Halloween

October 31st, as we all know, is Halloween. And this is a much bigger deal in America than in the UK. Houses are decked out, kids trick or treat par for the course, and there are a number of parties to go to, where everyone is in costume and if you’re not you would feel pretty silly, so Geoff got a demon/monster style costume and I was a cat. Halloween started for us started on 25th with a massive traditional party a few of our friends attend. It started at a house with cocktails and moved after a couple of hours to the massive party which is held every year by the side of the road. (!?!) It’s called the Haunted Howling Tavern Halloween Party, and seems to be in a kind car park field, behind a fence, with a band and bar both outside and a small kind of club house which had big bins of punch inside (by this I literally mean bins, and I tell you, by the end of it I had NO IDEA what I was drinking!!) It was a whole lot of fun and resulted in lots of hangovers the next day!

Just a few of the pictures of peoples costumes are on here, as there were far too many, but the rest will be on facebook.

31st October came around very quickly and suddenly we were walking around the neighborhood with Spiderman and Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), who were very excited and bemused at the idea that knocking on the door of houses and saying ‘trick or treat’ got them candy and chocolate! Unfortunately, my camera died just before trick-or-treat time, so I have no pictures of that, but I do have one or two pictures of our neighbourhood houses which were pretty cool to see.

After trick-or-treating, Geoff and I went off to another party in the massive house of a guy Geoff plays football (soccer) every Sunday with. It was really cool, the owners had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to ‘Halloween-ify’ the place, and the house was right by Town Lake, with a deck and mini beach backing onto the lake from their backyard. This was really nice to relax by late at night when it got a bit cold, as there was a fire going. There was food and drinks including wine and kegs of beer from North By North West – a restaurant famous for its selection of beers – and even a margherita machine, which I particularly loved!

Halloween in America was very exciting and a lot of fun, and already I can’t wait for next year (when I hope to get invites to a lot more parties!!).