Halloween in a Haunted Castle...Does it get much better than that?

Last night was one of the best nights I have has since I arrived in Europe. As everyone knows it was Halloween and they pulled out all the stops for us. We found out last week that there was going to be a special party in the barn for us but I was not expecting much. I thought it would be fun and everyone would have really funny ghetto costumes because there are not too many resources for us to use here, but it turned out to be the best Halloween I have ever had.

It started off in The World Since 1914 when someone said to my professor "Happy Halloween Ralph!" and he replied with "Oh is that still going on? We don't really do that in Germany." Halloween is not really a holiday in Europe. But the American brought it with us to Well, that's for sure. The other night we had a pumpkin carving party, so there were 70 something pumpkins lining the courtyard and bridges of the moats. At night they lit them all and it looked amazing.

At around 9 o'clock, we all went to the barn dressed in costume (I was Robert Palmer and Lily, Michelle, Caroline and Blake were the girls in the Addicted to Love vide...Youtube it if you don't know it). Some of the best costumes of the night were "God's gift to men" (She put a bow in her hair and had a card on her that said "To: Men From: God), a stroopwaffel, and Anne Frank's house (Complete with a sign for the secret annex on his ass). There was music and the usual drinks served in Sophies Lounge that you could buy (Lets just say they probably made a lot of money considering half the castle was SHLOSHED. I had a really classy single serving bottle of wine that made me want to throw up, so I was completely coherent the entire night and was able to laugh at people who were not.

While everyone was dancing they called groups of 6 to go through the haunted house that the staff created for us. It was THE BEST haunted house I have ever seen. It started with Rene (He is one of the Student Services staff members) with a cloak and ghost mask on screaming at us to follow him. We walked to the door of the main castle where Rob Duckers (I think he is Assistant Director of the Castle...But I am not sure) standing in the window on the second floor dressed as a ghost of some sort holding a lantern and read us the story of Sophie. He then told us how she just vanished one day and is still seen walking around the grounds of the castle. We then were released into the grounds of the castle where we were given nothing but a lantern to see where we were going. People popped up from every which way (Including some people with chain saws. Me, Sam and Pooja were backed into a pile of leaves and they tried to touch us with their chain saws). There was a drunk guy sitting in the old tower, animals that popped out of the bushes, and an escaped convict. Then toward the end there was someone who had cups and he said "Here...It's Sophie's blood...DRINK!" As we were walking away I said "Hey...is that the random kid who serves food in the dining hall?" It was. We were screaming and had such an amazing time. I don't know who half the people were, but I think they literally used the entire town of Well in our haunted castle. The best one though was this woman dressed up as Sophie. I could not tell who it was until later on that night we were making a lot of noise downstairs and she came over and told us to quiet down. It was Donia (sp?), one of the women who walks around at night and makes sure that all the ligths are turned off and that we are quiet. It was such a good costume!

After the party in the barn, we of course had to go to the Linden for American Night. Everyone went in their crazy costumes and all the Dutch people there were really confused. Even some of the castle staff came with us. After helping some people get home, Sam, Blake, and I sat in our room and just talked for a little bit and then finally went to bed. I know I have said it like 9 times already, but it was such a good night.

Going to Budapest this weekend. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning from Frankfurt, but we have to leave well at 5:30 today because the last train leaves Nijmegen at 7. That means we are going to be stuck in the Frankfurt airport for a LONG TIME tonight. Oh well, I live in a castle.