The darkest days in Iceland: A wonderful contradiction

Don’t forget the stars while looking to the heavens.

As I write this, on the 13th of December, I am squeezed into the few daylight hours left in Iceland. The sun didn’t rise until 11:16 today and will say good bye at 15:30. That’s barely more than 4 hours. On the darkest day of the year, the 21st of December, direct sunlight will drop below 4 hours. It sticks around that number until New Year and then you gain around 5 minutes of daylight per day all the way up to the days of the midnight sun on the 21st of June. Sadly, it’ll be late February before we start to get anything close to a normal day of sunlight.

So how do we cope I hear you ask? It must be so hard to get anything done, no? Well actually, coping is not a word that is generally used when referring to this time of the year. In fact, we celebrate it! My colleagues and I prefer this time of year for many reasons and actually it is one of the most popular times of the year for us…