Last week I found out that both of my lectures had been cancelled on Wednesday 1st November. Call it fate, or maybe just good luck. Either way, I had absolutely nowhere to be on the day after Halloween. Before this miraculous event, I had been considering whether or not to go out on Halloween night. So, as one does when faced with a myriad of choices for an evening out in St Andrews, I set off for a night at the Union. In the interest of full disclosure, I must begin by admitting that I have never been a big Halloween fan.
Nevertheless, I decided to get into the spirit of Halloween this year not literally a spirit — I ended up dressing as a devil and celebrate. There really is no greater feeling in the world than getting to jump a queue, especially in the pouring rain. Upon entering the Union, we made a beeline for the bar, bypassing several witches, pirates, fairies and one banana who was having the time of his life.
The costumes ranged from thrown together at the last minute me to Pinterest-perfect and everywhere in between. I must confess I was surprised by the lack of Barbie and Ken couple costumes, given the cultural phenomenon that was the release of the Barbie movie this summer.
For decorations, the Union went with the tried and trusted method: cobwebs, pumpkins and some bat cut-outs hanging in the windows. While simple, it was effective and helped to get everyone into a spooky mood, and is easy to take down the next day to make room for the Christmas decorations. Heading upstairs we found the greatly anticipated photo booth… which was admittedly less photo booth and more photo-background with a photographer at the ready.
It almost felt like a club atmosphere, which admittedly might be a bit of a stretch, but the space was packed and I could barely move without quite literally bumping into someone I vaguely knew, followed by the inevitable struggle to recall who they were and how on earth I knew them.
