Six PM - Six AM

On Wednesday I had another tutor session at CIS and afterwards I met my friend Tom, from New Zealand, for a catch-up at Floss.  I went upstairs to get our second round and looked out the window to see that my bike was not where I had left it.  I didn't go outside to check if it was there, my logic was that if it had been stolen, it would still be stolen when I left the bar.  We had a lovely chat and then as we were leaving the strap on my bag broke and then it was the moment of truth - was my bike still outside?  I went outside and could not see it for the life of me, I had a whole minute just looking around wildly in disbelief that someone had actually taken my old, partly broken, locked bike.  I persevered though and found it halfway down the street.  I can understand someone moving my bike to get to theirs, it happens all the time here but I was surprised at just how far they felt they had to move it.  Anyway, I cycled home and decided to take my exam for Scandinavian Political Systems as a 30 minute oral exam instead of a 5000 word essay.

On Thursday, I met Max and we cycled into Norreport and bought our tickets for Kultur Natten (Night of Culture) on Friday.  We headed to the library where it looked like Max did lots of good work and I felt a little bit inadequate.  Also, everyone else in the library had a Mac and they were all silent and lovely.  I turned on my laptop to the most horrific noise in the world, very embarrassing.  In the evening we cycled down to Marias to do some more planning for our Stockholm trip next week.  Also got amazing post from a Miss Phoebe McHale, everyone loves getting post!

Friday was a slow day, did some reading, watched some Sex and the City.  Simon was having a little party at our apartment and I did this to his plastic wine glasses.

I was resting up for what I knew would be a big night in the form of Kultur Natten.  And it sure was.  Kultur Natten is 85DKK (£10) and you can pretty much get into all of Copenhagens attractions for free.  I cycled down to Max's and from there we went to Copenhagen Zoo, it was already dark so some of the animals were asleep and some had been taken away for the night for safety reasons I think.  It was cool though (normally the ZOO is more than £25) and we saw lions, tigers, sea lions, penguins, elephants, giraffes, rhinos and some farmyard animals.  In the elephant arena there was even a cool jazz trio. Perfection.

The above photos are mine.  Thanks goes to Max for the ones below.

From the Zoo we got the bus (for free!) into the city centre and I was stunned.  I knew this night was a big deal but it was incredible, I had never seen the streets this busy.  A lot of shops had decided to stay open because there was so much passing trade and there was a real carnival atmosphere, lots of street performers and things going on everywhere you looked.  We fought our way through the crowds and went to Christiansborg Palace which houses the Danish Parliament.  We cut the queue (so un-British) and took a pretty extensive look around.  It was really cool and all the parties had a room with activities and stuff.  Me and Max were loving the Socialdemokraterne room. 

After we left the Parliament we came across another jazz street performer who was amazing.  He was stood on the steps of this grand old building and the shadows were so Jazz.  From there we went to the Rundetaarn (Round Tower) and walked all the way up to the top.  The tower doesn't have steps, it is just one great slope upwards (I heard a rumour this was so that some King of Denmark could ride his horse to the top!).  We got to the top and the views were pretty amazing, it definitely makes me want to go up in the daytime when there is more to see.

Before, or after the Rundetaarn we came across a tiny side-street where some cool cats had an insane BOOMBOX blasting old-school 1980s American rap.  They were absolutely going for it, it was a beautiful sight to witness.  We then went to Kobenhavn HovedBibliotek (the main public library) where there was a Finnish garage rock/rockabilly band called Black Magic Six playing. 

It wasn't really Maxs thing so I got a 6DKK (70p) beer and bumped into this Itralian guy from my course who was also loving it.  I thought it was a bit more metal than they were pretending but it was so nice to hear some live music, I seriously want to listen to amazing musicians live every night of my life.  After this Max decided he was too tired so he went home, but I had a text from Matt so we headed down to Tivoli to meet some Italians we know, this was around 12.  We found them and got the train to the Carlsberg Museum where there was meant to be a great party. 

Although the others weren't very impressed, I quite liked it.  They had created a gallery space and there was good music coming from the DJ.  Looked like there were some pretty interesting characters there as well.  But we didn't stay long.  We went up to Norreport again to go to our Friday Bar at CSS.  Then we met these Danish girls who invited us to their Friday Bar (Biology) so we followed them.  It was pretty cool but so tiny compared to our Friday parties.  The walls were black and covered in UV painted sealife and there were blacklights.

Stayed there quite a while and then me, Matt and Roberto decided to go to our Friday Bar.  When we got there it had already shut so we went exploring in the Politics Department building.  We left there and went up into Osterbro to Robertos apartment to get some food, and I ended up not getting home until 6am.  I was sat on the train home and there were all these early-risers that had got up early to catch a flight or something, and then me.

It was a great night and excluding my Kultur Natten ticket I only spent about 40DKK (under £5) but on the downside now I have to go and collect my bike from far away, if its still there.