On Friday night, my friend Juliane and I got in the car and drove down a packed I-4 to get to Universal Studios to meet up with an old friend of mine - Dori- from summer camp and some of her friends. Meeting up with Dori was an awesome bonus and a great way of solidifying a date to actually go to Halloween Horror Nights. We had actually been wanting to go for a while, but picking a day was proving a problem. We had gone to Howl-O-Scream a couple weekends before and been decidedly un-frightened (don't get me wrong, I was entertained but not freaked out in the slightest) so our main reason for wanting to go to Halloween Horror Nights was to make sure our "fear switches" weren't broken. I'd been told that "Disney does Christmas and Universal does Halloween" and that when they do it, they do it large - so I was excited.
We stopped for lunch at Toojays because I decided I needed a large half-sandwich with some matzo ball soup and also that Juliane needed to try a potato knish. . . on a related note, no one seems to be able to explain what a knish is without thinking about it for a minute, saying "um" and then going on to say some things that make them sound entirely unappetizing. And apparently "delicious" isn't enough of a description for my friends.
"What is it? Uh. . . . . well . . ."
I then decided Juliane needed to try my favorite gelato place which was just down the road. When we pulled in I was extremely sad to find that it had closed down. I would have just gone right to the park then, but I was all set to creamy gelato goodness AND Juliane had never had it before (gasp!) and that simply would not do. So I half-unwillingly took her to the gelato counter in Whole Foods. I couldn't stop thinking about how much I miss that other gelato place. . . until I actually ate the gelato, then I was all good.
We got there a good hour before Dori and her posse did, so we decided to hit at least one house before hand. On our way there we passed through one scare zone. . . maybe two . . . I don't really know, that map was hella-vague. First there were commando guys with chain saws - who I loved. My favorite part? Them doing a good minute and a half scene to lull the audience into a
sense of security and draw them in closer, then ending it by playing hokey-pokey with their chainsaws and running at the by then über close audience. Hi-lar-i-ous. Then we walked through some other scene, the theme of which i really wasn't sure of - but there were a lot of sweet,
sweet costumes and a couple people on stilts in sweet costumes.
Then we made it to the first of two houses, Havoc and the Catacombs, and for god-knows-what reason decided to go into The Catacombs. Now, the theme of this house was pretty self
explanatory. I knew I'd be walking through catacombs. What I did NOT know what these these were catacombs filled with victims of the plague. I was only a little nervous until I saw a picture of this:
(after the jump)
"AH!Getmethefreakouttaheeeeeearrrrrr"
THAT my dear friends is what doctors used to wear when going to see people infected by then plague. Now I have never been okay with these things. They have always freaked me out. And now I was about to walk through an small enclosed space decorated with packed-in bones and crawling with these guys - and the ambient music was not helping. So yeah, I can say my fear switch definitely works. I was screaming like a little girl, which had Juliane nearly pointing and laughing at me (her fear switch is broken). The fact that I made us walk around the scare zones on the way back to meet up with Dori didn't help my cause. . . except for the chainsaw guys, I like them. . . they make me giggle. . .
We did a bunch of other houses which were all pretty cool if not creepy as hell so I was pretty chill the rest of the night. . . though I did take to singing "Connect the Dots" whenever I started to feel to freaked out.
the secret word is "Jello shot"
So, yeah. The rest of the night was pretty great. Dori and I reminisced only slightly about summer camp (anyone else have a Camper Exchange system at their camp? I miss when our had good stuff. . . like soda. . . and ice cream.) We actually made it to Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure, which was indeed most excellent as the intro included Antione Dodson and a bit linking the increasing popularity of Ke$ha to the hastening of the apocalypse. Also, less than a minute into the show they had Doctor Who (!!!!)
I did freak out like it actually was David Tennant when the actor walked on stage, but in my defense it was mostly because I felt like the rest of the audience wasn't excited enough so I decided to overcompensate. This did however make everyone in our general vicinity think I was both insane and drunk - and I was most definitely not the latter. Seriously, I'd had way too much to drink at Howl-O-Scream and I had to drive home. So despite the incredible amount of miniature bars and girls in zombie nurse outfits selling Jello shots (aaaaaaaaah!) I didn't have a thing to drink - except for a Monster energy drink which did NOT work.
Somehow I managed to stay awake and get both Juliane and I safely home to our respective apartments. I was immediately sad I do not have a dog or kitten here to greet me, then I had some banana chocolate chip bread because I was starving and then slept till 1pm. So all in all not too shabby, I'd say.
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