Merry Halloween

I'm not sure what the weather has been like in your neck of the woods, but out here it SNOWED on Halloween.  Ahem.  Yeah. Well, that's not a good sign when you live in a country where heat doesn't turn on until a certain date, regardless of how cold it is.  And it's especially not good when that date is not for another two weeks. But at least we don't live on the other side of the river down south, where there just isn't any heat at all for that part of the country.

On October 31st we went out to an italian restaurant for dinner and then to a friend's apartment to celebrate his birthday, which had been the day before.  Three of our friends showed up at dinner dressed as robots and an iPod made out of cardboard boxes and covered in tinfoil.  Considering no one out here even knows what Halloween is, they had quite a few people staring at them and wondering what in the world they were doing.  

But anyway, back to the point.  We ended up staying at our friend's place until about 1:30am.  Why so late?  Well...we didn't get back from dinner until around 9pm and then a few of us embarked on trying to fry bananas because it was the birthday boy's favorite dessert.  By the time that was over, we had to play a traditional game of BANG! for his birthday (kind of like Mafia but with cards, fun if you like games, especially cause you can play with lots of people).  The game ended up lasting forever but in the end it came down to me and the birthday boy and I won!  Pretty sweet considering I didn't even want to play because I was tired from frying bananas, but ended up playing anyway hoping that I would get killed off early so Bryan and I could go back home.  Ok, that was another side note. I do that a lot if you didn't notice.

Anyways, I'm not sure if it was worth it to stay out that late even if I did win, because by the time we got on a scooter to ride 20 minutes home, it was snowing out.  Riding a scooter in the snow in 20 degree weather isn't a good idea, let me tell you that.  It was FREEZING!  But also sort of fun. Part of the reason we had stayed was because it had been raining and even sleeting earlier in the night and I was kind of hoping it would let up.  But it didn't, and continued snowing all through the night and into the next day.  

When we woke up it was still snowing and the ground was covered in snow. On November 1st.  I remember being ecstatic as a kid when it would snow on Thanksgiving because I used to think that was early for snow.  Well, I always joke that Fall out here lasts for about a blink of an eye.  It always seems that as soon as the sweltering heat of summer is over, we get about a month of cool Fall weather before jumping straight into a blistery cold winter.  And I guess that's exactly what happened this year because less than a week ago we were having highs of 60-70 degrees and this week it's been in the 20-30's.  *sigh*  At least some kids in our apartment complex got to have some fun making snowmen.  I guess that's universal.  Funny how some things are the same no matter where you are in the world.  Snow falls and kids make snowmen and have snowball fights.  Here's a pic of B posing with one of the cuter snowmen. I guess that makes it official.  Goodbye Fall.  Hello Winter.  And a Merry Halloween to you all.