Halloween in France
A few weeks ago I was talking to a guy at the pub downstairs about the (non-)tradition of Halloween in France, and he told me basically it was an excuse for young people to throw parties. He told me there was a band called Water's Edge who would be playing at a bar by the river. I told him I'd consider it.
Fast forward to last night. Alex and I went out for some late-ish Thai food at a nice restaurant and, afterward, found ourselves at 11 p.m. on Halloween and still no plans. We headed over to the show and saw most of Water's Edge's set. The music was really enjoyable. I saw a girl from my Italian class there, and the original guy who'd told me about the show.
We were on the point of leaving when we saw a sign posted outside advertising a midnight showing of Rocky Horror. We were a little confused, since it was 12:15, but the bartender told us it was just because the band had played late. Elated, we stayed to watch.
The movie was barely loud enough to hear, and subtitled in English. I got the feeling it's not at all a tradition in France, judging by people's apparently confusion when Alex and I were shouting at the screen for every cue we knew. And yeah -- doing the Time Warp. It was a really good time.
One of my Californian friends from class ended up showing by coincidence, and all of our commotion sort of alerted a lot of other Erasmus students to our presence. We ended up meeting some really cool people. There were two French kids, two Germans, two Canadians, and us (sounds like the beginning to some kind of joke, but I promise you it isn't). After the showing, we ended up hanging out all together until sometime after the sun came up, and taking one of the first trams back to our place. I hope we'll be seeing them again.
As far as I'm concerned, it was a very lucky coincidence to find a showing of Rocky Horror. It's a Halloween staple, after all. A great Halloween, against all odds.
However, there was no candy whatsoever involved. Not even a little.
Fast forward to last night. Alex and I went out for some late-ish Thai food at a nice restaurant and, afterward, found ourselves at 11 p.m. on Halloween and still no plans. We headed over to the show and saw most of Water's Edge's set. The music was really enjoyable. I saw a girl from my Italian class there, and the original guy who'd told me about the show.
We were on the point of leaving when we saw a sign posted outside advertising a midnight showing of Rocky Horror. We were a little confused, since it was 12:15, but the bartender told us it was just because the band had played late. Elated, we stayed to watch.
The movie was barely loud enough to hear, and subtitled in English. I got the feeling it's not at all a tradition in France, judging by people's apparently confusion when Alex and I were shouting at the screen for every cue we knew. And yeah -- doing the Time Warp. It was a really good time.
One of my Californian friends from class ended up showing by coincidence, and all of our commotion sort of alerted a lot of other Erasmus students to our presence. We ended up meeting some really cool people. There were two French kids, two Germans, two Canadians, and us (sounds like the beginning to some kind of joke, but I promise you it isn't). After the showing, we ended up hanging out all together until sometime after the sun came up, and taking one of the first trams back to our place. I hope we'll be seeing them again.
As far as I'm concerned, it was a very lucky coincidence to find a showing of Rocky Horror. It's a Halloween staple, after all. A great Halloween, against all odds.
However, there was no candy whatsoever involved. Not even a little.
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