Last paragraphs] On our last night in Norway, the sky finally began to clear. Even if glimpsing the sun at midnight was completely arbitrary, I still wanted to see it. I scurried up a small mountain, just reaching its crest at 11:58 p.m. I had low expectations; I was ready to be disappointed by whatever I saw. The clock struck midnight, and there it was: the sun, unimpeded, resplendent. The same sun as always. But what a sun. And what an earth. I imagined myself at the top of a swiftly spinning planet, tilting its head in salutation to that distant solar body. It was what I had seen every day but I had never seen it before today.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/19/travel/reif-larsen-norway.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
Does the author Mr. Reif Larsen say that he sees this view every day, but didn't appreciated it before he saw it from Norway that day? Even if my surmise is right, isn’t his diction (use of ‘seen’ twice) baffling?