Day 7: Flying south for the winter

When I arrived in Tromsø, it was almost two months after the the end of no sun in the sky at all. But just because it was almost two months, or one-sixth of the year, or most of a season, didn't mean the sun was lighting up the sky as normal. Instead, each day seemed like a really dreary, bleak and overcast day. The sky got "light", sure, but there was never any sun. And it didn't get "light" until about 9, 10 in the morning, and would only last until about 4 before getting dark.

Surprisingly, though, there wasn't a depressing nature to it. Or maybe it was just that I wasn't there that long. Either way, there was just a resoluteness in the air where everyone carried on as normal and I thought that was really cool about the citizens (Tromsøians? Tromsøns? Tromsøese?) Over the last few days, I've gotten to see what Scandinavians are like and I feel like, having grown up in snowy, cold Canada, I can relate a bit to each of them.

Northern Norwegians are stoic, yet friendly, people who seem to take no notice of whether it's raining in winter or the sidewalks and roads are covered in snow. They just walk and drive and get to where they need to be. But when something enters their path — like a non-Norwegian speaking tourist who doesn't know what the menu says — they smile, stop what they're doing, and help out until the job is done. And they seem happy to, too, as long as you recognize you're the imposition and don't place demands on them.

Southern Norwegians (mostly just those from Oslo because I haven't been anywhere else) are a little more faster paced and I think it's because they have the sun during the day. They talk faster, they walk faster and they laugh louder. They're also quite sophisticated in their culture, even if it means they have to take the subway to get to different spots because it's not really concentrated in one core. At the Opera House, when it's warm, they set up huge screens outside so people can watch the show and for the last one, 7,000 people showed up to sit and watch a 3.5-hour opera.

Now Swedes, on the other hand, are just super cool and chic (without lapsing into trendiness), with spotless English that's so musically accented (even if everything they say in their native language sounds like the first little bit to the Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy"). I just love playing on my phone and listening to them talk, even if I have no idea what they're saying. And I'm so in love with their alleyways, which are everywhere in Gamla Stan. Like, literally, everywhere. With the cobblestoned roads, it feels a bit like being in a Harry Potter world.

Oh, and I also went dogsledding yesterday, first time. One of the neatest parts? Being able to hold a five-week-old puppy at the end. Puppy! It was so soft and trembly and nervous and when I put my finger under its paw (my finger fit entirely on its paw!), I could feel the puppy's nails digging around it. Puppy!