Finally, after so many years dreaming to do it, I finally finally did it. I convinced my hubby (who thinks I am crazy but that´s why he also loves me :-)), I talked to the school teachers and looked and looked to get a good price, and.. we took a plane (or shall I say many??) to go to enjoy a “real” Halloween, where Halloween was born, I mean in the US.
I am very very lucky to have my “american family” in the US. When I was 15 (so many years ago I don´t even want to think about it!), I was a guest student in the best family ever, and since then, we have been going back and forth visiting each other, always in contact, and even more now, that my “sister” and me are mommies, and we both have children more or less the same age.
So, when in one of my work trips to NY this year, I escaped over the weekend to see them and we laughed about how fun it would be to go over there with the kids to spend a real Halloween and so that they could stay more in touch with their “cousins”, I started to plan it.
Travelling there was a little bit of a disaster (as the majority of my trips). The night before taking the plane, I got an email from Air France telling me that they had delayed my Paris-Detroit flight, which meant that we lost our connection Detroit-Charlotte and would have to sleep in Detroit and take the first flight in the morning. So, it took me a good couple of hours to arrange the hotel and confirm that the next Detroit-Charlotte plane tickets were ok.
The worst part was that in the morning, just 1 hour before going to the airport, I got another email from Air France, telling me that they had changed our Detroit-Charlotte flight the next morning, BUT they had left the children in the original flight!!!!
Of course that is impossible because the children cannot travel alone, but just to make sure the tickets were allright took me 30min on each boarding gate asking please to check the next flights because I thought they could be wrong (which it was!) even if apparently every time I asked for it, they fixed it!!!
Finally we got to Charlotte, after 24 hours travelling with the little monsters and if I have to tell the truth, they behaved very well (something easy with a screen in front of you with movies and videogames, even if you are have a 10 hours flight ahead)
Our first contact with Halloween was when we arrived (the day before to the “event”, when my “american sister” took out the costumes huge box so that they could get whatever they chose. One of the differences of celebrating Halloween there or home, is that there, most of the children costumes are NOT monster´s costumes but anything else. So, after Jon tried many costumes, he picked up a Transformers one, not so bad… and Alex, the first one he tried, a ballerina purple skirt, with a red long hair wig and a hat, the “prettiest” boy in town… (I got the bad witch one…).
After that we started preparing the pumpkins, each one with their own (and with help of course, because they are very very hard!), we had the best pumpkins in the neighbourhood! after you finish with the pumpkins´preparation, you clean the seeds, dry them, spread butter over them and salt and roast them in the over, and they are yummy yummy!!!!!
Halloween´s day was all preparation, preparing the food for the party, the costumes, the candy for the other children who would come to the door… although in the morning we went out “shopping” a bit, and the children wore already their Halloween costumes.
Both had changed their mind, first Jon who took a real NASA astronaut costume (which I am trying to buy now through internet because it is so cool), and Alex….. well Alex picked up another ballerina red skirt, with a blue shirt and a loooong blond curly wig, he was the happiest boy in town… (dad was not so happy!). Dad decided that he was NOT going to ask for trick or treat like that, with me taking pics and videos to show everybody at home, so we went to Walmart to try to get him choose another costume, and well… after he say all the boys-girls costumes, we got all happy because he chose a “Captain America” costume which he put on right there and then leaving the blond wig behind, and there we were all ready for the adventure…..
