/travel/finland/The things you forget..
This blog entry was lost by my ISP and they did not recover it. A fairly complete copy existed on blog aggregators, but it may have lost formatting or links.
Yesterday was a fun day. After humming and hawing about what to do, Clare and I went for a walk in the light rain. It's about a 15 minute walk to the End Of Civilization, at which point you get dumped into a forest. We walked through the forest, which was wet from a few days of rain. The moss and earth was wonderfully soft underfoot, and we walked along the edge of the lake for a while. That's quintessential Oulu for me, and I'm going to miss it when I'm gone.
In any case, the rain (predictably) got heavier. We hung out under some of the rather spindly evergreens trying to take shelter during the worst bits, but it didn't make all that difference. Eventually we just made a break for it, and on our way home we picked up the necessaries for some lasagne.
Dana's back in town, and her family's here too. She suggested that we cook the lasagne at their place. So we went there, but discovered that the little cottage they had rented had everything but an oven. Pizza became the order of the day. I tried some pizza with blue cheese. It was okay, but not great. I think I could grow to like it.
Then we went to Panimo with her family, and eventually left for Amarillo. Last night was the last weekend for a lot of people, so there were lots of people there, including a large contingent of French, and I generally enjoy socializing with them. It was a really good time.
On the walk home, I realized something fascinating, which gives the title of this entry. I don't remember what the world looks like when it's dark. I tried to picture it, and I couldn't. I know it's not pitch black, and I know it's not bright light, but I don't really remember how dark it is. This sounds weird or invent, but it's completely true.
I should back up a bit, though. It doesn't get dark here anymore, not at all. We've lost another kind of darkness. There is no longer civil twilight, and the weather site now reports 24 hours of "officially" visible light. I'll be posting pictures of my curtains system soon enough -- suffice to say that there are three layers.
It still gets dim, though. And on a really cloudy night, it sorta seems like dark; that's what made me realize that I can't really picture a normal "dark night."
I'm still sleeping fine, but it's a bit hard to know how to schedule yourself. Definitely an interesting thing to experience. I'm getting a ride to Oslo/Copenhagen/Malmo with a German who drove here. We may or may not cross the artic circle, which is the point where the sun itself is visible all the time on the longest day.
