city sunset & country sunset

Favourite thing yesterday: Michal and I went shopping in the Glebe, turned off Bank onto 5th Ave, and right in front of us saw the most stunning sunset. The sky was a luminescent pink, the colour of the polished inside of a seashell, and the snow glowed from the reflected light. I know it is hokey but it took our breath away. There is something about city sunsets: you're in the city and you forget how spectacular natural beauty can be and then there it is piercing through everything--the houses, the telephone wires, the street, the mailboxes--this glowing brilliant pink. It deepened as we walked and was so surprising that in fact people were stopping in the street, pointing, and saying, look at that.

I thought I'd look on the list and see if there were any mentions of sunsets and, sure enough, there was one. Here is one of Maddy's favourite things (in her category of "favourite overlooks/views"): Height of Land in the Rangeley Lakes Region (Maine) at sunset.

While I have seen many sunsets there is one that I remember more vividly than all the others. I was seventeen, travelling with a friend through Europe, and we were in Oban, Scotland, looking across to the isle of Mull. The sun was a brilliant ever-deepening orange but I think what struck me the most were the angular hills lined up like cards, one behind the other, each a different shade of dark. I can remember eating fish and chips wrapped in newspaper and staring in stunned wonder at the brilliance and depth of the light in contrast to those dark gradated hills.