Spain Does Halloween

A quick update on the week:

1. After playing "find the open church" for the last month, I finally attended a mass.  Here in Priego, there are nine catholic churches.  Being that I attend church at home every Saturday night, I've been wanting to attend here in Spain as well.  The only problem is, out of the nine churches, there are only two or three priests (I'm pretty sure).  This means that the priests travel from church to church.  And unlike America where I know there will be a service every Saturday night at 5:00pm, here it changes weekly.  One church may have an 8:00pm service Wednesday night but then the following Wednesday it could be elsewhere at 7:30pm.  I have yet to find a consistent pattern (which may or may not exist.)  Anyway, the church itself was stunningly beautiful.  The mass was only 30 minutes.  It was obviously in Spanish, but followed the same structure as an American church, so I was able to follow along, kind of.


2. I keep doing this super annoying thing of spilling my drinks.  In my room.  Yes Mom, I know:  This is what happens when I drink things in my room.  To be fair, I blame the end table that is in each photo.  (It's evil and planning the next spill as we speak).

3. I attended a Bachata dance class.  My Spanish friend taught it.  And it was pretty cool.

4. HALLOWEEN....

in Spain is nothing like any of these photos.  This week I saw a non-American perspective of Halloween.  Within the last few years, Spain has started to adopted the American Halloween.  So right now, the only part of Halloween that exists here are the costumes: no haunted houses, no trick or treaters, pumpkin carving is done minimally (some carve melons instead), no decorations, and no ABC Family TV specials.  Spain is still learning.  And when I say they dress up in costumes, we are talking the kind of costumes that are scary.  For those of you who have seen the movie "Mean Girls," think back to the part where Katy shows up to the Halloween Party dressed in an absolutely terrifying dead bride costume and that is Spain.  Cutesy costumes don't exist here.  Dressing up as Minnie Mouse, a cow, a lobster pot, Mario & Luigi, a giant pumpkin, etc will most likely get you some weird looks from the Spanish.  This part of Halloween I missed.  I enjoy the creativity and cuteness of kid costumes over the bloody, crazy hair, ripped clothes, scariness of Spain's costumes.  Aside from marvelling at the costumes, I had the pleasure of repeatedly teaching Halloween to every grade level at my school.  I now know more about the origins and traditions of Halloween than ever before. And with that said,  I am officially Halloweened out. 

But all in all Halloween was a success at my school.  We made pop up haunted houses, created paper Jack O'Lanterns, played Pin the Eye on the Monster,  and made Q-Tip skeletons.

FUN FACT: The Spanish have never heard of the game Pin the Tail on the Donkey.  (WHAT?!) I assumed everyone knew or heard of this game, but I was sorely mistaken.  You should have seen their faces as I explained how to play Pin the Eye on the Monster. 

Another big Halloween difference between America and Spain is that in the U.S. people decorate their houses prior to the holiday and once actual Halloween occurs, it is essentially over.  Decorations start coming down, costumes get put into storage, and people begin thinking about Thanksgiving.  In Spain, Halloween keeps going after Halloween.  For example, on actual Halloween, myself and another teacher hung up the Halloween crafts and decorations in the school.  These things will be on display for this upcoming week.  And I didn't actually dress up for Halloween until the Saturday after it.  (See said Halloween costume below...)

And with that last photo, I believe Halloween in Spain has been summed up.  I'm a skeleton in case anyone was wondering.  Oh and as I type this, my face is still stained by the makeup.  I'm looking real good right now.  Adios!