Ahhhhh Halloween. A holiday that originated in Ireland but has since fallen to the marketing and commercialisation of America. While it has kind of... sorta made its way to Australian shores, I've never actually celebrated Halloween. The most we...
Since Halloween fell on a Wednesday in 2018, I technically got to celebrate it twice! The first was in New Orleans. New Orleans is a major hub for Halloween with its deep history with Voodoo and being known for its Ghost Tours. They pretty much celebrate Halloween for a week. With this in mind, we celebrated the Saturday beforehand, taking on the infamous Bourbon St in my Marilyn Monroe dress and half face of skull make-up that took me an hour to do (it definitely didn't last the night). Not gonna lie, after consuming a few Hurricane's and Hand Grenades (famous drinks), the night got a little crazy, but that's the beauty of Halloween; especially in America. Everyone goes all out and you have an absolute blast of a time. We all bar hopped our way down Bourbon St and I ended up back at my hotel at about 6am. Crazy, I know! But I wouldn't change it. What was I doing you ask? Going from bar to bar, club to club, talking to locals and other travellers. Getting some new Instagram photos, you know, the usual stuff that takes up a millennials time these days.
The 31st October rolled around when I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Still going for the gorey look rather than (as Mean Girls put it) the one night a year where you can dress like a slut and nobody can say anything about it, I opted for a Top Gear dress with a bloody twist. Again, another situation where I put all my effort into my make-up and proceeded to drip fake blood on myself for an hour. This night was a little tamer. I think I learned that people will go all out on the weekend with those few die-hard fans of the holiday actually celebrating it on a weeknight. Also important to keep in mind that people had work the next day (duh). Never the less, lessons were learned on both nights and here they are:
1. Eat before you do your makeup. Otherwise you'll be left starving as you don't want to ruin the little project you spent an hour doing
2. Buddy up. The buddy system works for a reason and you need as many buddies as you can on Halloween night
3. Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. And that is something that I live by