Darkness

Winter in Denmark is not really as cold as one would expect.  From what I have read and experienced so far, it doesn’t get much below freezing.  It rains constantly or, like this week, snows.  Not hard, just a steady, gentle snow.  When it rains, it's not a driving rain, but more like shower after shower,  with gray sky in between.  Sort of what you would think of Seattle weather being like.   However, the dreary weather was not hard to get used to.

What was difficult to anticipate are the hours of darkness.  We live now at 55.4° North, 10.4° East, for you Latitude/Longitude fans.  Daphne, Alabama, our previous home, is at 30.1° North, 88.0° West.  25° further North.

Today I went to work at 7:00AM and the sunrise was at 8:15 AM.  8:15!  It was still pitch black at 8:00 AM.  Midnight black.  The sun will set at 4:49 PM, before most people in the office had even left work for the day.  In contrast, Alabama today, sunrise was 1 1/2 hours earlier at 6:45 AM!

It is amazing to me how I am so used to the sun coming up at a “normal” hour.  I have always been an early to the office kind of guy.  I enjoy working when the office is quiet.  As I would sit in my office in Mobile and work, I watched as people would come in to work.  I always knew when certain people would walk through the parking lot.  Same time every day.  It was a constant, and for some reason, very reassuring to me.

8:00 AM looking out of my Alabama office window

  In my office here at OMT (Odense Maritime Technologies), at 7:00AM it’s dark, so much so that it still feels like it’s the middle of the night.  At 8:00AM, it’s still pitch black.  By 8:10 AM, you FINALLY begin to see the sun begin to rise and by then everyone has arrived to work.

8:00 AM looking out of my Danish office window

I am looking forward to summer.  Not so much for the warmth, but for the Sun! According to the internet (it must be correct, it's the internet!), Sunrise on June 21st here in Odense is at 4:36 AM and sets at 10:04 PM!!!

Now that's what I call a nice, long summer day.