Do you have what it takes to live in darkness?

We are moving in for the darkest week of the year. On December 21 the winter solstice makes it the darkest day of the year with less than six hours of sunlight. It could be worse. Stockholm is located in the south of Sweden, and if you travel just a little bit north in the country, above the Arctic Circle, you will have complete darkness for an extended period of time (basically beginning of December until mid January). Still, those "six hours of sun" needs some explaining. Today, the "sunrise" was clocked at 9.20 AM. That means that the top part of the sun disc was visible by the horizon. And throughout the "day" the sun never ever leaves the horizon, making it tricky to drive cars if you are not used to avoiding low sunshine. Also - keep in mind that when we have low pressures (fronts of snow and overcast that can linger for weeks) you do not see the actual sun itself. You just notice that it gets brighter as though the sky is in a foggy haze. (You can see what we mean by looking at the photos we took during a mid-day event at Skansen.) Anyways, around 10 o'clock we have daylight. And that continues until 2 AM, when the sun starts to "descend". The recorded sunset (defined as when the top of the sun disc is below the horizon) is at 3.12 P.M. but with the sun placed so low in the sky it actually gets dark around 2.30.

The included video from Longyearbyen (where they experience complete darkness - the "Polar Night" - for 11 weeks per year) gives you a good insight into what it is like to live in this part of the world.