Written by: Mahir Daiyan Ashraf
I learned something in Tromsø that still doesn’t sound real when I say it out loud: the sun doesn’t rise in late November. The darkness doesn’t budge. We checked the sunrise time so we could decide when to wake up, and Tromsø didn’t give us a time. It gave us a date. January 16. It was November 28.
I reread it three times because my brain was trying to auto-correct it into something normal. I’ve lived my whole life with the sun as a background constant, a promise that even if today is rough, tomorrow will still arrive with newfound light. Tromsø took that promise away, casually, and replaced it with something stranger: time measured by sky color and when the city turned empty.
On the bus ride to Tromsdalen, I kept looking out the window like I was trying to catch the moment my sense of reality would recalibrate. Everything outside was white. Not white as in pretty snow, as well as white as in an overwhelmingly large amount of snow. Snow piled into mounds taller than me. Roofs wearing thick layers of it, like the town had been accumulating winters for years. Houses and sheds looked tucked into the landscape instead of built on it.
Our Airbnb sat up an incline that immediately humbled us. It looked manageable until we were actually on it, boots slipping, hands full. Kyler wiped out first, and I laughed for about two seconds before realizing I was next. I was. We made it up eventually, a little bruised, a little breathless.
That first night wasn’t very glamorous. It was hauling groceries from the nearby COOP, shaking snow off our shoes, turning the Airbnb into a temporary home, and getting ready to watch Clean Old-Fashioned Hate from a place that barely felt connected to the rest of the world. But it felt special anyway, because we were about to do something completely ordinary in a setting that was anything but.
We watched GT vs UGA from near the “top” of the world, and yes, we’re convinced we were the northernmost people in the world doing it. Inside, it was the same tension I’ve felt so many times, and outside was this silent Arctic night pressing against the windows. Sports are ridiculous like that. You can travel all the way to Tromsø, where the sun won’t rise for weeks, and still find yourself cheering at a screen like you’re back home.
The next morning, I opened the curtains and the sky was painted in pink and electric blue, like someone had turned global saturation up. It wasn’t sunrise, not really. More like the world blushing briefly before returning to darkness. We walked to the Arctic Cathedral, and then across the Tromsø Bridge. That view was the first time I truly understood where we were. The whole island laid out beneath us, tucked into fjords and mountains on either side.
We wandered through snow-covered streets and ended up at the Christmas market, which looked like something built out of childhood memory: a huge Christmas tree, wooden stalls, fairy lights stitched into the dark. My friends went for reindeer hot dogs, whale salami, moose salami. Later we grabbed lunch, and I had baked Norwegian salmon that genuinely might have been the best salmon I’ve ever eaten.
What kept catching me off guard was how quickly time moved. It was around 1 pm and the day was already slipping into darkness again. Not gradually. The sky just started shutting the blinds.
We stopped by the Arctic museum, went down to a small dock, and the wind tried to pick a fight with us. It shoved us around like toys while we tried to keep our footing and still get the photos we came for.
After that we walked along the coast toward Telegrafbukta, and somewhere along the way the trip stopped being about sightseeing and became about feeling like kids again. We made a snowman. Started a snowball fight. Threw ourselves into the snow like it was a mattress. Cannonballed into drifts. Made snow angels. There’s something about snow that resets you. It lets you be ridiculous.
That same night we headed out for the northern lights, and we were already negotiating with disappointment. It was cloudy everywhere. We drove and drove and drove, chasing forecasts and hope, and every time I looked out it was just… grey darkness. And then we crossed into Finland, and the clouds finally loosened their grip.
The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere. No city glow. No distractions. Just a parking area and a sky that suddenly remembered it had secrets.
And then it happened.
The aurora didn’t show up like fireworks. It didn’t arrive with a single dramatic burst. It was more like the sky began moving, slowly at first, as if it was stretching after a long sleep. Green spilled across the darkness. Pink followed, softer and stranger. The lights darted and shifted like they were alive, all across the deep blue canvas.
We stood there looking up, and I don’t even remember what I said because I think I mostly just made sounds. At some point we all ended up lying on our backs in the snow, staring upward, squealing like we were watching something impossible, because we were.
It genuinely felt like the sky was dancing.
I set up my tripod. Arthur pulled out the drone. Took more photos than I can count. Part of me was trying to capture it, and part of me knew I couldn’t. Not fully. Some things are too big to fit inside a frame. Still, I tried, because trying is part of loving something. We drank hot chocolate and ate biscuits. I attempted to track the North Star for a star trail shot and it didn’t come out how I wanted, which normally would have annoyed me, but out there it didn’t really matter.
Then we got back to Tromsø around 2 am, half asleep and still wired, and ate salmon pasta as our victory meal.
The next day was softer. Less chasing, more wandering.
We explored the city, and at some point we booked a sauna and polar plunge. It sounded like a good idea. It also sounded like a terrible idea. I don’t know what possessed us but we did it anyway.
We went into the sauna first, and then walked straight into the ice-cold water. We stayed in for five minutes. It was awful, obviously, but not really. It wasn’t pain so much as a full-body reset, like the cold flipped a switch and everything else disappeared. We got out shaking, ran back into the sauna, laughed through the shivering, warmed up, and then did it again. I’d never experienced anything like that before. It was brutal, but in a weird way it was also very invigorating. And afterward, wrapped up again, it felt like we had earned something. Like we had met the Arctic on its own terms for a moment, and survived.
One of my favorite sights from Tromsø was the colorful wooden houses down by the dock. They looked like something from a fairytale, bright against all that white and dark.
Later we went to a park and ended up trekking through snow that looked flat until you stepped into it. At one point I straight-up dropped into waist-deep powder and just stood there for a second like… bruh. The lake was frozen, the trees looked dusted over, and the woods made everything feel a little enchanted.
And then, just like that, it was time to leave. Flight back to Paris.
Paris after Tromsø felt like switching worlds. The cold disappeared and suddenly there were headlights, traffic, people everywhere, and those orange streetlights that make everything cinematic. We spent the day walking until we couldn’t feel our legs, catching all the iconic Paris landmarks in passing, letting the city be the last loud, bright send-off to the semester. And when the Eiffel finally sparkled that night, it felt like a closing scene.
It felt like the perfect ending to the semester’s last trip. Not because it was the most “productive” day, but because it was a goodbye that matched the scale of what the semester had been.
A full stop before finals.
A deep breath before the sprint.
If I’m being honest, I don’t remember Tromsø as a list of events. I remember it as a feeling.
I remember the surreal truth of a place where the sun doesn’t rise. I remember how snow reshaped everything, softened everything, made even a simple walk feel like a tiny expedition. I remember the way the sky turned pink and blue as if it was trying to apologize for the darkness. I remember the wind pushing us around on that dock like it was amused by our confidence. I remember rolling around in the snow and laughing until my stomach hurt.
And I remember lying on my back in Finland, staring at green and pink lights moving across the sky, feeling my world expand.
That night did something to me. It made me stop, properly stop, in a way I haven’t done in months. It made me appreciate the sheer beauty this world carries. It reminded me that I’m lucky. Lucky to be here. Lucky to see this. Lucky to have friends to share it with. Lucky to be young enough to throw myself into snow without worrying about looking stupid.
Tromsø made me feel small and grateful. Paris made me feel present and sentimental. Together they felt like the perfect closing scene to a chapter I’m not ready to end.
Now I’m back in Metz, staring down finals week, bracing for the brutal part.
But the world doesn’t stop being beautiful just because I’m stressed.
And sometimes, if I’m lucky, it reminds me.