The Northern Lights

On Tuesday night, the 17th, around 9 o'clock, many of the home people, interns, and people who work in Solheimar were planning to meet outside of the school building to gaze at the stars and if we were lucky, see the northern lights, because the sky was supposed to be very clear.

After looking at the stars for a bit, me and four or so other people decided to go out into a nearby field and throw around a light up frisbee. It was a lot of fun and some of the interns working in Solheimar - came to join us.

At one point when we were throwing the frisbee around, I turned around for a second and saw faintly in the sky behind me what could have been the northern lights but I wasn't sure so I didn't say anything at first. Slowly, each of us stopped what we were doing at began to stare at the sky. 

It was faint at first, just a distant green glow in the sky but as it got a bit later into the night, the green got more and more visible. In some ways it looked like a green rainbow - it was similarly shaped in an arc across the dark sky. At times it was faint but at some points it got more intense and you could see it shimmering across the sky - it almost seemed like it was dancing in front of us. It was truly one of the most incredible things I have ever experienced and I can't imagine what it will be like as the days get shorter and the nights get darker and the northern lights get more and more visible. 

What made the experience even more exciting was that so many of us were seeing it for the first time. Every since I got accept into the CELL program, I have been looking forward to seeing the northern lights and it was finally happening on this beautifully clear and surprisingly still (not windy) night. We probably spent over an hour out there staring at the sky - witnessing the Aurora Borealis. At times we were all giggling and talking excitedly but there were also times of distinct silence where all eleven or so of us were just standing there in complete awe of the green lights in the sky dancing before us. 

One of the interns from Romania, George, was out there with us with his camera taking incredible long exposure pictures of the northern lights. Here is a picture he took of the group of us with the northern lights in the background:

By: Margo Feingold