Kulturkats

Kulturnat (Culture Night) was Friday. That is the annual event in Copenhagen where many city businesses, arts institutions, museums, and government offices open to the public and put on performances. Included in the cost of the Kulturnat pass ($15) is public transportation. I think this year's logo (left) is extra cute. We've started calling Sammie our "kulturkat". We enjoyed a visit to the city hall which has lots of architectural flourishes, inside and out. Inside were booths set up by the various political parties. There was also a tour of the city archives including a section on the 1807 bombarding of Copenhagen by the British. I had heard of this before with only references to a naval bombardment, but the displays said that 30,000 British troops landed and laid seige to the city from the landward side. This interesting letter provides a first-hand account of both this battle and a battle 6 years earlier. We heard two concerts on Friday. The first was Widor's 5th organ symphony, including the Toccata which I remember from Dr. Payne's postludes at Bucknell University candlelight Christmas services. This was at Helligåndskirken. Afterwards we wandered over to Vor Frue Kirke to hear the Copenhagen Boys Choir. After all of this culture we had to call it a night because we had another big day coming up on Saturday.

Saturday started off with the usual Danish class. Our class has shrunk after a reshuffling of the students among other classes. It makes it more fun because we get more opportunities to talk. From Danish we left to sing at the wedding of a woman in the choir. It's a tradition that our choir sings at its members' weddings. This was our second Danish wedding. Our first was the reason for our visit to Denmark in 2005. We understood more this time, hopefully in two more years we'll understand everything. Rather than impose a hungry choir on the wedding dinner, we met later for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Copenhagen. At first a rather rude woman tried to turn us away telling us that there was a private party. I agreed, saying that I was coming for a party of our own and managed to work my way in and find my way to the basement where our table for 20 had been set up. We had an entertaining Italian waiter who tried to appease us as it became clear that our group was playing second fiddle to the group upstairs. After a few hours of hearing singing from the basement, the other party's guests started peeking down the steps at us to see what was going on. Later a famous (in Denmark) actor came down to say hello. It was Thomas Bo Larsen. After a while we went upstairs to sing for them and they seemed very appreciative. We lasted until quarter after midnight (not quite 6 hours) then headed home on our bikes.

Finally on Sunday we slept late then headed off to Ikea which was open on a rare non-first Sunday of the month. There we bought a soft mattress for Alexa and a wall-mounted medicine cabinet. We also scouted out the furniture we'll be getting this weekend for the baby's room. Today I picked up another sleep aid for Alexa that we had mail-ordered. It was a big long pillow which should help guarantee a few more good nights of sleep until the big day comes. It was left at the post office after an attempted delivery last week. This package was the biggest to date that I've managed to carry on my bike. Granted, it was a just a pillow, but it's still fun to see what I can manage to carry on two wheels.