Halloween has a special place in my heart. I worked in several haunted houses (and I grew up in LA where every such operation has at least one person who knows someone with an inexplicable treasure trove of awesome props). Since 2007, my Halloween has been defined by The Rocky Horror Picture Show — I was in it for two years, then I directed it, and then returned to college for Halloween to attend.
But Halloween is one of those holidays that is a particularly American phenomenon. This is not to say that it is not acknowledged elsewhere in the globe, only that few (if any) places do it on the scale that we do. Thus, compounded by the absence of pumpkin, Halloween became my latest and greatest #expatproblem.
I spent this week on vacation in Budapest, so it’s not like I have much to complain about (nor would I if I were spending it here in Paris, for that matter). It was one of my favorite cities from my backpacking trip a few summers ago and if I had to make up my own Halloween as I went, I am glad it was there.
We failed to locate any actual Halloween festivities. It being a Monday probably did not help our cause much. Nor did the fact that the friend I traveled with actually hates Halloween. Details.
I was hopeful, though, because I did see a whole lot of pumpkin. There seemed to be Jack-O-Lanterns outside of half the restaurants in Budapest. I was also hopeful because we were staying at a hotel where my dad has Super Badass Status and free booze kept appearing in our room in the evenings. Free booze inspires hope.
In a city that does not seem to celebrate this holiday with a friend who is equally uninterested in it (though fully eager to actually go out) all signs pointed to “Just let it go.”
But I refused! Fine, I’m going to be the only one dressed up, and I’m going to look like an idiot. Welcome to my life. I put on my favorite dress and attached a toy shovel to my purse:
While changing trains in the Metro we ran into some American undergrads doing their study abroad. (They guessed I was dressed as a gold prospector…) We did not, however, attempt to tag along with them, because we were optimistic about some bar we found online.
The interwebz described it as a labyrinth of a bar. A labyrinth! Awesome! A labyrinth thematically designed to have an American Western feel.
Wait, what?
All right. Sure. We’ll go to your Labyrinth Saloon, interwebz. I’ll bite because that sounds awesome.
Unfortunately this bar was neither of those things, and as it was a Monday night it was populated only by a few people eating dinner. And then me. And my glitter dress and plastic shovel.
We took advantage of the abundance of cheap beer in Hungary and ordered a plate of feta and bread or something like that. They brought us buffalo wings instead. It was delicious all the same, so whatever. That was kind of the theme of this bar: “Not what you were promised, but you’ll like it anyway.”
From there we went to another bar, that I have a vague recollection of being in during my previous trip. More of the same — people quietly enjoying a late dinner. And then me, looking like an asshole.
At 2am, the bars on that particular street were all closing, which was just as well because we were both due to be cut off anyway. We made the solidly predictable move of stumbling into McDonald’s to stuff our inebriated faces with some good American grease, before taking a cab home and sleeping like princesses in our cushy hotel bed.
On the whole, it lacked any of my standard Halloween requirements, but a worthwhile entry in my longstanding relationship with the holiday.
Oh and I’m totally going to create that bar some day — Sweeney’s Labyrinth Saloon, coming to some unknown city on some unknown future date.