pink, not just the pale pink of the sunrises back in PA but bright like a pink highlighter.  And when I say the whole sky I mean every last bit from horizon to horizon.  It was like we were on the inside of a giant Easter egg.  The funniest thing about it was that we were all gaping out the windows at it like we had never seen the sun before.

Today when we were done with school as teachers (around 430) a couple of us came out to go home and someone made the comment, "There's still daylight!"  It took a moment for the rest of us to register that yes there was still day light (albeit dusk) at the time of day when we are going home... something that hasn't happened for over a month.  You wouldn't think you would be that awestruck by such things but it really is startling to realize when daylight returns.