h-a-double l-o-double u- double e-n...spells halloween

Although Halloween isn’t actually a holiday here in Spain, some Sevillanos have come to take it quite seriously. For the past week, I have seen kids dressed up as witches, vampires and skeletons (because of course those are the only 3 acceptable costumes). It is interesting how different people react to the incorporation of this American holiday in spanish culture. At my school for example, I have been carving pumpkins everyday for the past week, and we have been preparing for a Halloween celebration tomorrow. Some of my friends are working at schools that aren’t doing anything to recognize Halloween. I am personally happy that I can share this American tradition with my school, but by the time I got to carve my sixth (and best) pumpkin, I got a little tired of the classic Halloween activity.

After carving 6 pumpkins you can only imagine how many pumpkin seeds I have. Since the majority of people in Pilas have never carved a pumpkin before, I assume they haven’t eaten roasted pumpkin seeds, although pipas (sunflower seeds) are almost as important as beer here. So I took it upon myself to cook these pumpkin seeds I myself scooped out of each pumpkin. Now normally this would not be an incredibly difficult task, but given the fact that my oven only has one setting that turns from hot to extremely hot without any notice, it was more difficult than I was expecting. With the exception of a few seeds however, I’d say the experiment turned out pretty well. Plus I figure if they aren’t the best seeds, the kids don’t really have a point of reference so they will just think they don’t like the taste of pumpkin seeds.

Other than carving and making seeds I have been busy coloring pumpkins, ghosts and haunted houses. I also made some ghost lollipops a la grandma Terri, but not enough to share with everyone so I’m not sure how well that’s going to go over. I have had a lot of fun preparing for tomorrow; it’s fun when there is a holiday or something else specific to focus my attention on.

Tomorrow is Halloween day and I am going to school to celebrate. Some schools decided to take the day off because Tuesday is a holiday here, Día de los Muertos (or difuntos as they call it here). It is typical in Spain to make a long weekend, or Puente, when there is a holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday. My school decided to take the Puente another time, but I’m okay with that. I’m excited to sing Halloween songs and trick or treat around the school. I’m not sure how many more times I can here the skeleton dance before going crazy, it is already stuck in my head all the time, but hopefully tomorrow will be a fun day.