Pretty much everyone can guess what the idea behind the KulturCafé is by its name. For those who are worlds apart from the German language, Kultur is "culture" and Café is "café". So the idea is to give people an inclusive space where they can have debates and talks about culture, alongside with relaxing and having some coffee.
Situated in the Ruhr-Universität Campus, it does not seem anything special if you pass in front if it. Several times, especially during the first weeks, I quickly looked at it while walking to my class and thought it simply was a cafeteria. Here's a picture from the university website, http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/universitaet/kultur-und-freizeit/campus/essen-und-trinken/index_en.html
That's how it looks on the outside, except for the people in front of it. During winter it's way too cold to stay outside!
I remember the very first time I went inside the KulturCafé. It was a rainy day - it was actually raining a lot - and my classes were over. Me and a friend of mine thought that we needed a coffee and possibly a warm place to go to. A moment later we saw a little banner saying "coffee", so we decided to go inside. At first it looked like a small, cozy cafeteria. We ordered our coffees and we looked for a seat. That's when we realised that the place was way bigger than we had imagined. There was even a stage!
From that moment me and my friends had many chances to hang out in the KulturCafé. For example on the occasion of the USA presidential elections, that took place on November the 8th/9th. The English studies Department - the one me and my friend were part of - organised an evening where we could follow the elections live stream and discuss the results, as well as talk about the American electoral system and their past elections. It was held, as you may imagine, in the KulturCafé. It was actually the perfect place, because we could sit all together while discussing, drinking, eating and watching the live stream. We stayed until 5 a.m. and then I continued watching the live stream on my own. Everybody was astonished and worried sick to see that Trump was winning. Apart from the results of the elections, I really enjoyed the night at KulturCafé. The staff and everyone there was really kind and sympathized with us even though we couldn't speak German very well.
Every Tuesday the KulturCafé hosted a themed party. Like that time they set up the Lumberjack party. We came to know about it just because one day, when I was in class, a guy came up to me and gave me a pamphlet. It was a sort of invitation. Here it is.
He told me that whoever had showed up wearing something lumberjack could have entered the party without paying anything. So I talked about it with my friends and we decided that going was a good idea. Since it was a Tuesday and the day after we all had classes, we went there by 9 p.m. Once inside, we saw a lot of people with lumberjack shirts. We all looked alike! I was surprised to see that my friends from the English studies Department were there too. In fact, they were the ones who organised the party. Thanks to that and to the fact that we were wearing those shirts, we had a few drinks for free. As you may imagine, it wasn't long before we all were a bit "happy". We danced until we felt that we were really tired - that was sometime around 1 a.m. - and then we left.
There was someone who took pictures of everyone for the whole night. He was indefatigable! Of course he took pictures of us too, so here they are.
In the end, we really had a really good time.
Toward the end of the semester the KulturCafé hosted the Semester closing party. It was mid-february so my department had finished all the exams but all the others had not. So not everyone was there, but we had fun anyway. There was music from the '80s and '90s and everyone was dancing and singing. I have pictures from that night too but they're really dark and blurry, so it's pointless to post them.
In conclusion, the KulturCafé is a place where I always had a lot of fun. And the best part is that I wasn't expecting it. If you find yourself in Bochum, I definitely recommend it!
