2013.02.23 White Night

I had only been in my new apartment for 90 minutes, most of it spent talking to my new Australian roommate, when I saw the Facebook post.  Two study abroad students were celebrating their 21st birthdays, hosting a pre-game party, and then heading out to White Night.  The party had started hours ago and they were preparing to head out in a little over an hour.  I hadn't even opened my suitcase, checked in with my parents, or put linens on my bed but I had already made my decision: I was going.

I took the shortest - and most rewarding - shower of my life, brushed my teeth, and changed all in the span of about 10 minutes and I was out the door.  I had the address in my head and had referenced a map just before I left, but was more or less wandering around until I found the party.  Granted, the music and large group of students outside with countless accents outside made identifying the right place pretty easy.

I walked in and was immediately greeted with cheers and drinks, a welcome change of pace to my last 38 hours.  Finally, a little fun and a nice start to my study abroad experience.

Fast forward past the drinking, the greeting and introductions: we were drunk and ready to head out to White Night.  I really had no idea what White Night was, but understood that it was a full night-long music and light show celebration.  Leaning on the other students to be more familiar with how to get there than I was, I followed their lead, bought a train ticket and hopped on.


It was a nice surprise to find out that inner city is only five stops away from the train station (which is only 1 block away from my apartment)!  So we were there in no time, and I must say, the view right off the train was extremely surprising.

The area was enormous and packed.  There were music artist playing on stages with large screens behind them, people selling various goods on the sidewalk, and food was abundant.  One of the coolest things about the festival were the lights - several buildings were lit spectacularly just for this occasion, some of them including moving light shows on the building faces.

There was more than I can explain, but I did grab a snap of a large chute of rattling glow sticks that were on display for spectators to observe and (belligerently) walk up and shake, making quite a loud noise.

Throughout the night, despite only just meeting each other, the group of us were holding hands to prevent being split apart.  But there were too many of us - at least 15 in my group - and we decided to split apart based on our interests for the night.  I ended up with an australian and four Canadians, which is when we headed to a club called Code Red.  Two of the girls I was with were the ones celebrating their 21st birthdays, and they had placed us on the guest list of the club earlier that day.  After talking more and walking towards the club, we were in and drinking a complementary bottle of champagne before I knew it.

Once one glass of champagne was finished our glasses were refilled - and then again.  Soon we were on the dance floor (the DJ was good too, which is a big plus) for a couple of hours.  Eventually more study abroad students made their was to Code Red, including a couple of German girls, a guy from Italy, Finland, and more.

Now, the clubs, artists performing outdoors, and light shows for White Night continue all the way until dawn, but I was exhausted after all of the travel.  And thankfully other students had only just arrived that morning as well and were jet-lagged.  So we headed back to the train station.

Once back at the Glenferrie station, only half awake at this point, we grabbed some quick food, said our good byes, and went back to our apartments.  Once home, I fell asleep immediately - I didn't even have enough energy to put sheets on my mattress before crashing.