Halloween and American Way of Life

Hi everyone!

Last Monday (October 31) was the day of Halloween! All the houses in the city were covered with pumpkins, ghosts, gravestones, skeletons etc. Some people even built a ‘Haunted House’ in front of their own house, which they use on the evening of Halloween. During my Halloween-dinner, the doorbell was ringing all the time. Children dressed up in very sweet costumes (one boy was dressed up as Obama!) asked me ‘Trick or Treat?’ and I gave them candy haha! For the Halloween-dinner we prepared filled pumpkin. The preparation of the pumpkin starts in the morning with getting out the content of the pumpkin and then filling it with vegetables, meat and potatoes. The filled pumpkin has to bake in the oven for the entire day. Furthermore, the student-Halloween parties found place the weekend before Halloween. Everyone wears a (scary) costume and it is quite similar to Carnaval in the Netherlands.

And some other things I discovered in the last couple of weeks:

- In the month October a lot of students play a (crazy) game on the UW Campus, it is called Human versus Zombies. It is a UW-tradition and the players wear an orange sign on their head, so you can recognize them. The students who play the game are very proud on it and you see the players running everywhere. (Impression: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq2bkTsfn3s)The goal of the game is to stay alive and to kill the Zombies when you are a Human and kill the Humans when you are a Zombie.

- Beerpong is an American drinking game; which they play during house parties. It is with beer and pingpongballs and the American students are really into this game. Especially the Greek Community Students, they have a couple of official beerpong tables in their hous to practice.

- The local students told us (the internationals) that it’s better to be able to protect yourself as a girl at night at the U-district. They recommended buying pepperspray, which is legal here. So, we bought this and tried it in the bathroom, which was not a good idea, because we all started coughing after spraying it and we decided to leave the room haha!

- In Seattle downtown a lot of people are demonstrating against Wall Street and the government. They carry signs with f.e. ‘Put greed to bed’ and 'Cops and Wall Street: Hand in Hand' on it.

- The American people and students are very friendly and open. Everywhere you are, they start talking to you: at the bus stop, on Campus, in the supermarket etc. They always help you and everyone loves the Netherlands (especially Amsterdam).

- Last week, I had to study a lot for my midterms. Studying takes a lot of time here, in the last 6 weeks I handed in eleven assignments!! As a consequence, you are better prepared for your exams and you get to know the content of the courses quite well. The students are very motivated here.