The Halloween Capital of the World

Imagine a room (let's say a dorm room. Pretty small, right?). Now pack 300+ people into it.

That's the best way to describe Halloween in (London)Derry.

For a city that claims to be the Halloween Capital of the world, they did not disappoint. I heard last night that the estimated amount of people that were at the parade was about 10,000. That's pretty insane for the location.

Our group was asked to perform in the Halloween parade by the Cathedral Youth Center (Robyn's Service Placement). We were asked to help Allan to drum in a little samba band. No big deal, I did High School Marching band, I've done this before.

I'm thinking it's going be a little parade through the Fountain (where the Cathedral Youth Center is located) and that's that.

WRONG.
Again, I underestimated Ireland.

This parade was insane. Right along the river, I would believe that there was 10,000 people strong. The place was packed. The only thing I can relate it to is a St. Patricks Day parade in the States, multiplied by...5? Everyone was in costumes, including us. (We were some pretty kick-ass tigers. Except Kuz. He was a very confused Giraffe with a Tiger face).

People take Halloween very seriously here: costumes are all out, the floats for the parade were similar to the ones in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and did I mention the amount of people? I don't think that I celebrated Halloween for a good 10 years, but I'm definitely glad I did this year.

After the parade we decided that we would go exploring to see how crazy the city got during this celebration. One costume change later (you doesn't want to wear a morph suit for Halloween?), we discovered that every place we went to (mainly Waterloo Street) was packed with people partying.

The interesting part was that while the police were out in force, they didn't really do anything (put that on the list of things to ask about). They stood back and observed. I guess they were just making sure things didn't get too out of hand.

Tomorrow we're off to a Police Station to learn about the PSNI and the difference between the States and Northern Ireland. Maybe they'll have some good stories from Halloween night.