The snow is here!

Better late than ever it finally snowed here in Tromsø. Just in time for the first Sunday of Advent. In fact the snow has never been that late since 1944 ! The last days have been very icy and slippery due to the lack of snow. Also many tourists were disappointed as they booked snow related activities from home like reindeer or husky sledding or snowmobile rides which then had to be cancelled.
On top of the mounains we have had snow for some time now and it is also icy up there which made hiking a little dangerous in the end. On my last hike it was that cold on the top that my phone ran out of battery almost at an instant. I only managed to take one shot:

on top of Fløya in Tromsdalen

Now that the snow is here the temperature will rise a little also. The air has been very humid but now that it snows the air will be less humid and therefore it will feel less cold. Also it will feel a little less dark because of the bright, white snow.

Sunset with great colours at 3 pm

Further, the dark time has now begun. That is the time when we don´t see the sun in winter as the sun doesn´t rise over the horizon . The offical dates for the dark time are 27th of November til 15th of January. As Tromsø is surrounded by mountains we didn´t see the sun in the city centre for a week now. This does not mean that it is now dark 24/7 in Tromso. Darkness 24/7 is found at the north pole. We still have twilight between about 10:00 and 14:00. It is not as bright as daylight but still light. For now the darkness did not really effect me in a bad way. In the beginning when gets dark earlier and earlier every day you might feel quite tired all day but you get used to that really fast.

While the sale of christmas decorations and sweets in Germany starts already in September and you have christmas markets in every bigger city there is no such thing in Norway. The christmas decoration in the city was put up this week and the first christmas sweets were sold at the shops at mid November. They dont have a christmas market here and it is also forbidden to drink alcohol outside in the streets.
There are very strict regulations about alcohol in Norway. All acohol which is stronger than beer is not sold at all in general super markets. In Tromsø there is a shop called "vinmonopolet" which means as much as "wine monopoly" and it almost like they do have a monopoly on wine as general shops must not sell it. All wine, rum or other strong alcohol is sold in special shops which have limited opening hours.

The christmas decorations can be used for Valentine´s day also :D

At least the milk spreads some christmas feeling