This Halloween-thing is really big here in the US…bigger than I thought it would be. During the last week I’ve been sitting next to one monster after the other at lectures and having lunch with a lot of scary looking people. However, it has made my everyday life a little more exciting and I kind of wish that we celebrated it in Sweden too. Some of the costumes I have seen have been amazing!
Before this whole Halloween-thing started, a friend of mine took me and another international student to this huge shop called Halloween Express. It is basically what it sounds like, a shop that only sells Halloween stuff. Both my friend and I were quite impressed by the assortment of costumes and accessories, but did wonder how the shop was able to run a business during the 51 non-Halloween weeks. The answer I got when I asked was that Americans in general like to have costume parties and get dressed up. However, I have my own personal explanation for why the business keeps running: the unreasonable high prices. I completely agree that it is fun dressing up like a
Green Nymph (what’s scary with that by the way?), but not fun enough for paying $42. It is especially not worth it if you’re only planning to wear it once. According to some of my friends, it is the standard here in the US to show up with a new costume every time. Obviously, I’m not really in to this whole Halloween-thing but I didn’t think it was worth the money to buy a fancy outfit either. As my friend said, think about all the fun stuff you can do with the money saved. Anyway, what happens to all these costumes when Halloween is over? One of my friends bought a monster outfit and asked me if I possibly knew of anyone who wanted to buy it. If any of you readers are interested in investing in it (and I truly understand you if you're not)… just send me an email.
Well, I went to my first Halloween-party (ever!) the Friday before the actual Halloween date. The party was arranged by the International Relations Club at my university, CCSU, and most of the people that attended were international students, like me, who had never celebrated Halloween before. Nevertheless, we were all dressed up and ready to experience something that we had only seen on the TV before. Firstly, we were all informed about what Halloween was all about, and then we started to eat cakes and take funny photos. It was fun, even though at the end of the night I still really didn’t understand what the whole celebration was about. However, from my point of view, every reason to party is a good reason….!