Okay, I know Halloween is over. But, these videos send Hannah and me into fits of laughter no matter how many times we watch them. Tears were shed. And whenever we feel like we need to laugh, we put these videos on. Which we did several times this weekend as we were writing a major research paper. So, I just had to share them. They’ve been buzzing around all over the internet so you may or may not have seen them already…but they are worth watching over and over and over! Ellen (who I just LOVE) sends her writer Amy through a Haunted House every year and video tapes her the whole way through. This year she decided to send another one of her employees, Andy, through as well! And their reactions are priceless. Well, enough of me babbling…here are the videos!
South of France: Day 4
On Day 4 of our trip to the South of France, we packed up our bags and piled onto the buses. We were going to be spending the night in a different city: Avignon. But, we made several stops along the way before arriving in Avignon. Our first stop was Arles. This city has archaeological and architectural treasures as well as links to the famous artist, Van Gogh. We wandered through the old city…
and saw a Roman Theatre…
and the famous café of Van Gogh’s painting…
and the hospital where Van Gogh went immediately after chopping off his ear, which I somehow forgot to take a picture of. But, I can show you a picture of Van Gogh’s painting of it…doesn’t that count for something?
Then, we piled back onto the buses and headed to Les Baux de Provence, a magnificent village located high up on a cliff.
We had some yummy lunch of scallops and found a candy store that just kept calling my name as I tried to walk right on by (the candy store won).
And then we piled onto the buses again and headed to the place I had been looking forward to since we got on the train to go to France: the Monastery of St Paul de Mausole. This is the place where Van Gogh was confined for about 10 years.
It was here that he painted Starry Night while looking out of his bedroom window and The Irises from the garden outside, to name a few. I’m not even sure if I can accurately describe in words how I felt walking into his room. Basically, it blows my mind that hundreds of years before he was sitting in that very room I was standing in painting the Starry Night. The Starry Night my 5th grade art teacher had me create my own version of. It was overwhelming and I spent probably about 10 minutes in that teeny tiny room imagining him in there and what his life was like. It was an experience I’ll never forget.
We piled onto the buses one last time that day and headed to our hotel in Avignon, where we were then free to get dinner on our own and explore that city. A group of us ate dinner right in the middle of the town with the sound of a street performer singing all American music in the background. And after dinner, we started a dance party right in the middle of the square to that street performer’s music…we even gathered a tiny crowd (one woman video-taped us the entire time). It was one of my favorite nights. After the street performer played one last song of American Pie…we headed back to our hotel for a good night sleep. Because we had one more day left of exploring to do!
Happy Halloween!
Halloween isn’t really a thing in Europe. There are halloween parties people throw (kind of similarly to how Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo), but there isn’t trick-or-treating. There aren’t costume stores. There aren’t haunted houses. It’s just not celebrated to the extent that Americans celebrate Halloween! Which is a bummer. I think they should jump on this bandwagon. (Also, they should jump on the band wagon of air conditioning!! But that is another story for another time.) It’s always so much fun to dress up and who doesn’t want an excuse to eat lots of candy? So, our Student Activities Committee in Lausanne put together a Halloween party in the house so us Americans wouldn’t be deprived of the holiday celebrations! They gave us two days to come up with a costume…and with no costume stores, it proves to be pretty difficult! However, after Hannah and I stared in our closets trying to come up with something. We eventually came up with this….
^^”Party Time! Excellent!”
Now that we got all dressed up… we were ready for trick-or-treating and trick-or-treaters. We took turns going to different floors of the house to collect our candy. And in Switzerland we give out Toblerones!
Everyone did a surprisingly good job at coming up with costumes so last minute!
Then, we all headed downstairs to dance, play murder mystery, eat lots of yummy treats, and take pictures in our makeshift photobooth. But before we could get to all that fun…we had to walk through the Haunted House. People jumping out and yelling at me doesn’t scare me too badly…but people laying on the floor grabbing my feet in the pitch-black dark will get me to scream. (Confession: I leap onto my bed at night because I’m still afraid of those people that will reach out from under my bed and grab my feet, Sixth Sense style. Worst nightmare. My heart is racing just thinking about it.) We decided to just run through so that they couldn’t torment us too much!
^^This is Robbie. Robbie is the one who lied on the floor and grabbed my feet! After the haunted house…he became our DJ for the dance party (hence the headphones).
Garth and I had the best time! And we may or may not have come in 2nd place for best costume :)
And the night got even better because the RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES! Yes, I stayed up to watch every single second of that game (from 1am – 4:30am). There was nothing in this world that I would miss this game for. Not even sleep. Even if it meant I had to stand for the entire last two innings cause I was going to fall asleep sitting down. I love that team so much and I couldn’t be more proud to call myself a fan. Here’s to my boys (as Milly would say)!
