So if you know me then you know I love Halloween. It is a chance for me to try to be far too clever for my own good and come up with a costume that only makes sense to me. 3 months before the holiday comes around I start to freak about my costume. October is then mostly spent with me making a costume as I watch the baseball playoffs. So you can imagine how disappointing it is for me to live in a country where it is an afterthought.
The fact that people here didn't celebrate it kind of put me in a state of denial with regards to how it approaching. I contemplated what I would do for a costume and how I would theme my party, but all those thoughts revolved around being back in Seattle. In reality I didn't know if I would have a costume or even go to a party. I tried to fly somewhere to make it more special, but that never happened either.
Eventually I got a text from my friend Miguel saying that he had a party for us to go to. Even with that, I was unsure how to reply, but ultimately I said I was in. I still didn't have a costume, but figured I could fall back to my Jesus costume that I bought for a superhero party I attended earlier. See that is the problem. This country loves to dress up, but when the holiday comes along to do so they don't do shit. Lame.
So it was the big day and, for a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday, the costume shops had huge lines outside. Finally Miguel got back to me and the party was in some far off land I had never heard of called Woolich. I asked my coworkers where this was and they said it was near Greenwich (pronounced Grinich, this matters). As soon as they said that I had my costume. I would go as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
As soon as I got home I needed to hit the costume store. I had some ideas in my head, cut didn't know where I could get my supplies. Where are you when I need you Jo-Ann Fabrics? At first I couldn't think of how I would do the green and this ultimately caused the biggest flaw in my costume. In my head I kept thinking about I would be a lot of green or something that is green and then be "greenish" mean time. The reason why this led to my downfall is because having that run through my head caused me to lock on the "ish" and miss out on the "wich" which would have been really easy to pull off. I did fail here.
The costume store was packed and I was actually one of the last let into the store. This was fortunate for Miguel because I could attempt to pick up stuff for him. All in all I spent an hour in the store and ultimately only bought two things and none of them were really used. I had hoped to at least get a flava flave clock, but they didn't even have that.
It was all of 8:30 which meant that nothing was open except Sainbury's, but grocery stores are lame here and don't have anything except groceries which meant I wasn't getting my clock there either. I was kind of devastated because it meant I would have to use a marker to draw a clock on my clothes. Turns out they don't even have a marker. Ouch.
Luckily the market across the street which has lots of random shit had random wall clock and it even had a screws so that I could attach string to it. Probablem is that I didn't have string. All I had was a green clothes line and of course no wire cutters. After trying various cutting tools I had to break the line by heating it up over a gas burner till it got white hot and then pulled it apart.
Cause I'm GMT
Finally Miguel and I headed out. He was going as Willie Wonka, Johnny Depp style. As we headed out Miguel warned me that it would be lame and that only the Canadians would be dressed up. I was dressed up so that point I didn't care.
So obviously I got a lot of stares. No one on the tube was dressed up. Where were all those people clogging up the lines at the party store? The best was on one of the trains a girl sat across and chuckled until she asked what I was. It took like 3 tries for me to explain it to her. One problem was of course the lack of a witches hat, but the other was actually a comment that I made to Miguel on the train prior. I said to Miguel, "You know I bet people won't even get it because of how you pronounce the town.", and I was right. Even as I broke it down to her she was getting really stuck on green part of it. The good news is that once she got it she loved it. She even said that if she ever dressed up she would steal the costume just because it is so great. This reaction ended up being par for the night. I think people just weren't use to any sense of originality.
So we got to the party at 11 and one guy was already leaving so you knew the party was going to great. We opened the door and no one was dressed up. The hosts were dressed as tourist, but that was it. So depressing.
This was not a halloween party, it was 10 people sitting around drinking on October 31st. I was one of 2 people that didn't work with Miguel or at Google. Even though nothing was happening I did stay quite late, but that is mostly because I didn't know how to get home. I quit drinking around 2 and then didn't head out till 5:00.
The good thing about London is that you can get home at night, but it just takes forever. For me it took 90 long minutes. I got home at 6:30 and hit the sack right away. Obviously I was upset with London, but at least I was happy with myself.
A look at what could have been
Price Is Right - Halloween 2007
Won't go fully into it, but definitely not poo - Halloween 2006
A hand - Halloween 2005
A bear - Halloween 2004
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man - Halloween 2003
The fact that people here didn't celebrate it kind of put me in a state of denial with regards to how it approaching. I contemplated what I would do for a costume and how I would theme my party, but all those thoughts revolved around being back in Seattle. In reality I didn't know if I would have a costume or even go to a party. I tried to fly somewhere to make it more special, but that never happened either.
Eventually I got a text from my friend Miguel saying that he had a party for us to go to. Even with that, I was unsure how to reply, but ultimately I said I was in. I still didn't have a costume, but figured I could fall back to my Jesus costume that I bought for a superhero party I attended earlier. See that is the problem. This country loves to dress up, but when the holiday comes along to do so they don't do shit. Lame.
So it was the big day and, for a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday, the costume shops had huge lines outside. Finally Miguel got back to me and the party was in some far off land I had never heard of called Woolich. I asked my coworkers where this was and they said it was near Greenwich (pronounced Grinich, this matters). As soon as they said that I had my costume. I would go as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
As soon as I got home I needed to hit the costume store. I had some ideas in my head, cut didn't know where I could get my supplies. Where are you when I need you Jo-Ann Fabrics? At first I couldn't think of how I would do the green and this ultimately caused the biggest flaw in my costume. In my head I kept thinking about I would be a lot of green or something that is green and then be "greenish" mean time. The reason why this led to my downfall is because having that run through my head caused me to lock on the "ish" and miss out on the "wich" which would have been really easy to pull off. I did fail here.
The costume store was packed and I was actually one of the last let into the store. This was fortunate for Miguel because I could attempt to pick up stuff for him. All in all I spent an hour in the store and ultimately only bought two things and none of them were really used. I had hoped to at least get a flava flave clock, but they didn't even have that.
It was all of 8:30 which meant that nothing was open except Sainbury's, but grocery stores are lame here and don't have anything except groceries which meant I wasn't getting my clock there either. I was kind of devastated because it meant I would have to use a marker to draw a clock on my clothes. Turns out they don't even have a marker. Ouch.
Luckily the market across the street which has lots of random shit had random wall clock and it even had a screws so that I could attach string to it. Probablem is that I didn't have string. All I had was a green clothes line and of course no wire cutters. After trying various cutting tools I had to break the line by heating it up over a gas burner till it got white hot and then pulled it apart.
- Greenwich - I am pretty green
- Mean - People with swords are mean
- Time - I have a clock don't I
Cause I'm GMT
Finally Miguel and I headed out. He was going as Willie Wonka, Johnny Depp style. As we headed out Miguel warned me that it would be lame and that only the Canadians would be dressed up. I was dressed up so that point I didn't care.
So obviously I got a lot of stares. No one on the tube was dressed up. Where were all those people clogging up the lines at the party store? The best was on one of the trains a girl sat across and chuckled until she asked what I was. It took like 3 tries for me to explain it to her. One problem was of course the lack of a witches hat, but the other was actually a comment that I made to Miguel on the train prior. I said to Miguel, "You know I bet people won't even get it because of how you pronounce the town.", and I was right. Even as I broke it down to her she was getting really stuck on green part of it. The good news is that once she got it she loved it. She even said that if she ever dressed up she would steal the costume just because it is so great. This reaction ended up being par for the night. I think people just weren't use to any sense of originality.
So we got to the party at 11 and one guy was already leaving so you knew the party was going to great. We opened the door and no one was dressed up. The hosts were dressed as tourist, but that was it. So depressing.
This was not a halloween party, it was 10 people sitting around drinking on October 31st. I was one of 2 people that didn't work with Miguel or at Google. Even though nothing was happening I did stay quite late, but that is mostly because I didn't know how to get home. I quit drinking around 2 and then didn't head out till 5:00.
The good thing about London is that you can get home at night, but it just takes forever. For me it took 90 long minutes. I got home at 6:30 and hit the sack right away. Obviously I was upset with London, but at least I was happy with myself.
A look at what could have been
Price Is Right - Halloween 2007
Won't go fully into it, but definitely not poo - Halloween 2006
A hand - Halloween 2005
A bear - Halloween 2004
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man - Halloween 2003
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