It’s a little known fact that Swiss people are not the most open or friendly people.  Actually, it’s a well known fact: the Swiss like their privacy & keep to themselves, but it is commonly mistaken for coldness.  So, when we started to think about Halloween, particularly the part about knocking on people’s doors & asking for candy, we wondered if they even celebrated Halloween here in Switzerland.  Apparently Europe hasn’t really caught on to the spooky holiday yet, so we decided to celebrate ourselves in the house!  We started the count down to Halloween by watching “The Shining” on Tuesday night.

“Heeere’s Johnny!”

I had never seen it before & I’m not really a fan of scary movies…who would pay to be uptight for 2 hours, knowing that something could pop out & kill you at any minute?  The scariest movie I’ve watched all the way through is “Flight Plan” starring Jodie Foster.  I know there have definitely been scarier movies, but Jodie herself scares me a little.  Jodie is not in “The Shining” though so I was in the clear, although Jack Nicholson’s wife in this movie probably had her beat.  I bravely made it to the end of the movie, even though I may have covered my eyes & ears for 3/4 of it.  I realized though, as the credits scrolled across the screen, that the movie itself wasn’t that scary.  What was scary was the combination of the impending music, which never ended in anything happening, & the constant flow of people who had already seen the movie running out of the room claiming that they would have nightmares for weeks.  Those of us left though all agreed that it was pretty cheesy & I slept like a baby that night.

It was good that I wasn’t kept up all night having nightmares, not just because I had a French test in the morning, but also because we had a Halloween bash to attend.  On Monday our student activities committee announced that we would be having a party on Wednesday night.  There would be a “Haunted Hallway”, a photo booth, a murder mystery game, & a costume contest.  Now when you dress up for Halloween, you gotta go big or go home, especially when it’s a contest.  However, two days to come up with a costume in a country that doesn’t really celebrate it was a pretty difficult task.  Caroline & I decided we were going to do a duo costume, so we spent forever researching a costume that we could easily throw together with things from our closet.  Our first idea, which was brilliant & will remain a secret because we will mostly likely be doing it next year, was too complicated & deserved to be done right.  So we continued to search, when out of nowhere the costume gods struck Caroline & she came up with this masterpiece that ended up sending us home with the silver…”We’re not worthy!  We’re not worthy!”

“No way!” “Way!”

“Party on, Wayne.” “Party on, Garth.”

It took a lot of shampoo, conditioner, & combing to “un-Garth” my hair, but it was all worth it…”Shwing!”  Happy Halloween!