Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Culture Night!

Hey Everyone,

Thought I'd do a shorter post tonight before going to sleep. It is about... Culture Night!

Culture Night is an event in Copenhagen that occurs once a year. Essentially you buy a Culture Night pass for about 18$ and it allows you access to transportation for free for the entire evening and access to all culture night events. The large majority of them are free. Basically any organization that wants to (especially churches, museums, and anything related to culture (duh)) has events that go on that night. The event is from 18-24 (6pm to midnight for all you non military time speakers) which means that many places are opened way past their normal hours giving people a unique opportunity to go to these places that may normally be hard to access (because they work during the day or whatever) and makes it easy to travel around the city and see multiple sites. Additionally, because it is a special night, many places have special modifications to what they have to offer. In other words, some places may just extend their hours but other places do exciting things. Some examples of events are, getting to explore the Danish Parliament building (something you cannot normally do), getting to go into a medieval basement of an ancient church that people outside of the church are only allowed into during culture night, being able to explore Rosenburg castle with flashlights, and so many more exciting things! Seriously, the program for Culture Night I received had so many things to do. The city also gets really packed as people come from outside to experience the culture.

Anyway, I think that Culture Night is a really great idea. I went with a couple friends to the zoo... and the zoo only. Which was kind of a bummer because there were so many places to go. But they really wanted to go to the zoo and it normally costs 40$ to get in... Also I was quite limited on time because I had to go volunteer for DIS (which meant that I got a free pass). I basically got to go to the zoo for free. So anyway we went around the zoo at night which was pretty cool because a lot of the nocturnal animals were more active (including the tigers which were running all over the place). So that was kind of cool to see and then we walked back to where we needed to be and there were people everywhere. Then we spotted a free soup stand and were of course all over that.

We then got to the DIS event. I helped run the bar that sold hot drinks in a DIS courtyard. The main attraction was a haunted house though. It was crazy, we had a line out of the courtyard that was like an hour wait to get into the courtyard and then another line inside the place which was another hour (also we had no bathroom for these people). I was like what the heck people it is culture night why are you willing to wait two hours for a fairly poor haunted house (it was just like four rooms and a one night thing run entirely by DIS volunteers). My friend was one of the volunteers though and she apparently had a great time making Danish people flip out. We also helped Danish people make smores (they do not have gram crackers here though so we had to use biscuit cookies) and carve pumpkins. So the DIS event was surprisingly successful.

Anyway, that was Culture Night. Overall, cool idea I think. Also quick commentary on Halloween. I have heard that it is relatively new here (but also that people have been trick-or-treating for years(?)) and I asked my host family if their kids are going to trick-or-treat and they said no but they are going to a Halloween party. Also many kids do not trick-or-treat because it is seen as begging. Not knowing what this meant I ignored it and found out later that nowadays kids often go around and ask for money instead of candy (which makes it very clear why it might be seen as begging...) but apparently 20 years or so ago they got candy. If you're confused, don't worry, I am too. What I do know is that many kids do not trick-or-treat and that many houses do not give candy, and that some kids ask for money, and that some houses give money in the absence of candy. Therefore, many kids and teens and older people go to parties for Halloween nowadays (instead of just teens and older).

Anyway, that is culture night and some Halloween traditions in Denmark. If you're interested in Culture Night I strongly suggest looking it up because it's a neat tradition and there are a lot of things that are offered and it can be cool just to see all the attractions that are offered on that night (especially for an extremely affordable price!).

I am also in the process of trying to plan a large trip right now and I'm not sure what I'm going to do or how it is actually going to work out. I will of course report when I do know. It is for a 2 week break that we DIS students get in order to travel around.

Also I have been crazy busy since I returned from Scotland and I am now basically done with important academic things until classes resume in mid-November so that is a huge relief. I also went to my host family's summer house this weekend with them so I will prolly blog about that sometime soon. Also I missed the window for going to Tivoli in the Halloween season which I'm majorly bummed about because it looked really cool. Also, it has started to get really annoyingly cold from time to time (depending on time of day and wind); I had to whip out my winter jacket for the first time tonight and was cold (although was not using the combo of long underwear, jacket, and winter jacket so I can still handle much colder). So yeah that is what is going on in my life.

I hope you guys are getting some rain and some cool weather.

Talk to you again soon! (Hopefully)

Nick

And Kynan, yes I would say that meditation central is a commonly accepted nickname for Europe and I am very surprised you have not come across it before. And I think I have just encountered it because of my Positive Psych class and meditation's focus on experiencing positive emotions and relaxation. And I don't know what else to say about the drunken scotsmen... they were drunk, and weird. I did not join the cult, I'm not much into them.

1 comment:

  1. Could you tell us/me more about that positive psychology course? Is it just like training people to have unconditional positive regard in every aspect of their life? Because that sounds insane.

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