With 251 dreary days per year, Copenhagen is Europe's rainiest city. It receives 1603 hours of sunlight per year, which comes to a shade above 4 per day. Sadly, even that rather dismal statistic is skewed since the vast majority of those hours occur over the 4.5 temperate months of summer, which appear to be coming to an abrubt end. Even London, where the skies are the only thing darker than the teeth, dishes out just 226 days of dampness annually. But Copenhagen doesn't crack the top 10 for annual rainfall total. So here's winter in a nutshell: it never pours, but it's always cloudy and just misting enough to make you wonder if it's worth getting out of bed.
All of these depressing numbers have got me asking some basic questions. Why the hell did I come here? And what do danes do for the vast majority of the year, when blustery, moist, dark, frigid weather confines them to life indoors? It's worth speculating.
As to why I came? Good question. Maybe I like feeling as though I'm being waterboarded every time I look at the sky. Maybe I'm a masochist who derives some subconscious glee from my gloomy surroundings. Maybe I didn't think this whole "living in Denmark" thing through enough before I left.
As to what the danes do? It, most likely. At least that's my educated guess based on "effectual observations." Seemingly every woman age 29-35 in this city is pushing around a pram come summertime. And there's a perfectly logical equation for this phenomenon: disgusting weather + nothing open on Sundays + cable tv packages limited to 13 low-budget channels = it.
So how am I going to handle the upcoming 8 months of winter? Unclear. But here, the future is a lot like the weather: The cloudiness leaves hope that tomorrow will be better.
Was thinking of a dirty way to answer your question of "what do danes do".... I'm sure you thought of it too.
ReplyDeleteWhat should you do during the winter? Come back to Chapel Hill! ^_^