A MidSummer Night's Party

Relaxing on the fjord, near sunset.

In Norway, where the sun doesn't set during most of the summer, the summer solstice is a very important day. I think this is true for a lot of Scandinavia as well. In Trondheim, where we are spending part of our summer, we are at roughly 63.4 degrees north in latitude. This is pretty close to the arctic circle, which is at latitude 66.5 degrees north. The sun sets here in Trondheim at about 11:30pm and rises again about 3:00am. Basically, the sun just dips below the horizon for a few hours. It stays light out even when the sun is down. It is light enough to do all kinds of activities without a flashlight. It's like a never ending dusk or dawn. Dusk rolls into dawn and you can't even tell.


The only weirdos wearing sunglasses at night!

One of the girls that we are living with in the shared apartment wanted to host a mid-summer night party. It is traditional in Norway to have a bonfire outside on the night of the solstice. There is a nice beach area close by to the city where we had the party. It is right on the fjord and has nice grassy and rocky areas to sit on.


Playing volleyball at midnight.

We had a lot of food that everyone brought to grill, and we stopped at the grocery store to try some Norwegian beer. I tried Dahl's, which a light Pilsner style beer in a can. It was okay but very light, kind of like a Budweiser or Miller. I also tried Carlsberg which is Danish, and I thought that one was gross. We also tried some imported Samuel Adams, but it was funny tasting and not good because it was made for export and had to be limited to 4.5%. The beer was a bust, but we had fun anyways!


Sunset came around 11:30pm that night!

We were able to see the sunset and the tide come in. Some people who were also partying on a neighboring rocky outcrop had a hard time coming back to shore when the tide came up. The tide completely isolated them on their tiny rock island. They were so busy partying they didn't even notice! The rock outcrop we were on was big enough that the connection to the mainland was never flooded over.


A panoramic picture of Korsvika after midnight.

We ended up going home at around 2am, but some people stayed all night until the next morning! We had plans which required us to be functional the next day, so we decided not to do that.


Biking home at 2am after we left the party.