Friday, February 20, 2009

Belgium for Beginners - Part I - the Northern Light

After a chilling winter - said to be one of the coldest in the past 25 years - the weather has now reverted itself to what all visitors are warned against: chronic rain.
I was waiting in a hospital lounge and what better to do than read an old English magazine (for the first time I found something in English). I was amazed to read this description- "Belgium occupies roughly the same parallel as Irkutsk and Moose Jaw", in an article by Leona Francombe. Now something caught my attention and it took me sometime to figure out that she kept drawing parallels between Belgium and these outlandish sounding names of places in Siberia because of the depressing weather! A little harsh but true.
Some general weather updates:
- Common weather throughout the year - RAIN
- Windy as HELL
- Jackets - NEEDED throughout the year
- Learn to live/work/talk/eat in the dark (but save electricity as much as possible big time)
- Dont expect the day to start or end as per normal time
- Sometimes the sun rises at 9am and sometimes it sets at 11pm too depending on the season
The Northern light is a TREASURE - you have to enjoy every second of daylight and freak out if there is SUN light! Not an exaggeration because most days you would wake up to a dull, depressing, dark, rainy day and you are expected to live a normal life and not get affected by your surroundings!
The only way to be cool is to be mentally active and alert and have good friends around you always. The minute you lose touch with society you can easily decline into oblivion - thats the power of the NORTHERN Light (or the lack of it)!
I've painted quite a sad picture but if I can stay cheerful inspite of the weather and lack of light so can YOU! I suppose I can live in Saskatchewan or Irkutsk too with this experience - what say?

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