Saturday, November 5, 2011

Ya'sta! and dressing up, Madrid style

Lots to catch up on.

I had never appreciated Halloween so much before this year. I love Halloween; dressing up, bobbing for apples, getting doughnut jam in your eyes while you're trying to tear it from a string hanging from the ceiling. But never before had I realised the potential for Halloween themed lessons. Brilliant. For a whole week and a bit, all I had to do was imitate ghosts (oooooh) witches (nyahahaha) and spiders (more difficult) and draw them on the board. This week I'm floundering in post-Halloween no-man's-land, where no-one celebrates Guy Fawkes Night, I don't understand Thanksgiving and it's way too early for Christmas.

Incidently by the time it came to celebrate Halloween as an adult, by getting dressed up and drinking and doing the Thriller dance on repeat, I was a bit bored of the idea. Mainly because I'd been blackmailed into working at a kids' party for free, but the less said about that the better, because it makes me Angry. So a friend and I went out dressed normally, and at first we were glad, there were a lot of quite endearingly bad costumes in Madrid on the 31st. Halloween's new here, so it's still wild and unconventional to stick a white sheet on you, squirt it with red food colouring and mess up your hair. We saw a man in the metro wearing jeans and a plad jacket, topped with a 'see you Jimmy' hat and a sort of wrap-around tartan cloth, over his jeans. As two Scots, we resisted the urge to talk to him, so just took a covert photo instead: picture to follow when I work out how to get it off my phone.

But later in the night, when we were bopping around to an excellent selection of 50s and 60s music in Ya'sta Club, I wanted to join in, I wanted to be a zombie-monster-person too! Luckily I know myself and I'd packed my facepaints into my bag. So, quick trip to the loos, and I come back with bright blue lips and streams of blood pouring down my neck, and my friend with a particularly nasty looking Glasgow Smile.

Ya'sta is a really cool place, it has different nights each night (you know what I mean) and that one was Viva Las Vegas. There were projections of old burlesque films on the walls, and just such good music. A nice change from the ceaseless reggaeton. It's just off Gran Via, c/ Valverde, 10.

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