YA: Halloween (The Münster Mash)

First, an announcement. People may be excited to learn that I have finally explored Duisburg beyond Koenigstrasse, and there is actually stuff in it! There's a lovely old Rathaus and the Salvatorkirche and some archaeological digs of old, old buildings. There's the very attractive Altstadt and the Kultur-und Stadthistoriches Museum, which isn't much fun.* There's an amazing children's adventure play area, which is very much fun indeed and the Legoland Discovery Centre, which looks like it could rival Disneyland as the happiest place on earth (at least, if the life-size Lego giraffe outside is anything to go by). There's also the Innenhafen, which is very lovely and full of nice places to eat and look at the boats on the river.** So with all that to attract you, why aren't you all on the plane right now to come and see me?

So, yes, Halloween. Well, I was told before I came here that the Germans party like nobody else. However, whilst it's true no one falls out the club here much before 5am, and they can drink copious amounts whilst remaining upright (unlike me), I just don't think they compare to us on what I consider to be, frankly, the most integral part of a good night out: fancy dress. Hence this Halloween, safe in the knowledge that we all had the following day off work thanks to an amazingly well-timed Bank Holiday, we took it upon ourselves to set out and show Germany exactly how these things are done. 

I've got to say, we did the fair isle of Binge-Drinking Britain proud. As ambassadors for our beloved student culture, we got "hammered whilst dressed as a tit" down to an absolute tee. First, we all donned our costumes in Cerys' fantastically spook-bedecked flat (the Smurf shaped Marshmallows and Haribo Halloween Mix made my life). Everyone looking lovely apart from me as I chose to do something unspeakable to my hair involving turning it into a purple haystack. Oh, and then I painted myself green. Not very attractive, but pretty darn scary, no?

After we were suitably costume-ified and had nipped off to the takeaway for pizza dressed thus, we decided the best course of action was to play Ring Of Fire. From what I recall, Matt led the game in a fairly dictatorial fashion, waving the rules written on the lid of a pizza box like the they were Ten Commandments, but then I downed a glass of wine for apparently no good reason other than everyone was shouting "chug!" and the rest is a blur. I don't remember at what point we decided it would be a good idea to make our way to a club, but I know that at some point between leaving Cerys' and getting a taxi, Matt somehow managed to accidentally punch Kelsey in the face and we decided the only appropriate punishment was to beat the crap out of him with a devil's pitchfork and a broom, our Halloween props. Good times. 

Unfortunately, the club we were aiming to go to, the one with the Halloween themed night, was full. So we went to another, much smaller club (called 'Klup'), where I believe we were the only people in costumes. Well, maybe there were a couple more, but they'd gone to comparably no effort, so they barely count. The club itself was amazing - teeny tiny with an excellent range of tuneage, a range so wide that I don't think I got of the music once. I won't go into a great deal of detail about the whole experience, as you probably don't care, but I will give you my top three highlights: singing Mumford & Sons at the top of my voice and jumping around in a circle, doing the Mr Brightside dance entirely on my own and not giving a shit and the sword fight with the now broken broom and pitchfork, even if I did sustain and injury. 

The end of the night heralded what is now becoming a Münster tradition, which was a desperate late-night search for the flat of the person we were staying with because the person we were staying with was at a location unknown. Because of these wee-hour wanderings, I've seen more of Münster than I have of any other German city, but as I'm always tipsy and confused, I still have absolutely no idea where anything is. Fortunately, we eventually found the flat we were looking for and, after waking up a very angry flatmate, fell onto our blankets around 6am. 

In conclusion, it was a good, good night. I look forward to seeing how we get lost in Münster next time...

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*In short, Duisburg was industrial and got even more industrial over the years. Something about the Hansiatic League, a type writer and some sexist banners. There, now you don't have to visit.

** I can take you to the eating establishment where we went if you like, to show you the place where some total genius has done this: 

It's the most grammatical graffiti I've ever seen. Whoever did this is my hero.