Swimming in January

[Bente13 at peoplepc.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 24904

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., hannata at s... wrote:

> >Then we are told how awkward Krum looks while walking.  Not to
> >mention his swimming in that freezing lake in January.  Normal 
people
> >can't swim in water like that.
> 
> OK, I'm from Finland and that is not normal, but I really do have 
to 
> tell this "truth" about swimming in January. We actually do swim  
> winters, we just make this hole in the ice and there we go.. I 
don't 
> believe that the water is really freezing in Scotland in January, 
> while our lakes are really frozen..
> 
> What becomes to the names Durmstrang, Igor Karkakoff, Viktor Krum 
and 
> so on, they mind sound like german, but I think that they may come 
> from a really large area.. but let's face it. Krum plays quiddich 
in 
> Bulgarian team, which means, that the school has to be close to 
> Bulgaria (like Hogwarts is school for Irish and British 
> wizardstudents, might Durmstrang be shcool for several countries 
> wizardstudent).


I'm from Norway, and I have to agree about the whole swimming in 
winter thing. It's done, all over Scandinavia, and people don't seem 
to suffer in the least for it. Krum probably spends most of his time 
in a climate that's much colder than that of Scotland. My thinking 
has always been that Durmstrang is located somewhere on the northern 
coast, hence the ship the Durmstrang students arrived in. The Black 
Sea would work, I suppose, but it's more likely to be somewhere much 
colder. If it was inland, the ship wouldn't make much sense though, 
would it? According to the students' names, Durmstrang seems to be a 
school for wizards of Slavic distraction, anyway. 

Bente