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It's summertime in the Northern Hemisphere, and for many of you, that means longer days. For some of you, it means much longer days. This episode is about those places that get sunlight all night long. Hi there, everyone. It's Jeff, and this is plain English episode number 883. At plain English, we help you upgrade your English skills with stories about current events and trending topics. I've lived most of my life around 41 degrees north latitude, give or take a few degrees, and that means daylight until well past 8 o'clock p.m. during the summers. And I love that about summer. It's the best time of the year, and you can enjoy more of it. But a lot of people live at 50 degrees, 60 degrees north latitude, and for many people at this time of year, the sun never goes down. And I was curious about what happens when the sun never fully sets, when there's some sunlight at all hours of the night, and that is what this episode is about. You can follow along with the transcript, do the exercises, and share your thoughts on this topic at plainEnglish.com/883. Before we start today's story, I just like to remind you that the podcast is just one part of how we can help you upgrade your English skills. At plainEnglish.com, you can make faster progress with active learning strategies. You can take quizzes, do activities, listen to the fast version of the audio, watch video workshops, practice what you learn, and even join a live call with JR and me. It's all about helping you build your skills to become a better, more confident English speaker. On Good, go to plainEnglish.com to start your free 14-day trial today. Now let's jump into today's story. When you think of the word "summer," you probably think of the temperature. In most places, summer is the hottest season. But for many people, summer also means longer days. And the farther you get from the equator, the more daylight you get in the summertime. At the equator, every day has about the same amount of sunlight. Dawn and dusk are short, the sun seems to rise and set quickly. At the Arctic Circle, things are quite different. During the summer, the sun never fully goes below the horizon. Even in the dead of night, it's light outside. Of course not many people live above the Arctic Circle. But millions of people in Scandinavia, Russia, Canada and Alaska get some sunlight all night long in the summertime. And this can shape the experience of living there. If you like being outside, especially in pleasant weather, long summer nights can be a dream. In Fairbanks, Alaska, they've been playing the Midnight Sun baseball game since 1906. The game starts at 10 o'clock p.m. on the summer solstice and ends around midnight. No outdoor lights required. In Sweden, mid-summer, the summer solstice is a national holiday. Shops close, cities empty out, and people go to cabins in the countryside to enjoy the long days, warm weather and beautiful surroundings. Rakyavik holds a music festival on the longest days of the year, bars and clubs stay open later. Partiers leave the bars at two, three in the morning, and it's still light outside. Trumpso, Norway, is one of the northernmost cities in the world, at 69 degrees north latitude. It hosts an entire festival around the summer solstice. Hank Petersburg, Russia, is the largest city to experience daylight at night. Five million people live at 59 degrees north latitude, where the sun is up for almost 19 hours on the longest day, and it doesn't get fully dark at night. People say that the long, extended sunset transitions directly into a long, extended sun rise. They call this season "The White Nights." Theodore Dostoevsky wrote a famous story called "White Nights." The city comes alive after midnight. It's crowd the riverbank and watch the bridges open and cargo ships pass through between one and five a.m. The summer solstice is also graduation season, and the Scarlet Sales Festival celebrates new high school graduates. A tall ship with Scarlet colored sales sails along the Niva River, while the city's symphony performs outdoors, bands play on multiple stages, and fireworks go off. It starts at one o'clock in the morning. That all sounds fun, but it comes at a cost. It can be hard to adapt to a world with little to no darkness. Our bodies regulate sleep with the transition from light to darkness. The hormone melatonin is released in darkness. But if it never gets truly dark, the body's melatonin production gets postponed, making it harder to go to sleep. So people who live with extended daylight have to adapt. The built environment helps. Others in Finland, for example, are designed to let as much daylight as possible into the house. This is to help in those opposite months, without much sunlight. But the windows are all equipped with heavy blackout curtains that block out all the sunlight from outside. And those are not just in the bedrooms. All curtains are common, even in living rooms and kitchens. So your body can adapt to darkness in the hours before bedtime. Even restaurants do this. In Iceland, it's common for restaurants to close their blackout curtains and dim the lights to imitate a nighttime experience. Of course, you do still have to leave, and you can walk outside at 11 o'clock PM to sunshine. Some people really do struggle with the changes in daylight. Melatonin supplements are available, though in Scandinavia they are by prescription only. Still, most people are able to adapt fairly well, not just to long days, but to the short ones as well, remember Trumso Norway? About 80,000 people live there, and from about May 20th to July 22nd, two months, the sun never sets at all. And from mid-November until mid-January, the sun never fully comes up. It's just twilight during midday. For this reason, Trumso is one of the most studied places on earth for sleep. And a big study found that there wasn't much seasonal variation in the amount of sleep people got. I've never been really far north in the summer, but I grew up in a town that was about 41 degrees north latitude, and that's about where Chicago is, too, where I've spent many years. It's about even with Barcelona or Rome. And the sunlight affects a lot. It affects the rhythm of the year. I love it when it's still light at 8 o'clock, and still some daylight peeking through at 8.38.45, especially when the weather is nice, it's nice to be outside later in the evening. But here's one. thing. I don't like blackout curtains. I like to wake up with the sun coming in my windows. So, I don't know what I do in Helsinki when the sun comes up at 3.50am. That does it for today's plain English episode 883. I've got maybe one or two more summer themed topics. I think I owe you a World Cup episode so we'll get that other summer topic in later, maybe in August sometime. My apologies to those of you who live in the Southern Hemisphere. It's winter time for you, but I hope you enjoy these episodes nonetheless. Remember the full episode is at plainenglish.com/883. That is thanks to JR, the producer. See you next week for a new story. Listen up if you speak Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, or Turkish. One of the most frustrating things about listening and reading in a second language is being confused by unfamiliar words or phrases. When you listen to plain English or when you read the transcript, you probably encounter some words you don't know. When that happens, you have a few options. You can stop the audio, go look up the definition, then return to the episode, find your place, and press play again, but that's exhausting. Or you can just skip it and be confused. That's no fun either. But what if you could see the translation of the word into your language instantly without having to stop the audio, without having to look anything up? Well you can at plainenglish.com. For each episode, we translate about 100 words and phrases from English to nine languages. Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Turkish. And we highlight those words in blue. All you have to do is hover your mouse over the highlighted word and you will see the translation instantly. It works great on mobile too. It really makes listening a lot more satisfying and it's a great way to expand your vocabulary in English. The best way to see these translations is to sign up for a free 14-day trial at plainenglish.com. During your trial, you can read as many transcripts as you like, all with the translations into your language. So sign up for your free trial today at plainenglish.com.