Snyggt in Sweden: The Dark Time

It has been such a long time since my last post.

I blame it on ‘the dark time’ here. During the dark time, it is very hard for me to motivate myself to do much of anything. It is a time of quiet and darkness and candles, and to sit in front of a computer screen didn’t much appeal to me at all. In some way it is better just to embrace the darkness and spend your evening in a softly lit room with warm light of candles, rather than sitting under fluorescent lights and the cold blue glare of a computer screen.

As it is, today I am sitting at my kitchen window with the sun blazing in on me, almost directly in my eyes but I don’t care.

For the folks back in Edmonton, today our sun sets at the time yours did back on Jan 5, just to put things in perspective.

So during ‘the dark time’, we escaped the worst part for a month by going to Edmonton for Christmas, which was wonderful to see friends and family and eat turkey.

After our first winter here, we realized that during ‘the dark time’ you need to force yourself to keep busy. In the lead-up to Christmas I kept myself busy by doing a lot of crafting and sewing,

yoga and pilates classes at Iksu, belly dance classes downtown, playing piano on my digital piano, Swedish classes at work, socializing with friends and of course, working. Scott has done the same, although less crafting and dancing, and more going to Iksu to workout and playing a lot of guitar. I’m really impressed how much he has been able to teach himself, having never played a musical instrument before. Sometimes we even ‘jam’ together, but mostly this has been restricted to acoustic versions of ‘Bad Religion’ songs.

So what now? The sun is coming back, day by day, minute by minute. I am sitting here still enjoying the hot sun shining in, and I have realized that right now at 1:45pm, the sun would have already set on our shortest day.

Well, my two year contract here is almost over (technically it ends the end of March), and we have decided to stick around here a bit longer. So if you haven’t planned a visit to us yet, you still have time!

It is amazing how fast 2 years goes by, and I’ve learned that Umeå is the type of place that opens itself up to you very slowly. Even though it feels like such a small town here, I am still, two years later, finding cute shops or cafes that I have never seen before.

Like the tiny little Folkets Bio, tucked away in a yellow, windowless house in a residential area.