halloween and the greatest day of the year

since i haven't written in a while, i first have to acknowledge the awesome package i received from my family this week. it had a little bit of halloween, birthday, and christmas! and cheez-its (my obsession from the summer thanks to the waescos and their never-ending supply!!) and pez and sweedish fish. here is my newly decorated bookcase...

moving on...lucky for all of us here in spain, on tuesday we didn't have school because of all saint's day (and because it was my birthday...). so instead of having to stay in and do lesson planning (i wouldn't have done that anyway but it's beside the point), i got to celebrate my birthday... zombie style!!

i learned a lot about how the spanish do halloween in the past few weeks. the students all know about zombies, frankenstein, witches, ghosts, etc. they don't know about candy corn, they don't know how awesome trick-or-treating can be, and they don't know how to be creative when it comes to costumes. since it's only apartment complexes here, the kids can't really go trick or treating, which sucks for them because in my opinion eating all the candy is the best part of halloween. i saw very few kids out and about, and the few that i did see were the ones that came into hannigans. yes, they trick or treat in bars. as for costumes, everyone dresses up as something disgusting and scary and gory. the little girls that came into the bar were nurses with blood all over them. very adorable. but since i'm totally immersing myself in the spanish culture, my friends and i decided we should do as the spanish do. the result was a ton of white and red makeup all over my face. (see below) everytime i looked in the mirror i was actually scared of myself. so after an hour of getting ready, we were ready to head to hannigans for trivia (we are devoted.) i guess it was a little too early for some people since we were the only people out in costume... definitely got a few stares.

all in all, this was one of the most fun halloweens i've ever had. we wound up winning 2nd place in trivia (4 bottles of wine), getting a free bottle of champagne for my birthday at midnight (it pays to be friends with the bartender!), and stopped for french fries on the way up the steep hill to my favorite dance club in granada. it is basically a cave carved out on the side of a hill with an amazing view of the alhambra. to top off a great birthday, the next night we went out for sushi! and gelato of course