A Spanish Halloween

One of the things I knew I was going to miss terribly was Halloween. Nobody goes all out like we do, except maybe Canada, UK, and Ireland (where it originated), so I was anticipating a very lackluster holiday. My colleagues had told me that here in Spain it had caught on roughly within the last two decades. For most of them, Halloween had never been a part of their tradition as children. It was their children who had introduced them to the phenomenon. What has always been celebrated around the same time though has been Día De Todos Los Santos, or All Saint's Day on November 1st (interestingly, Halloween gets it's name from this day as the night before was usually called All Hallows Eve). Now, if you are a practicing Catholic then you should be familiar with this day as a day that saints, known and unknown, in heaven and on earth, are remembered. So, in addition to being a Church feast day, All Saint's is also a National holiday in Spain, so I didn't have to go to class. It was nice to have a day of rest after a long night of dancing. I also went to mass in the evening down the block at St. Cristina's, a beautiful Neo-mudéjar style church which is practically the landmark of the neighborhood. 

Anyways, after talking to my students non-stop about Halloween, I definitely had the holiday spirit. I spoke to them about traditions such as apple-bobbing, carving jack-o'-lanterns, and the Wilmington Ghost walk, but my favorite part was reading the ghost story, Where's My Liver (It was the best not-too-long one I could find). After hearing the story for the first time, one of the teachers volunteered to be the voice that howls "Where's My Liver!" in the next class and when he did I swear the entire class jumped in their seats. They were twice as frightened as the last one. When I asked them what they did for Halloween, some said that they usually dress up in costume and go out with friends, others said go egg launching. Wow. What a great tradition America is spreading around I thought.

For Halloween, I dressed up as a zombie; it was a very easy costume to do. I went with my friend, Lina, a Colombian who I had meet a few weeks ago. She dressed up as a cat. We went to the center of Madrid, Puerta del Sol and when I got there I was surprised. About half or two-thirds of the people were in costume. Zombies and vampires were everywhere. We ended up going to a club that let us in for free because it was kind of early and I think they wanted to fill the place up. They played a lot of pachangeo, which according to Lina, is the term that Spaniards use for salsa, merengue, cumbia, etc. -they just lump it all into one group which I think is ridiculous. My landlady's son confirmed this to me by the way. And they also played a lot of flamenco music, not the Gypsy King's kind, but flamenco infused with pop and rock, and tropical rhythms which sounded really cool. After that we decided to have a change of scene so when went to a place called Sol & Sombra where they played Michael Jackson's Thriller about three times. There we met some people from Girona who were really awesome. One of them had been taking English classes so she practiced with me for a while. Then we all went to the third and final dance club a block down and danced the night away. Seriously. I think one of my favorite parts was when they played Ghost busters and everyone suddenly went bizerk especially three people who were dressed up as ghost busters. I had no idea it was or had been that popular over here. But even more scream-inducing were these two songs, Don Omar's Danza Kuduro and Michel Teló's Ai Se Eu Te Pego. They are know stuck in my head.