Exams are coming up and so is Halloween, so give yourself a break from all that studying and go celebrate this spooky holiday! But if you are like me and left all your Halloween celebration planning to the last minute, please look through these few tips to still have an extra spooky time this year. Obviously, I geared it to us students, as you might like to celebrate Halloween as cheap as possible.
- Decoration:
If your room
looks like a small 4×4 box or if you enjoy the luxury of a slightly larger room in Rotterdam, you easily get into the spooky mood by hanging up a few decorations. You could be very creative and start some DIY projects to help liven up your space. Good places to find ideas for these kinds of activities are Pinterest and YouTube tutorials.
I am lazy about these kinds of things and I am also not creative at all. For the internationals out there, you must understand that Halloween is not a Dutch holiday, but to keep up with the game, the Netherlands has “Americanized” in this area and loads of different stores sell an array of Halloween decorations. I, for example, picked up some bunting and a few pompons to hang in my empty hallway for only three euros. Stores like Hema, Xenos and Action carry a lot of fun decoration ideas for a very cheap price.
- Costumes
Picking and choosing the perfect costume is one of the most important and stressful parts of Halloween, that is if you choose to dress up of course (but why not, seriously?). If you left it a little late and only now are discovering that you still need a costume for an event, then take a look around your room. You probably have some black clothes and ketchup lying around the house, which you could get very creative with. My go-to costume is as Hermione from Harry Potter; I have loads of Hogwarts/Gryffindor t-shirts, a wand and huge hair. Also, a good tip that I discovered is: never underestimate an old sheet. With a large piece of white fabric, or any other color for that matter, you can make a number of different costumes. Throw it over yourself and you are the ever-classic ghost and if you tie it around yourself in the right places, you will have a toga and look like a Greek god or goddess. Lastly you could also rip the sheet into long strips and make a mummy out of yourself. Add fake blood, ketchup or coffee stains to any costume you come up with, it will make it gory very quickly.
- Parties
After all this preparation, it is time for the big night, the main event. There are loads of different Halloween parties all across Rotterdam which you could “zombie walk” your way into. If you are not a fan of big parties, then throwing your own party is very easy. Invite some friends over (this works better if your room is not a 4×4 box), get a bag chips out and put on a scary horror movie. If you want to be a bit more creative with your snacks, try cutting anything you buy or bake into a pumpkin shape. If you want to keep an extra low budget and you don’t want to pay for a movie (don’t stream illegally!) then just steal your housemate’s Netflix password, if you did not already…
For the party animals among us, there are loads of different parties being hosted on and around Halloween night. All of these can be found on Facebook, under events.
- Tonight (Friday 28th of October) there is the Glow in the Dark: Halloween Edition at Maassilo. You must buy a ticket to get in, so act fast!
- On Saturday night, the 29th of October, the Zombie Walk After Party is held at Rotown. The theme of this thriller night is dead celebrities, so whip out your best MJ moonwalk, but make it spooky!
- On All Hallows’ Eve itself (31st of October) there is another spooky, scary party at Toffler hosted by Erasmus Rotterdam. To get in cheaply you just have to write your name on the event’s Facebook wall.
- If lastly, you still haven’t had enough of Halloween ESN and ERF are hosting a party on November 1st at Plan C. This party is even more fun if you do not have an exam the following day.
I hope these tips have helped you out and given you some last minute inspiration to make this Halloween your best one yet. So go out and make some lasting, scary memories!
Happy Halloween!!!