For the unfamiliar, Nuit Blanche is called an ‘all-night contemporary art thing’ with art installations, galleries, and shops spanning all across downtown Toronto from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am on Sept. 29. ‘All across’ is no joke, either - we wandered around from about 10:00 to 6:00 am, and hadn’t nearly seen everything, just those sites that happened to be along our meandering path.

While I’d hardly say that all the exhibits were scintillating (frankly, there was a fair bit of crap), the sheer scale and the atmosphere of the evening was more than worth it. And there were definitely highlights: a mobile rave; a pom-pom making workshop (mine turned out awfully mangy and later fell apart…but that was emblematic of the evening, so it’s a good souvenir); and a crazy installation of trombone-like pipes and mouthpieces ready for participants to insert MP3-playing earbuds into to make some bizarre music. And hey, it was completely free.

While the truly indie among us will likely chastise me for supporting such a corporatized event as the Scotiabank © Nuit Blanche, it made me happy simply to see so many people out on the streets patronizing art and culture, regardless of its basis. Toronto is certainly not perfect, but its the rare events like these that make me love it so.

Now I need to figure out a way to live downtown after I graduate so I can truly embed myself in all this creative culture I’ve been missing out on living in the boonies…