Halloween and election jitters

Happy November!

This weekend I learned that the majority of Europe does not really celebrate Halloween. Instead they celebrate something called “Carnival” (in whatever native tongue, of course) in February. As I understand it, Carnival lasts for about a week and consists of people dressing up as crazy as they can and getting as drunk as they can. Or something like that. As you may have noticed by now, Europeans have a very liberal attitude toward drinking. In America, drinking is sort of a taboo issue. You can’t really even talk about drinking (except among peers, of course) until you are 21, and then when you do drink, it is supposed to be something you do with a great deal of caution, being careful to overindulge only very rarely. Here the Europeans compete like it is a matter of national pride. “I’m Danish! Danish people are always drunk! That’s what we do!” “Serbian people love to party! Our Carnival goes on for two weeks because we just want an excuse to party!” “I’m German – beer is like water to me.”

The interesting thing about it is difference it makes in their behavior when they have been drinking. In America it is quite typical for multiple people at a party to throw up or pass out. Here, if you throw up it is the grossest thing you could do. To them, throwing up is unacceptable because they were throwing up at age 14, when they first started drinking. It became legal for them to drink beer and wine at 16 (liquor at 18), so they have been drinking for 4 to 5 years at this point in their lives. They don’t throw up and they don’t get out of control. Of course there is always the odd person out – I have been out at pubs and seen people get a bit crazy, but it is much more rare here than in America. It is amazing how much the drinking age affects the drinking culture.

I also learned that Europeans are under the mistaken belief that all Halloween costumes worn in America are scary. They thought that you had to be a witch or ghost or vampire or something else sinister when you dress up for Halloween. I guess that is the spirit of the holiday, but of course you don’t have to dress that way. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever worn a scary costume. I have been an ice skater, leftovers and a Greek goddess, but nothing really creepy. Hmm. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong all these years! Haha.

Two days to the election! Ahh! As I (hope I) have mentioned before, I do not have internet in my apartment. The time difference will mean that results are coming in during the middle of the night here and no café with internet will be open for my use. Luckily, my good friends have internet in their apartment and have offered me the use of an extra mattress in their apartment for the night. I am so excited! I don’t think I will sleep at all. And I have class in the morning! Hopefully the final results are in before my class in the morning. Sitting through a 3 hour class would be nothing more than torture. Ahh! So excited!