Halloweekend

Halloween has always been a fun time of year for me as long as I can remember. I love watching the leaves change color and fall to the earth. The rich reds, oranges, and yellows of autumn slowly transform into the oranges, purple, and black of the Halloween season. Things were a little different this year. At home, my friends and I spend weeks planning our Halloween festivities. Whether it's decorations, or costumes, or what parties we're going to, every thing gets planned down to the tiniest detail. In Ireland, though, Halloween is not nearly as big of a deal. The only place you actually see decorations is at the airport. I didn't even have a costume until the day of! Our weekend started on Wednesday with a small party hosted by my friends Susan and Kelly. We all had work the next day so it was a small get together. Up until about an hour before the event I still didn't know what I was going to dress up as, but I eventually scrounged through my bedroom and pulled the pieces together for a tourist costume, selfie stick included. It was great craic going around the party taking ridiculous pictures of everyone. On Thursday, we decided to take it easy and hang out at James and Dev's place playing one of our favorite games, Cardboard. Some people went out afterwards but I was dead tired after a long work week, so I turned in early. Halloween finally rolled around and I had not idea what to wear. I headed down to EuroGiant where nothing is more than 2euro and purchased some face-paint. I decided to go with the most unoriginal costume of the year: a sugar skull. I was pretty pleased with the finished product and headed out to Blackbird for some drinks. The original plan was to hop around a little bit but as always I ended up staying at Blackbird for the rest of the night. James' girlfriend was in for the week and had a flight to catch the next morning so we were supposed to keep it a quiet night, supposed to being the key phrase here. The next day, after a few pints of water and a long nap, Dev and I headed to Dracula's Castle, which is half haunted house, half magic show. It was a cool way to have a chill night that wasn't just sitting around. We even got involved in the show, getting called on stage to be a part of the act. Afterwards we headed back to Rathmines by bus, grabbed some Chinese, and spent the rest of the night watching Sherlock on the AppleTV. Sunday was a lazy day filled with half-hearted attempts at cleaning the flat. I grabbed an early dinner with John and hung out with friends for a while before heading back to, you guessed it, Blackbird to grab a drink with Kelly and her parents who are in for the week. They even invited me and Anne to a later dinner so we headed into city centre for a nice relaxing night. Currently, I'm back in class, obviously diligently taking notes.....Sorry mom. SO I guess I'll get back to that.


From Dublin, With Love.