Strangers are The Scariest

Ah another weekend, another time to meet the locals and judge them on first impressions.

I spent Shabbat with a family I contacted on Shabbat.com. The parents were very welcoming and sweet and while I'm not going to go into details about their family, I will just say that I was a little surprised at their behavior, much like I was with the family that hosted me for Rosh Hashana.

A nice-turned-awful surprise was the fact that this family had a massive dog which they had described to be as "a big puppy", well a lot of things can be big puppies, since a normal dog would be bigger than a puppy. This was no dog, it was a bear/wolf combo with unbounded energy. And usually I'm all for dogs, they're adorable. Not when they're putting their paws on my shoulders or trying to eat my pockets. And I'm awkwardly saying 'Ok, hey! um...stop, down....ok...um' until a family member grabs him and shouts 'NO SAMPSON!' He was quite the conversation piece all weekend.

Saturday night was the Halloween party at the International Student Housing bar. I threw on my Amy get-up which was a little beaten up from Thursday but that only added to the costume. My roommate decided to not dress up at all, so walking down Marylebone we just looked like coke-head and her normal friend, maybe parole officer.

I was surprised to see that the place had gone all out (although, having been to precisely 2 Halloween parties in my life, I don't really have much of a frame of reference). But besides for the fog machines, spiderwebs, plastic body parts lying about, people had also worked hard on their costumes. A boy literally painted himself blue to be a smurf and there were about 3 boy Black Swans. And yes as always there were girls in tiny tops and tights as cats, bunnies, etc.
Halloween is by far the easiest way to meet people, everyone is wearing a conversation-starter. But for some reason I was drawn to the people not wearing one, at the bar I'd ask them where their costume is and everyone's answer is different, 'my friend's tell me I'm scary enough', 'I'm going as someone lame', 'I'm a nudist on strike.' Sometimes the excuses are cleverer than other people's costumes.

I liked the ISH bar better than the club I went to Thursday night and here's why:

1. At clubs, guys think it's okay to grab your arms and pull you to dance with them. Or to just come up behind you and start dancing with you. It's so aggressive, it's like a blitzkrieg version of dancing. And as someone who needs a lot of personal space, it's not fun.
2. The ISH bar isn't blasting music in every direction so you can barely hear yourself tell people that you would NOT like to dance with them thanks. It only had music by the dance floor and if you wanted to talk to someone, you were able to.
3. The drinks are much much cheaper.
4. ISH is mostly students who are here studying abroad and looking to meet people from all over, not just gelled-up juice heads from Geordie Shore trying to literally "catch" girls.

After getting home at 3am, thanks to my friend Mollie who walked me there, (holding me back from accosting smoking people at a bus stop, which I'm grateful for) I decided to not do anything productive today whatsoever. Mission accomplished. I literally sat all day and even got some ice cream (getting back on that healthy diet tomorrow!)