One thing the French do really well is dressing up.
At the crèche we have numerous dressing up days - the Carnival on Mardi Gras, animals for African week, Halloween, Christmas etc. Also there tends to be a theme and everyone sticks to it, no Buzz Lightyears turned up on the animal dressing up day!
It isn't just for children either.
In Lyon, Halloween is a big event for adults too. I think it is greatly helped by the fact that the 1st Nov is always a bank holiday, which means everyone goes out on the night itself. This year I was invited to 4 different events (I was impressed with myself that I got to 3 of them!)
The first was a Zombie March - an apero at a friends' before marching, en mass, to the bar. I spent a while zombiefying myself chez moi, before walking 3 mins down the road to their apartment. I was unimpressed though, as several people walked passed me and no one made any comments, they must have been blind!
The party was in full swing when I arrived with, zombies everywhere. I took loads of photos and honestly, it looks as if we were all at the most depressing party ever, because we were all practicing our 'dead' faces, not a smile to be seen.
After a few drinks and pumpkin cupcakes, it was approaching midnight, so the march began. Armed with the remaining drinks from the fridge, we set of to the bar, stopping for a quick photo call on the way. This time we were noticed, well 20 odd zombies (and some of us were very odd - a male, zombie nun for starters) walking along the street is hard to miss.
The mood in the bar was good, with plenty of other zombies, witches, wizards, vampires, ghouls and ghosts socializing over a drink or 3. There was a ghost buster but fortunately he seemed powerless after a couple of drinks. What I loved was that everyone had a Halloween theme and ok, apart from a couple of girls in cat suits, everyone was embracing the 'horror' element of the theme.
Most of the bars in Vieux Lyon had some Halloween theme going on and people were wandering between them all on some sort of ghost pub crawl. There were spider's webs and carved pumpkins everywhere and a fantastic party atmosphere. The band playing at the bar did a few 'spooky' songs at the end of their set and finished with a fine rendition of ''Ighway to 'ell' that had the whole place jumping.
After the bar closed, we went upstairs to another party (with the remainder of the bottles from the fridge). I was proudly shown the kegs of beer and beer pumps they had set up - well they do live above a bar, and the partying continued. Around 3.30 we called it a night and started off home. Although there were only a couple of us wandering along the river, and our make up was wearing off, we still caused amusement and fear on our way!
