Happy Halloween!

GSU Halloween Ball
This past Thursday was the GSU Halloween Ball in the upstairs area of my fave bar, 4 Dame Lane.  Tickets were €6 in advance - not bad, although I did hear friends' stories of how they didn't buy tickets but simply took the back stairwell up and were never checked for tickets.  Hhmm.  Also, they never asked us for our tickets or checked our names, so we kinda wondered why we bothered paying for them in the first place.  Oh well.

It was a fun night.  After class, Juliette and I got dressed in costume (here, they call it "fancy dress") and met some friends at the Pav for a pint before we headed to the GSU party.  From there, we walked to 4 Dame Lane.  Here is my favorite costume of the night:

A Marionette Puppet costume - pretty funny.  I think her friends had more fun than she did.

My second favorite costume was my friend who dressed as Carl from Up!  His costume was great, complete with balloon.  Nice job, David!

The winner of "Best Fancy Dress" was a human lego who, in my opinion, looked more like the staypuft marshmallow man.

DU Dance Society - "Thriller Night"

Although I joined the Dance Society during Fresher's Week, I'd not yet been to any of the dance lessons that take place each Friday evening.  When I learned that they were teaching the Thriller dance last Friday, I thought that would be pretty fun. 

The Thriller thing was pretty crowded (and a tad smelly) but it was lots of fun.  The instructor was great as well, and I think in the end everyone pretty much got the dance right.  I was told that a lot of people wear fancy dress to this event, but I think I was one of only 20 people who actually dressed up.  From there, the DU Dance hosted wine and snacks in the Eliz Room in House 6, so a bunch of us headed there for a bit.  (it's a common joke that Trinity students rarely turn down free drink - and that some will even attend an event that they really have minimal interest in if it's been advertised as having a reception afterward.)

I saw two very fun costumes at the wine reception:

Cleopatra...not an overly unique costume,

but the fact that she knit her wig was nicely impressive.

Next to Cleopatra, we have... 

Behold, it's God's Gift to Women. 

Nicely cheesy, gave all of us a good laugh.

After the wine reception, ~10 of us headed to Doyle's for a pint.  Doyle's was surprisingly a bit dull, so we headed to ... 4 Dame Lane.  I was (shocker) the oldest person in our group, so combined with the fact that I had only met these people in the past half hour, it was a bit weird for me at first.  But they were a nice group and it was overall a fun night.  A couple of the guys attempted to show me waltz and cha-cha, which was fun.  I should probably go to more of the DU Dance sessions to learn these cool moves.

Halloween Night

For Halloween, I decided to take it easy and stay in.  2 nights out in a row is enough for me sometimes.  I went to Juliette's, intending to just hang out for the day, but ended up watching a movie (All the King's Men, starring Anthony Hopkins and Sean Penn) and staying the night. 

Earlier in the day, we did the obligatory store run for trick or treaters begging for sugar.  Juliette had warned me that some of the kids in her neighborhood are little hellians (example:  her car has dents from the kids throwing around a rugby ball; her house # plaque, which is now missing, was the prior victim...and they never apologise), so I was prepared.  However, despite being on notice, I didn't expect this:

                                     

The annual neighborhood bonfire is neither legal nor safe!  Earlier in the day we saw kids AND their parents carrying nearly any household item to the fire pit, which btw was rather frighteningly close to the trees. Furniture was a seemingly hot item...and I even saw one person take a small refrigerator there...seriously?  Hello toxic and dangerous?

Apparently the Gardi out here rarely do anything about it because it's no use.  (?).  Thankfully, however, I did see a Garda guy later in the evening when the fire got a teeny bit bigger.  But even then, the fire kept going.

Hellians indeed.  And I heard maybe 2 trick or treaters say "thank you" upon receiving their sugar.  Little sh*ts.