Kultur Natten

Last night was AWESOME! It was Culture Night (Kultur Natten) around the city. Everything was open from 6-midnight. We saw the Danish Polar Center, Thorvaldsen's Museum (Amazing Roman Art,) etc. Let me explain since these names might not have much meaning to you.

Adam came home from work and surprised me with tickets to Kultur Natten. We ate our first dinner in our new house and were off. We went downtown and of course stopped to see if there were any activities at the Royal Stables. The royal horses weren't out, but there were six teams of horses with old-fashioned carriages getting ready to go out in the city. I took some pictures of Fjords and we continued on our way.

We stopped downtown and got FREE Potatoes. That was my favorite part of the whole night. We stood in line, and they handed both Adam and I bags of potatoes. Beautiful, clean potatoes. Lol. You're probably wondering why getting free potatoes makes me so happy. Simple: they cost a FORTUNE!

Adam here. The free potatoes were at the Axelborg, or Agricultural Ministry Building. We also got potato soup, warm curry potato salad, and a sample of just grilled steak. We originally went for the free ice cream that was being offered, but so was everybody and their brother. We decided not to stand in the horrifically long line and hopped a bus (free with our Kultur Natten passes) to Christianshavn and the Danish Polar Center.

At the Polar Center, my colleagues from the Nationalmuseet/Center for Greenland Research were giving presentations on this year's archaeological field work. They are working on projects involved with Nordic occupation of Greenland, Eskimo prehistory, and -what I found most surprising- Nazi weather stations from WWII. Two of the guys from my office were also making a soapstone oil lamp with only stone tools. The finished products are very beautiful, made in a similar tradition to those made over 1000 years ago, and work (at least when it's not too windy). I tried my hand at shaping the outside of the lamp with a unifacial scraper made from Danish flint (threw in the technical term for my archy homies). It was fun.



Brooke mostly occupied herself with petting the 20 sled dogs that were outside beside the stone lamp station. They were very cute and well behaved until Martin needed to cut some more seal blubber to add to the lamp. Wow! The dogs must have thought he was going to feed them dinner. Once they caught a whiff of the fresh blubber, they were flipping out! Luckily their chains held fast and any impending disaster (like Martin being attacked) was averted.

After that, we went back to the city center and walked around inside the Rådhus, or city hall. We saw beautiful murals in the staircases, lots of busts of dead (probably important) men, and a nice view of the city at night.

At the Round Tower, the University observatory completed in 1642 and Europe's oldest functioning observatory, I was enthralled with the built-in toilet halfway up the tower. There's also a toilet at the top of the tower (that we didn't get to see), but is 35 meters above street level. The holding tank for both latrines are below the tower (what a drop!) and only needed to emptied twice a century. Less interestingly, the tower has no steps, just a big circular ramp on the inside.
(Tele-Sheep inside the museum. They also had build your own animal, but we ran out of time.)

We stopped at the Post and Tele Museum, and then finished the night at a cute little candy shop that had been in operation since the 1840s. We listened to the 5 old farts playing their guitars on stage and tasted some lovely hard candy. One thing we did note was the presence of beer holders on the mic stands. Danish ingenuity continues to impress us!

(Danish Mountain Pies!!) Mmmmm..... We didn't get a chance to make one, but it looked like a lot of fun!