Wednesday, May 20th...
3:00am...
What a night! A local Finnish girl in our class, Miriam, invited us to experience authentic night life in Jyvaskyla since Thursday we are out of school for Ascension Day. She claimed that bars and night clubs around town are pretty much the same everywhere, and she wanted to take us to a place that she loved. The funny thing is that during class today, our teacher commented on how often people will shut down ideas and experiences they are not initially comfortable with. She made this connection when Miriam chose not to read an article for a class assignment because it involved a bunch of numbers and figures, which turned her away from the entire article; an article that could have been great. In the same respect, many of my friends and I reacted in the same way when we entered Ilokivi tonight.
Upon entering the "bar", I hear music that I would describe as
eery and strange. There was a disco ball hanging randomly from the ceiling and abstract images being projected onto the wall in which people danced in front of. I basically walked in, took a picture to capture the moment, and walked out with the others. As we walked to a new destination we talked and laughed about what we had just seen and assumed that surely that wasn't where we were supposed to meet. Well roughly an hour later, we discovered that we were wrong. We were indeed in the right place the first time.
To keep from offending Miriam, we decided to walk in and put our things down as though maybe we would stay. After looking strangely at the individuals dancing, we realized that you know what - we are in Finland for the first time and our classmate asked us to come here, so let's
dance! We spent the next few hours dancing to Finnish rock and disco music, and had an amazing time together. Personally I wouldn't have traded our night at Ilokivi for any other bar in the city. Don't get me wrong, I may not rush to go back again, but I'm glad that we all pushed past our initial judgments and reservations and tried something new. Just as we learned today in class, when we keep ourselves inside a box that we are comfortable in and reject the unfamiliar, we may be missing out on some wonderful experiences. (or at least a night of interesting memories!)
eery and strange. There was a disco ball hanging randomly from the ceiling and abstract images being projected onto the wall in which people danced in front of. I basically walked in, took a picture to capture the moment, and walked out with the others. As we walked to a new destination we talked and laughed about what we had just seen and assumed that surely that wasn't where we were supposed to meet. Well roughly an hour later, we discovered that we were wrong. We were indeed in the right place the first time.To keep from offending Miriam, we decided to walk in and put our things down as though maybe we would stay. After looking strangely at the individuals dancing, we realized that you know what - we are in Finland for the first time and our classmate asked us to come here, so let's
dance! We spent the next few hours dancing to Finnish rock and disco music, and had an amazing time together. Personally I wouldn't have traded our night at Ilokivi for any other bar in the city. Don't get me wrong, I may not rush to go back again, but I'm glad that we all pushed past our initial judgments and reservations and tried something new. Just as we learned today in class, when we keep ourselves inside a box that we are comfortable in and reject the unfamiliar, we may be missing out on some wonderful experiences. (or at least a night of interesting memories!)
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