HALLOWEEN AMSTERDAM STYLE

As some of you may already know, Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. I love autumn, carving pumpkins, dressing up in stupid outfits, watching scary movies and the whole concept of knocking on the doors of strangers and demanding candy.

So when I heard that Halloween is a foreign concept in Amsterdam, I was quite distraught. We thought about having a Halloween party at our flat; unfortunately, we don't know a party-full of people here yet, and 3 of my coworkers that we hang out with were not going to be in town, and all the Dutchies we know were not interested. So we threw in the towel and decided to go to a Halloween party at Boom Chicago instead.

Boom Chicago is an improv comedy club with an all-American cast. We've been there for a show before, when Matt's old roommate Drew and his girlfriend came to visit. It was a fun show, and it was a piece of America in Amsterdam, so we thought it might be an interesting party.

The theme of the party this year was "4 Funerals and a Wedding". We had no idea what this meant. The website suggested some lame-o costumes like dead bride and groom, priest, vampire, bla bla bla. We wanted to be unique. Unfortunately, Matt did not bring his default Halloween costume, a too-tight Superman uni, to Amsterdam. Thus, we had to come up with some fresh ideas. Much to our MO, and my utter dismay, we waited until the day of the party to decide what we should dress up as. We did, however, manage to find a costume store that a coworker had alerted me about, and that helped out a bit.

As we were rummaging through the overpriced items in the too-small store that smelled faintly of body odor, I came across a box of strange looking masks. They weren't full masks, but only from-the-eyebrows-up masks. One in particular looked quite bizarre, so I handed it to Matt, and said "Put this on". The sight I saw next may be one of the most belly-ripping, funniest things I have ever seen. He looked absolutely ridiculous. He checks himself out in the mirror and also starts roaring with laughter, as well as some random older dude in the store looking for costumes too. We decide then that it doesn't matter what we decide to dress up as, this mask needs to be incorporated somehow.

I fall in love with a Snow White dress that costs €50. Now when I fall in love with a piece of merchandise, it is hard to pull me away from it (or out of it). The next 30 minutes I am debating what to be, while wearing this rather unbecoming Snow White dress around the store.

"I can be Snow White, and you can be...grumpy!" I cry with enthusiasm.

"No."

Matt was right. Paying €50 euros for a snow white dress is retarded. I settle on a cop hat, some handcuffs and a beating stick. Our costumes evolved into me being the fashion police, complete with ready-to-serve fashion citations, and Matt was a greasy, Elvis-y cheeseball, who warranted an extreme fashion citation to the tune of life in prison.

Matt had picked up 2 mini-pumpkins from the supermarket across the street, and we carved them up into silly faces (see picture at the top). We drank some beers to get our nerves up to walking the 4 blocks to the party in our stupid costumes in a city that views Halloween as a stupid American corporate holiday (more on this matter to come). On our way, we passed a typical Dutch brownhouse where a guy barged out so violently it looked like he had been set on fire and tried to convince us to come into the bar so that he and the other bar-goers could make fun of us. We're like, "uh...we can't." But he pulled us in anyway. We walked into this small, disgustingly smoky bar full of grumpy Dutch people who looked like they have already had a few too many. They were utterly confused by us, and I think they really thought I was a cop, and that Matt's hair really looked like that. They were not the least bit amused. Other than, of course, the jolly guy that pulled us into this hell hole. We tried to explain that it Halloween was coming up soon, we were going to a costume party, we were a fashion cop and a greaseball, but there was still no sign of life coming from these zombies. We waved silent goodbyes and walked out, almost as confused about what just happened as the people inside. We started thinking that perhaps dressing up tonight and going to one of the main squares looking like a couple of retards may not have been the best decision. But once we got to the club, we saw a lot more people in costume, and the fun really started.

The party was very entertaining. There were Americans, British, Australians and even some Dutch people. There was a DJ playing on the stage where the comedians usually perform, and a screen behind him showing creepy footage. Sometimes the DJ would put this crazy-looking werewolf mask on, and it would look super scary. He must have been very talented to still spin records with that thing on, b/c the eyes were glowing red, which probably meant the eye holes were tiny on that thing, if any even existed.

At one point in the night, we are accosted by a kid with a microphone and a dude with a huge video-camera that must have been in existence now for at least 40 years. I don't recall his questions exactly, but I do remember they were not at all intellectual. And neither were our answers, b/c aside from the beers, we were dressed up as a police office and greaseball at the time. Those kinds of distractions can really taint a sophisticated image. His questions were specifically geared toward making Halloween seem like a foolish, "corporate" holiday. I don't know about any of you, but my company doesn't give me a day off for Halloween. And isn't that the definition of a "corporate holiday"? And since when did people start calling Halloween a holiday? We pretty much just blew these kids off and told them not to take themselves too seriously because it is quite unbecoming to be so young and so jaded.

We stayed at the party for a couple of hours, then went into the infamous FEBO for a shake and some fries. FEBO, or "eating from the wall" is a fast food joint that could probably win in the fight for nastiest place to eat on Earth. There are rows of vending machines set up, where a hand reaches from the inside and sticks various food products that should never see the inside of a vending machine. We're talking cheesburgers, chicken saté, croquettes, etc. The back is a counter where you can order "fresh" things. Sufficiently filled with enough beer that I can look past the fact that I am actually eating food from this place, we order fries and a chocolate milkshake and then make our way back home. Thankfully there was not a lot of people out at this hour, so we didn't have to worry about getting weird looks like we did on the way there. We're walking along, chatting, when all of a sudden I get totally slammed into by a girl on her bike. For whatever reason possessed her likely-drunk mind, she swerved off the road for a passing car and onto the sidewalk, where Matt and I were walking. It was a total hit-and-run. She almost fell after bumrushing me, but then kept going. I looked down and saw that I was completely covered in chocolate milkshake. I was more upset about the loss of my milkshake then my dirty clothes. Nevertheless, it did make the two of us an even odder sight.