Saturday, February 05, 2005
Sarah's First Impressions
First Impressions
Landed in Helsinki where Roy met me and we spent the night. The next morning we came by train north to Oulu – a 6 hour ride. From the train we saw a “Dr. Zhivago” landscape with broad snow-covered fields and dense pine and birch forests. The small clapboard houses on the farms and in the villages were painted in M&M’s colors of bright reds, yellows, greens, blues and even orange with white trim – a whimsical contrast against the white of the snow!
The temperature took a nose dive our first night in Oulu from 25 to -8F. “Nose hair freezing weather” Roy calls it. But just as quickly, it has risen again to about 25. Inside the house, however, we didn’t notice any change with the temperature drop. We had heard about the very efficient Finnish homes, but now we can attest that there are no cold spots or drafts even near the picture windows. Remarkable! We have hot water heat, and have actually turned the radiators down in all the rooms.
We’ve had snow twice since I came. Snow in Finland is of a different quality – light, dancing as it falls, and then sparkling, so it’s like walking in a field of diamonds. We have about 10 inches on the ground now, but it hasn’t slowed the pace of life at all. The streets are kept clear, and people just bundle up and go on with life. The children all wear one piece snow suits – like snowmobile suits – and are out sledding and skating in all temperatures. Babies have very wooly sheepskin wraps in their carriages and look snug as bugs.
The days are about 6 hours long now, and the time between sunrise and sunset gains more than 4 minutes a day – twice the time gained at Denver’s latitude. Because we are so near the top of the world, and perhaps because of the reflection from the snow, there’s well over an hour of twilight both in the morning and evening, with the kind of half-light that we also experienced here during the summer when the sun only set for about 2 hours.
That half-light produces what the Finns call the “Blue Moment.” Just after sunset, the sky turns a nearly indescribable luminous silvery blue that colors both the sky and the snow. This lasts only about 10 minutes before slowly fading to a silver gray and finally to night.
We thought we would miss the longer days, but we actually look forward to the “Blue Moment” each night to see what Mother Nature will produce for us.
Landed in Helsinki where Roy met me and we spent the night. The next morning we came by train north to Oulu – a 6 hour ride. From the train we saw a “Dr. Zhivago” landscape with broad snow-covered fields and dense pine and birch forests. The small clapboard houses on the farms and in the villages were painted in M&M’s colors of bright reds, yellows, greens, blues and even orange with white trim – a whimsical contrast against the white of the snow!
The temperature took a nose dive our first night in Oulu from 25 to -8F. “Nose hair freezing weather” Roy calls it. But just as quickly, it has risen again to about 25. Inside the house, however, we didn’t notice any change with the temperature drop. We had heard about the very efficient Finnish homes, but now we can attest that there are no cold spots or drafts even near the picture windows. Remarkable! We have hot water heat, and have actually turned the radiators down in all the rooms.
We’ve had snow twice since I came. Snow in Finland is of a different quality – light, dancing as it falls, and then sparkling, so it’s like walking in a field of diamonds. We have about 10 inches on the ground now, but it hasn’t slowed the pace of life at all. The streets are kept clear, and people just bundle up and go on with life. The children all wear one piece snow suits – like snowmobile suits – and are out sledding and skating in all temperatures. Babies have very wooly sheepskin wraps in their carriages and look snug as bugs.
The days are about 6 hours long now, and the time between sunrise and sunset gains more than 4 minutes a day – twice the time gained at Denver’s latitude. Because we are so near the top of the world, and perhaps because of the reflection from the snow, there’s well over an hour of twilight both in the morning and evening, with the kind of half-light that we also experienced here during the summer when the sun only set for about 2 hours.
That half-light produces what the Finns call the “Blue Moment.” Just after sunset, the sky turns a nearly indescribable luminous silvery blue that colors both the sky and the snow. This lasts only about 10 minutes before slowly fading to a silver gray and finally to night.
We thought we would miss the longer days, but we actually look forward to the “Blue Moment” each night to see what Mother Nature will produce for us.
