Monday, May 25, 2009

When does the sun go down around here?



I would like to say that I'm starting to get used to the surplus hours of daylight in Stockholm, but I can't. I still find it so amazing.

During the past few weeks, it has been fascinating to me that each day has been noticeably longer than the day before. It is beyond surreal to see the sun still going down after 11 pm and coming up again at 2 in the morning.

Now, as you can see above in the timelapse of hourly snapshots from the Slussen webcam, we are enjoying about 21 hours of daylight.

The pages at those links are updated live in real time, so you can check them periodically if you want to see how each day inches closer and closer to midnight sunshine. Sweden is six hours ahead of Eastern Time in the United States.

The daylight hours will continue to get longer and longer here until late June. The longest days of the year are celebrated with the Midsommar festival. Midsommar is responsible for many of the stereotypical or recognizably Swedish images that foreigners have of the country. Singing, dancing, eating outside, and girls wearing flowers in their hair.

Here is a nice overview of Midsommar in English.

That's still about a month away, so get ready for more pictures of train stations until then!

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