The Nobel Price After-Party: Nobel NightCap

Chances are that you’ve heard of the Nobel prizes (founded by the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel), which are awarded in Stockholm by the King of Sweden. However, something which is less well known, is the party that takes place after the Nobel price ceremony. It is called the Nobel NightCap, and is a huge supercool party attended by the Nobel Laureates, Ministers, and other members of the social elite. The cool thing is: it is also attended by quite a few students, who either 1) got a ticket via a lottery; 2) are important members of the Student Association; 3) are helping out as volonteers before, during, and after the party.

And guess who organizes this party? It is the Student Associations of the following universities: KTH, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm University, and Stockholm School of Economics. They take turns, so that every year it is a different university preparing it, and they all get to organize it every 4 years. And this year, the Nobel NightCap took place at my uni, Stockholm School of Economics!

Despite hearing over and over again how awesome the party would be, I just didn’t feel like going. I’m just not a big party animal, and I had a few other things going on at the same time. In addition, if I wanted to go I would have to help out as a volunteer (or help organizing it, which I didn’t have time for), and the volonteers worked for about a week before the actual party, helping to set up the decorations and scenes in the different rooms. The also worked taking down the whole thing… And I just didn’t feel like it.

A couple of days before the party, the whole school shut down, and massive decoration projects started. I found out that the party would take place in about 10 different rooms, each of it with a different setting and decoration. It felt a bit as if the school had been invaded by an army of volonteers from the 4 different universities, all lending out their contribution to create one of the year’s best parties…

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The day of the party arrived. It was early afternoon, and I was doing some assignment (or perhaps it was a take home exam? I forgot… 😛 ) on the sofa by the Business Committee (in my university). And then, a thought went past my mind: I would miss out big time if I didn’t go to the party.

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But at the same time, I had this assignment/take-home exam to finish before tomorrow, and I would also have an important class the morning after at 9am, and the party would last until about 6-7am… And then, even if I felt like going, I should have worked as a volunteer the whole previous week… Which I didn’t. And then, in the middle of my dilemma, the miracle happened:

I got a phone call… It was my buddy Etienne who was in charge of the recruitment of the functionaries/volonteers. And they needed a couple more people to work during the party… So I sacrificed myself and said I’d help out… GAME ON!

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I showed up with a white shirt and a bowtie a couple of hours later, and got explained my task: I would work at the radio central, connecting different units by walkie-talkie, and sending extra units wherever they were needed. I was super excited, and so were all the other volonteers while we gathered to have dinner together before starting a long, wild, crazy night.

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My original working plan was to work about 1 hour on the radios, and then take half an hour off (we were taking turns). The first two round were really slow and only got a few radio calls, and during all the time that I was idle, I just focused on writing my assignment/take home exam. On my breaks, I would just walk all over the party… And it was truly amazing. To be honest, it has to be one of the best ones I’ve ever been to. The decorations were so creative and down to the detail, and the costumers were also pretty brilliant!

At around 11-12pm, we realized that there wasn’t a need for all of us to be seating by the radio all the time. And there wasn’t anything else for us to do, so I just got the last push done, finished my assignment, and went to party all night long! And occasionally I would come back to check if there was something to do, but there really wasn’t, so I kept doing my thing 😀

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At about 3am, I had a long stroll with my buddy Lewis, who was in charge of organizing all the beverages and drinks in the party. It was a bit chaotic since people were consuming LARGE amounts of alcohol and drinks. However, no one seemed drunk! Perhaps, getting drunk at such high-profile-event would not be the wisest 😀

Anyway, fast forward to the end, at about 5-6am, the lights went finally on, and the party was declared over. I didn’t have time to go home sleep, so I just went to the top floor of the library, feeling like a total zombie, and fell asleep in the air before falling onto the sofa. A couple of hours later, I woke up with some footsteps near me. It was the librarian… She saw me sleeping (in whichever position I could manage), laughed her ass off, and kept walking Hahahahah I must have looked like such a mess! At 8:50am, my wake up alarm went off and went to have a shower (yes we have some showers in school!). After that, I picked a couple of liters of smoothies that were left over from the party and were up for grabs. And at 9:15am, ready for another intense day of learning 😀

Jesús

Written by Jesús

20 Jan 2015