All Hallow's Eve

The joys of being in college on Halloween!

I just got an e-mail from my first cousin once removed about having to give out treats and sadly running out of fun-sized bits of joy. My mom replied with a comment on the fact that our neighborhood children apparently either don't trick-or-treat or simply just don't come to our house.

Well, my friends, I was very excited for Halloween and was not at all disappointed. I LOVE October. It's possibly my favorite month. I like July, also, obviously since it is party month at my house, but October is starting to win over. I had a fantastic October (see other blog entries) and was sad to see it go, but what a way to go!

I was a little disappointed getting up because I did not really want to go on our weekly field trip to heaven knows where. Then I read that we were going to Siena. Cool, I thought. Little did I know (I would have known if Grace and I hadn't skipped dinner on Friday night) that we were not going to Siena but Bevagna and Torgiano. Huh... so... again with boring little towns that no one has ever heard of... It didn't turn out so badly.

Bevagna was actually pretty nice. We went to a Medieval paper making place. They apparently do annual competitions in June around Medieval paper making with specific standards that they must follow in order so that they keep in line with how paper would have been made in the Medieval era. It was pretty cool.

Then they had a park which was very nice. It's all fallish here. The fall colors are in full blast with bright yellow leaves everywhere. We just sort of flopped down on the lawn and soaked in our environment.

Then we went to Torgiano, which was cold. We went to a wine museum. It had a nice printmaking and ceramic vessel collection. That was fun to see. The best bit was the view and sunset, though. It was very beautiful, especially because the moon was also up. I did not think that anything could beat Southern Californian sunsets. I think Tuscan sunsets would hold their own in a competition.

Then we went home. We were all supposed to come dressed up in costume for dinner. They actually are beginning to celebrate Halloween a lot more here in Italy. As far as I can tell, it isn't a HUGE deal as it is in America, but people carve pumpkins (they don't buy fake plastic or Styrofoam ones... they carve REAL pumpkins. Italians, I applaud you. Well done.) and children dress up and they sell firecrackers at the toy store. Wait, what??? Firecrackers??? Yes. None of us bought them, but you could definitely get yourself whole packs of fireworks and the kids around town had a lot of fun. America could learn a lot from Italian celebratory style...

Dressed up for dinner, eh? I didn't know what I wanted to be. At first I was like, I'll wear an overcoat and a hat and be "Carmen San Diego" but then I thought "No, I have had enough of stupid Halloween outfits. I know I can't be anything really awesome, but I'll dress up nice and look cool... yes. This is a good plan."

If anyone knows anything about stupid Halloween costumes, it's me. Freshman year of college, I cheered for ceilings. I was a "Ceiling Fan." (Wait for it to sink in... yeeeeah... that's right.... can't believe it, can you?) Sophomore year, I put on a bandanna and eye patch and attached a dollar bill to each ear. I was a "Buccaneer" (say it out loud... waaait for it.... yeah... even WORSE isn't it?) Last year... I was.... I don't know what I was... as I remember it... something to do with my roommate's extra corset, although I seriously gave much thought to putting a box with a bra attached to it over my head and being "Wall-E" (watch mom's eyes pop as she reads this...)

None of that for me this year. No, I was going to look nice... well... maaaybe I'd dress up as something... just a little.

For some reason, since Freshman year, I have had an outrageous amount of glitter in my make-up case. Why? I don't know. I suppose I have been waiting for the opportune moment. I didn't see a more opportune moment than this. I put on all black, with a deep red and black scarf I bought in Florence, but on a pair of black and silver dangly star earrings I bought and some really dark red lipstick and a whole heckovalot of glitter. What was I?

If you guessed beautiful woman making fun...er... being a vampire from the 'Twilight' series, you guessed right. I had SO much glitter on. I definitely 'dazzled.' This has been the First time I have ever been anything emulating something slightly frightening. Nothing can be more frightening than a sparkly undead person who stalks people and constantly tells them how delicious they smell.

Grace twisted her ankle in Bevagna (she's hobbling around on a sore ankle today. I don't know if it's just twisted or something else. She'll find out on Tuesday.) so she wasn't really into the Halloween spirit. She thought she would just go to dinner and head back up. How wrong she was.

They had a lot of great costumes last night. The printmaking professor dressed up as Frida Kahlo (ok, I totally thought about doing that one also last year when I had long hair... and a unibrow:) a few of the boys dressed up as a few of the girls on our program (not quite effective as the boys both have beards and did not shave them.) and several of the girls dressed as old people (one very convincing old man and three convincing old ladies). We also had a number of wildlife (a zebra, a deer and a bear) and a Native American, Robin Hood and Cupid all complete with bows and arrows. My personal favorite was our Art History professor who wore all black with a gold band around her waist and a red cap on her head. When she pressed down her cap, it lit up. Any guesses? She was a Lazer pointer! (She uses one for every class, so it was funny...)

At Tonino's, they had candy on each table and they had cleared out the room next to ours. They gave each table a bottle of white wine and a bottle of Moscato (really sweet sparkling wine. It's good stuff. Even the non-drinkers drink full glasses.) Then the music started in the other room. They brought in a DJ who was really... bad... but we didn't care. In my opinion he was actually better than a lot of the DJ's they have at Westmont. (Yeah, Westmont... you need to get with the program. The Italian guy who plays and sings Italian folk music which sounds very similar to Polka music is better than your DJ's.) He mixed in a few songs from Grease and the YMCA song and we had quite the dance party. (Grace went home after this, but she stayed much longer than she had intended on doing.)

Then everyone went down to the Lion's Well (the local pub) to continue to celebrate. They had a better DJ who was pretty darn good. Again, WAY better than Westmont DJ's. I ordered a Fuzzy Navel and thoroughly enjoyed talking to people.

All in all, it was a delightful evening.

(And also, I need to stop using so many parenthesis! Geez...)