Halloween

Halloween is kind of a big deal here in the United States. Huge numbers of people dress up (not just children and university students) and the whole Halloween weekend is celebrated with trick-or-treating and rowdy parties. For my first Halloween in America I dressed as Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) from the movie Anchorman and roamed the streets with my friends interviewing other party-goers. Anchorman is a funny funny movie (see the clip below), and I was stoked to dress as Ron Burgundy using secondhand clothes from the thrift store for just $14! My mustache could have done with a bit of work though...


On the Friday night of Halloween weekend I went to the Carlotta Street party. This is an annual party on a street just on the northeast edge of campus. The police shut all the surrounding roads for the party and thousands of people turn up to check out all the crazy costumes, have a few drinks, and enjoy the live bands playing in the residents' front yards. The party had a really great atmosphere and I had a lot of fun, even if the turnout wasn't as high as normal due to the cold weather.

I'm Ron Burgundy?

On the Saturday, myself and six other guys traveled the 90 minutes down the highway to New Orleans to spend the Saturday night of Halloween weekend on the fabled Bourbon Street. For those who don't know, Bourbon Street is a long street in the heart of the city which is dedicated to only bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops, and is open 24 hours a day for 365 days a year. It lives up to its name, and you will see drunk people there at all times of the day. We had booked a hostel to stay in and when we arrived we found it was an old asylum for the mentally insane (quite appropriate for Halloween). Our dorm room smelled like a mixture of vomit and burnt diapers, so we quickly decided we would spend as little time there as possible. We quickly put on our costumes and headed out into the early evening. We had an excellent night touring many restaurants and bars on the street, meeting lots of fun people, and taking in the lively atmosphere: almost every bar has a live band playing, there are performers on the street, and most of the patrons are also putting on a performance themselves. The only downside of the night was Felix getting pick-pocketed (apparently a common occurrence on Bourbon Street). We arrived back to the hostel at 6am, desperately ready for our 3 hours sleep, before catching the bus back to Baton Rouge at 9:30am to catch up on our school work for the weekend. We're now into the serious part of the semester with around one month left until final exams, so it's time to knuckle down and get some good grades!

Guillermo, Ali, Immy, Mikel, Darko & Felix - my asylum dorm mates

A Kiwi, two Brits, a German, a Serb, and two Spaniards walk into a bar...

The chaos that is Bourbon Street