Dec. 14 - Where's the snow?

One of the goodies of living in Finland is the long winter. OK, most Finns will now conclude I am a total nut but, being used to the lame wet and windy Dutch winters I say Finnish winter really is a treat. What's not to like about arctic temperatures and stunning white landscapes? It always feels like a new beginning to me when I wake up to see the world changed from dark muddy to icy white. Usually here in southern Finland the first snows that fall to stay show up at the end of November. However, this year they're already two weeks late. With Christmas approaching fast, the uncomfortable feeling surfaces that this might just be the first one that's not white. Another thing that's awesome is the "revontuli" also called northern lights or aurora borealis: A free, green-yellow light show that usually only is visible during the dark nights of winter. Surprisingly we had one of these shows during a September party night in our garden.

When I came to Finland during the summer of 2000, the reason being love, love, love, all you need is...(guessed the song?) Finns usually warned me about the winter. I found out that the cold really is not such a big deal. With the temperature occasionally dropping to -30, sometimes -35 this seems like a bold statement coming from a guy with a bald head. It does make sense to wear a hat during those temperatures, hair or no hair. I've found that the thing to cope with though is the darkness. This month the sun rises at around 9:30 and sets a little over 15:00. Bearing in mind that it doesn't get very high and that there can be clouds, it never really becomes very light. Hell, if you live a couple of hundred kilometers north then you won't see the sun at all for a month or two. What do you do? Likely it's one of the reasons why (a) the Finnish software industry is regarded highly in the rest of the world and (b) Finns seem to have a chronic problem with alcohol consumption. Personally I can't say it has affected me, my family is doping a good job at keeping me too occupied to drink my ass off or to start living behind a computer....erhh...well, neither have become an addiction....at least.

So where's the snow? With the temperature close to zero and the barometric pressure dropping steeply over the past few hours, who knows what the - fantastic - view out of the bedroomwindow has in store for me tomorrow morning!