Halloween In NewYork: Reality

Last week I posted about my Halloween in New York Expectations and today I am back to tell you my experience! To put it simply, it was cray. I’ll start by telling you a small story. Once upon a time Kaitlyn and her friends had a little too much fun out on the town enjoying one of their last nights in NYC and drank a liiiiittle to much. They woke up the next morning/ almost afternoon WITH THE WORST HANGOVERS OF THEIR LIFE. Guys, it was the worst. I don’t know if I have ever felt like that in my life. We went to some bars and had some beers and from there started having cocktails which were more alcohol with a SPLASH of mixer. The combination of what we were having was just plain bad! On top of that, we started doing shots. A bartender we had met a couple nights before had given us a free round of shots at the end of the night saying they were a New York special! They were whisky with a pickle juice chaser…delicious! Sounds weird yes, but super good! So on this night we decided to do not one but TWO of these bad boys! Needless to say we were not happy campers. We spent most of Halloween day staying inside and trying not to die. We did walk to the McDonalds near by for burgers because grease was necessary and sprite…oh how I love sprite! We finally made it out of the house by 4:00pm that day. Embarrassing yes but hey that’s life. So here is the real fun! Here is what I learned about Halloween in New York!

– The bars get WAY into celebrating! They all decorate and make it so fun and festive all month long!! I have definitely never seen anything like this! Totally puts you in the spirit!

 – Kids trick-or-treat during the day… is that normal?! Where I live the kids always go at night. The kids also trick-or-treat at businesses. Even the bars put buckets outside for them! When I got home I was telling my dad about this and he was saying that back in Virginia (where I was born) they used to take me trick-or-treating at the mall. I guess all the kids did that because neighborhoods were so far apart!

– It is MOST DEFINIETLY an adult holiday. I can almost say with pure certainty I saw no kids out that night. It was all adults out and EVERYONE was dressed up pretty much. I thought everyone was going to be dressed up all day long but that is not the case. You don’t really see everyone dressed up until about 8pm that night!

– We went to the parade and it was CRAZY. We took the subway to that part of town and were packed like sardines trying to get out of that place! Claustrophobia central for sure! It felt like everyone in Manhattan was at this parade! I was so happy we went because it was definitely the highlight of Halloween and something so awesome to see. Tons of amazing costumes and floats! I am proud to say I DID see lots of left sharks ala Katy Perry like I predicted! Sadly only one Donald Trump though…

        

– Popular costumes included: Starwars and marvel anything, Kimmy Schmidt, Thing 1 and Thing 2, anything with a scary mask and Elsa from Frozen… I mean TONS of them! Even bloody Elsa’s…which I realized is totally a thing. People just do a normal outfit or costume and then splash red all over it.

– If you have a badass costume people WILL stop you and they WILL take pictures with you!

– Craziest costume: A girl completely in lingerie… She was Wonder Woman and I don’t mean she was just being sexy Wonder Woman…she literally was in lingerie and it totally took us off guard! Just on the street! My biggest question was how was she not cold?!?!

– Random shows and concerts will happen in the streets. I am realizing this is just a thing there though. I saw that so many times while visiting .They would just shut down a street completely for a random show! I never see anything like that in California.

– Lastly, people really do go all out with costumes! They are all SUPER creative! Lots of people do group or couple costumes as well. We saw whole family’s dressing up together and groups of friends. SO awesome!

New York was such an amazing trip and to be there on Halloween was icing on the cake. It was like nothing I had ever experienced and really got me back into the Halloween spirit! We all kept saying “Next year we have to be____” “I can’t wait till next Halloween to do ___”. If you ever get the chance, definitely hit up New York during Halloween time and make sure to go to the parade if you are there the day of! I have more posts coming on my experience in New York as a whole coming up! I swear, I could blog about this trip forver!