I never realized what a difference a few hours of daylight can make. Never once did I even think about this until we moved here.
Oh, I remember as a kid loving the long summer days when we could play outside until dark and catch lightning bugs.
Fireflies for some of you. And naturally, we kept them in an empty mayonnaise jar. Poked holes in the top with an ice pick and put a leaf or two to simulate their natural habitat.
I was here in late August last year and never saw a lightning bug so I'm not sure if Belgium has them, but I do know we have very long days. Only to get even longer.
The shortest day here in Hasselt is in December with only 8 hours of daylight. The days seemed so short and I slept way too much.
That's 16 hours of darkness.
Sunrise 8:30 a.m.
Sunset 4:30 p.m.
In the afternoon!
By contrast the longest day is at the end of June with over 16 hours of daylight. That means it's really not even dark for a full 8 hours sleep.
Sunrise 5:30 a.m.
Sunset 10:00 p .m.
And it won't really be dark until around 11:00 p.m. It seems like the days go on forever.
In Ruston, for example, the longest day has about 14 hours of daylight. That is a long day, but still 2 hours less than we have here.
Sunrise 6:30 a.m.
Sunset 8:30 p.m.
The shortest day has about 10 hours of daylight.
Sunrise 7:30 a.m.
Sunset 5:30 p.m.
That seems normal to me.
The extremes are hard to get used to and I can't even imagine living any farther north. Like Alaska. With 19 hours of darkness in the winter and only 6 hours of darkness in the summer. I don't know how they do it.
And I'm pretty sure they don't have lightning bugs.
I remember visiting my step sis at Bucknell, which was about 3 hours south of where we lived, and noticing there were a lot more fire flies. But in the northern teir we also had them, just far fewer and we caught them but had to be really good because they were few and far between.
ReplyDeleteI just thought...we saw the northern lights a few times in PA. It was only two times and they were pale....not like pics I have seen of the far north with bright colors. I wonder if you will get to see those in Belgium? Hope you do.