Winter, continued.

Spring is a long way off. At Delsjön, the huge nature preserve area in Eastern Gothenburg, the birches are spindly and brown, and the lakes are frozen enough that we saw people ice skating (well, they looked like they were wearing dwarf-sized skis, so ice skiing?). We spent some time throwing chunks of ice onto the icy lake (ah, the joys of winter) and pondering the sun being 4 inches above the horizon at 11:30am.

Not having grown up with winters, I'm finding it sort of fascinating to go through a "real" winter, even if it is a coastal Swedish one and not a Lapland/Chicago sort of thing. Winter is beautiful and thoughtful and the cold, short days force us to spend lots of time huddled in our living room drinking cocoa, talking and playing the Hokey-Pokey. These are good things.

I have still yet to pull out my Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) light I bought in CA. I'm thinking of it as a last resort measure that might come in handy some time around February 22 if I've really had it with the gray skies and start pondering leaving the family and moving to Dubai.