Hallowe'en in Chapel Hill

They weren’t kidding when they said it was big. This won’t mean anything to many of you, but they closed off Franklin Street from the Planetarium, to about two-thirds of the way to Carrboro. Probably about a mile long for those of you not familiar with the area. Packed full of people. Most of whom were wearing costumes, but there were enough normally-dressed types around to stop me from looking like the only person who hadn’t made an effort.

I went with the rest of my floor, but as soon as we entered the sea of people, the twenty-strong group dwindled to about four. Strangely, despite the huge amount of people and the hype that preceded the night in the local media, there was no commercialisation of the event at all; just a huge amount of people trying to get hypothermia (It was below zero; I was cold, and I had a jacket on; I have no idea how half the s present last night didn’t freeze to death).

Fun events included: watching a drunk person dressed up as a policeman mocking the security presence; returning to the same point five minutes later to find the same man being forcibly restrained by the aforementioned presence; walking 5-abreast, arms linked, following The Cat In The Hat (about as good an idea as it sounds), and the classic finale of the evening: we bumped into some of the floor who we had misplaced, to find that they’d spent most of the evening at one of the emergency centres, as somebody had had rather too much to drink. They were looking for people to help take him home, so we went along to provide support, only to discover that they’d taken him to hospital in the meantime. An expensive way to end an evening, for him anyway.

We eventually made it back to the hall at about 1:30am, after a few discussions about Penguin biscuits, family feuds, a high-speed talk about the origins of Hallowe’en, and the rivalry between Duke University and UNC. Getting to sleep wasn’t much of an option however, as people were coming back in dribbles until about 3am, and were still under the impression that screaming and shouting was necessary to attract the person next to them. And Rishi wasn’t too pleased either, judging by the stern notice on the messageboard this morning…