Ineffable

I know ineffable translates to a moment being so spectacular that you can’t put it into words, but I am going to try my best to portray the emotions and feelings of this ineffable night. Before I do, I would like to give a quick background on how this night came to be.

Rewind almost two months to the first week I arrived in Barcelona for my study abroad program. After settling in and feeling comfortable being 4,500 miles from home, a reoccurring thought kept popping into my head. The thought that I can do anything I want with my life, and specifically my time abroad. It is such an empowering thought to have zero limitations. Photography has been a hobby of mine for a few years now, but recently I have been getting more and more into it. With this new realized freedom, I knew I wanted to plan some trips to focus on photography. One natural phenomenon I have always wanted to witness is the northern lights. I knew I wanted Norway because of my ancestry, but I didn’t know where. I kept seeing Tromsø, Norway pop up. I type it into google flights to see how far and how expensive this trip was going to be. Tromsø is in northern Norway, located 400 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. It was also pretty damn expensive, the round-trip cost me more than it did to get from Minnesota to Barcelona. I couldn’t say no, after this idea popped into my head it was all I could think about.

Fast forward the six weeks of me thinking, dreaming and talking about seeing the northern lights to February 27th. I wake up with a nervous excitement around 4:30am to hop on my first of three flights that day, a total of 13 hours and 2,750+ miles of travel. I get off the flight and walk two miles to my Air Bnb on the edge of town, the cheapest lodging the city had, $40 a night. The only hostel in town was $55 for a 6-bed dorm room. After checking in to my Air Bnb I bundle up with everything I have, putting on a shirt, a flannel, a thick fleece, a vest, a thin down jacket, a raincoat, a hat, gloves and a scarf. I grab my photography gear and head out into the cold, hoping to catch a glimpse of some lights. I walk back to the city center and see a man taking pictures off a tripod, so I head over and ask him if there are any signs of the lights. He says no, that even though it is a clear night there will be no lights tonight. We chat for a while about photography and life until I realize it’s 12:30 am. I was told that the lights are most frequently seen between 8:00-12:00 but can appear whenever. I accepted defeat, knowing I was going on a tour into the countryside tomorrow to hopefully witness them. I walk the 30 minutes back to my Air Bnb, not having enough of a budget to get a taxi. About a block from my room I look up into the sky, one last glance just to be positive I don’t miss anything. There was no green in the sky, just a tiny small gray blob. For some reason my heart flutters and I know that it isn’t a cloud. Even though it is 1:00 am and I had three hours of sleep last night, I suddenly am wide awake. I rush towards a small park, trying to get out of the light pollution of the streets. I quickly take out my camera and set it up on a tripod, snapping off a few pics without adjusting settings too much. A hint of green shows up on my camera screen. It isn’t much but I feel the buzz of excitement begin to grow, I was finally seeing what I came all this way and paid all this money for! I snap off a few more photos, basically in the backyard of somebody’s home. I realize I am not in the best setting, so I grab my camera and run down this path deeper into the woods. I come across a Norwegian and stop him, asking where I can find a large dark space. He laughs a little, seeing how wired and frantic I am. He said to keep walking and I will eventually run into a beach. I ran while looking up to the sky, hoping to see more. I finally get to the water and my heart is pounding, there is nobody there and the sky has greenish gray streaks going across it! I quickly set up my tripod and start taking countless pics, sitting between staring at the sky and clicking the shutter. I watch as more green streaks start to light up the sky, trying to grasp that this moment was finally happening. After being down there for an hour or so I decide to try and get in some of my pics, I set up my timer and press the shutter, running onto a rock on the edge of the water. As soon as I do the lights get way brighter and start moving like they haven’t before. I naturally just raise my arms, as if to take it all in. They were dancing and shimmering across the sky, and I couldn’t quite comprehend it. I ran back to my tripod to look at the pics and I tweaked. I saw the picture and it hit me. It hit me that this moment was finally happening, the moment I have been dreaming about and imagining for hours upon hours for the past month was happening right now! As soon as it hit me a high washed over my body. I was squealing and giggling, yelling out loud about how phenomenal this was. Jumping up and down, fist pumping the air. Trying to wrap my head around the reaction I was having. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be experiencing such an otherworldly show all by myself in Northern Norway. My heart was pounding, my body was shaking. I couldn’t stop making sounds and smiling and yelling. It was the strongest form of pure emotion I have ever felt. To be honest, I didn’t know that was a state the body could ever get to. Pure euphoria. Even as I write this now, I smile and get the chills. I was quite literally high on life. Looking back on it now, I would love to see a video of me on that beach. I am convinced that if anybody saw how I was acting they would have thought I was a lunatic.

As the lights start to fade, I check my phone and see it is 3:30 in the morning, I got my own private light show for over two hours! As I start to walk back, I realize how cold I am, I can’t feel my toes and can barely move my fingers. I was riding such an adrenaline rush for so long that I completely forgot that I was far north of the Arctic Circle. I check the temperature when my fingers warm up, it is 10˚F.

I learned a few things the next day that make this special night even more spectacular. First off, northern lights are a product of solar flares, and every five and a half years there is a switch between a good year and a bad year for northern lights. This year is at the lowest, meaning there is very low solar activity. This winter has also been incredibly cloudy and overcast in Tromsø. So, most nights the clouds will not allow you to see the lights. I was also on a beach on the island of Tromsø, to get the best views you must leave the city and get out of light pollution. On top of this, the forecast for northern lights said that there wouldn’t be any. I spoke with a tour guide the next day and he had taken a tour out into the countryside and they didn’t see any lights. When you put this all together, I am 100% convinced that the world is truly on my side.