I'm uncertain if that's the right translation or if there is a specific phrase that's used regardless every year at the end of september Lund, a city close by, has a city wide event showing of art, culture, music and since it's a university town various lectures.
It's this Saturday and I'm going.
While it might be called night this is not entirely true since the first event starts at 9 in the morning with the majority of things happening in the afternoon. Having checked the program I could conclude that nothing I'm interested in starts before 1. This gives me enough time to bake some bread and do some cleaning also eat lunch at home.
It's unseasonably warm right now but my apartment has heating issues so it's rather cool which means that I made the decision to wear both a sweater and jacket. This meant that the brisk walk to the first even left me a bit overheated. But I justify my actions by thinking that I'll need it later in the evening.
As I said I had checked the program in advance and had everything planned out. At the first place (the Pufendorf Institute) I saw two lectures, they had a theme of food and sustainability. I should say, all the lectures I watched were about 20-30 minutes I realize there are a few of them.
The first was about using liquid carbon-dioxide as a green solvent for oil extraction in the food industry. With the aim to replace hexane.
The second one was about Using yeast and plants to control pests in crops. Rather using yeast or genetically engineered plants to produce pheromones more cheaply than creating them artificially. Then using the Pheromones to disrupt the insects mating. This also included and explanation of how the moths make their pheromones in the first place.
The next lecture here was about food that makes your teeth whiter but as is usual at this types of events there are many things happening at the same time and there were a lecture about ancient Greek robots that sounded more interesting. So I headed of to the Lux building (this is one the main humanities building at the university).
Anyway here I did run into my aunt that were here for a different lecture.
The robots (technically the title for the lecture was AI in the ancient Greece and Rome) were mostly in Homers Iliad and Odyssey. Basically the gods doesn't have slaves but also can't be doing manual labor so there are just automatic things like doors and ships. Homer liked things doing thing by themselves. unlike Virgil who doesn't have any.The next lecture here was Space archaeology. Using different methods to see how the landscape has changed in the last couple of thousand years. How sedimentation can cause a harbor to now be miles inland or below the water.
At this point I meet up with my family they had made the decision to not come here until three. As I suspected this upset my carefully constructed schedule. They being of the, we'll go somewhere and see whats there strategy. In previous years this has resulted in many hours of aimless wandering.
They wanted to go to the Astronomy house to listen to the science lectures there. I just need to point out how badly they had handled their ques. Mainly how the ques for looking at the sun through a special telescope filled the access ramp and covered the door. The lecture here was about dendrochronology (measuring time through tree-rings). Also all the things one can learn not just about the climate but also things like frequency of forest fires. It can also be used for dating buildings, paintings or other wooden things.
The last lecture I wanted to see was unfortunately canceled which I didn't find out until we had gotten there, but I also had seen quite a few by then so it wasn't a huge loss. I feel I should say, there are a lot of other things to do and see not just lectures but that was what I chose to do.
At this point my plan was to go to a cafe and eat dinner while listening to stand up comedy. But when we got there it was full so we had dinner from a food truck instead. The things I ate were quite underwhelming it was filling but terribly bland with no spices or even salt but a very hot sauce. The sauce didn't really make up for it since it was hot but didn't really have much taste. As is usual there were no seating so we ended up sitting on some steps to eat.
A few short stops. There was someone teaching about coffee but it turned out to be mostly selling their brand. I asked them about which coffee is the least bitter but didn't get any good answer(they claimed coffee shouldn't be bitter) and their coffee when I tried it was very sour so not an improvement.
A quick look through a bookshop buying the poetic Edda not the thing I was looking for but something I have been meaning to read.
Then home. It's nice that I now almost never need to wait for a train. I did unfortunately forget to take any pictures. So this post is looking a bit dull. And no even as I was walking home it was warm enough that I didn't really need my jacket. I had been carrying it around all day for nothing.
