Hey everyone, Dana here!
Wait, where? Where is here?
Munich, Germany.
Home of the Oktoberfest, the English Garden, a couple of naked zones -
also in said English Garden - and me. It’s also home to me now as well.
However, I didn’t always live here. Before moving to Europe I lived in Florida. South Florida to be specific.
So if this big red ball here were a globe, and for this video please just go ahead and
pretend that that’s the case, when I was living in Florida I was living around, like, here-ish.
More in the direction of the equator. And now I live, like, around sort of kind of here-ish, more in the direction of the North Pole.
What did that mean for me? Some things that I expected like: bye bye shorts in the middle of winter, and bye bye palm trees.
And hello big thick winter jackets and layers, lots and lots of layers.
But yeah, like I said, I expected those things.
But there was something related to Germany’s geographical location, that not only came
as a shock to me when I first moved here, but still seems to shock me every single year since.
Stefan what time is it? - It's 5:30. - WHAT?!
Why am I awake right now? It's too bright out. This is really...it's too early for it to be so bright.
It’s not like they didn’t prepare me for this in school.
I learned in science or geography class that the closer you are to the poles the more the
amount of daylight you have each day changes throughout the year.
And when I was 14 I went to Alaska in the summer and I witnessed a super intense version
of this first-hand, experiencing daylight basically all day and night long.
And yet, still, when I moved to Europe, first to the Czech Republic and now Germany, I was
caught completely off guard and totally shocked when the end of May rolled around and I found
myself being woken up by what felt to me like 8 am level rays of sun at 5:30 in the morning.
Why am I awake right now?
And this is only the beginning of June.
We’ve still got a couple more weeks during which it will get even brighter.
And it doesn’t matter how long I live here, or how much I understand how the globe and
geography works, every single year, without fail, I am shocked when the sun wakes me up
at 5 in the morning, and then I am also shocked that even after so many years of living here
I am still shocked by this.
Like, how come I don't just come to expect this?
Why has sun at 5 in the morning not just become something that I simply expect to experience in June?
In the same way that I have come to expect big thick winter jackets and the smell of Glühwein in the winter?
Why have I not gotten used to this yet?
Why am I still shocked by this every year?
Now, some might say: well, Dana, I mean, no matter how long you live in Germany sun at 5 in the
morning is going to come as a shock to you because it wakes you up.
And that is true, yes. But actually it’s not just the sun in the morning that I haven’t been able to get used it.
It’s also the sun in the evening too.
In South Florida the amount of daylight that we had per day did vary throughout the year too.
It wasn’t a total constant because, remember, Florida is not directly on the equator. It's up from the equator.
So the amount of daylight that we had in Florida wasn't completely constant, but it certainly
fluctuated a lot less dramatically than way up here in Germany.
Why am I awake right now?
And that goes for nights too.
I went to a sleep-away summer camp for a few years in Florida, and I can remember that
by the time that we headed to bed at around 9:15 pm it was dark. Like, nighttime dark. Dark dark.
Whereas here in Germany, I still get these creepy Twilight Zone feelings when I go out
at 9 pm in the summer and it feels like 6:30.
I'm like woah, did I just warp through some kind of a like warm hole and now I’m in
some other universe where it’s light at night? What is this?
And this experience with the sun came with a bit of a geography adjustment for me as well.
So I learned geography and country location in school.
There were huge world maps up on the wall of many of my classrooms and I can remember
staring up at the world maps that we had in our classrooms many hours when I was in school.
But still, it wasn’t until I moved to Europe and really experienced this with the sunlight
waking me up at 5 in the morning first-hand that I was then motivated to go back and check
out a map with the express purpose of seeing exactly where Europe is latitudinally in relation
to the U.S. that I realized just how far north this part of Europe really is.
Like, regardless of all the maps that I had in my life growing up, somehow I just didn’t realize that before.
I think I sort of had the impression that Germany was probably around the latitude of, like,
the Connecticut New York area in the U.S. But no.
It's actually much farther north than I thought. Latitudinally speaking, Germany is actually up there with Canada.
And speaking of latitude and learning, I might have a tidbit that might be a bit interesting
for you if you, like me, have ever struggled with remembering which direction is latitude
and which one is longitude. Okay, I just gave it away - latitude, longitude.
But when I was younger I learned a great Esels Brücke for this - so "mnemonic" in English, that's the word for Esels Brücke.
Latitude like this is like the rungs of a ladder. So latitude - ladder rungs.
If you have your own mnemonic for remembering this, leave it in the comments.
So my question for you is: what have been your experiences with this?
Do you live somewhere with bright summers and darker winters like here in Germany?
Have you ever been somewhere where it never gets dark in the summer? Please let me know in the comments below.
Thanks so much for watching.
For more content from me you can follow me over on my Instagram @WantedAdventure.
I usually do my Instagram stories in German with little English subtitles.
And speaking of German, I also made a German version of this video. Linked down in the description box below.
And a really, really, really big thank you so much to our patrons on Patreon who help make these videos possible.
Thank you so, so, so very much for your support.
Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!
Why am I awake right now?