im going to europe in october. the 17th ive never been there before

When it comes to Europe I think the Halloween is more of an Irish thing as that is where it first originated. It is celebrated in England, Scotland and Wales too but we have a bigger festival called Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes night which is in November. It is a bigger festival than Halloween. Other countries in Europe are starting to embrace Halloween too but probably because kids are influenced by American children’s TV. It is only a recent thing in most of Europe. Check out the wikipedia explaination. It lists a few countries near the end and explains how they celebrate halloween. http://en.wikipedia….. Countries like Germany and Austria have a week long festival in February or March which is in a slight way similar to Halloween as they dress up in costumes and generally go mad. That would probably too late for your visit though. Hope that was helpful.

If you were a kid, why wouldn’t you want to have Halloween? That being said, we down under don’t have Guy Fawkes either, which is really quite sucky .

In some parts of Germany the Karneval is even bigger than Halloween here in the US, so I guess the European kids are not too sad about that

I personally think that the Karneval in Germany is much better than Haloween. Here in Canada, Halloween is really only for little kids. At least in Europe during carnivals everybody gets to celebrate.

Europeans celebrating Halloween is like Americans celebrating Chinese New Year or Cinco de Mayo. It’s a fun foreign holiday for a few people, but by no means a widely celebrated holiday. Not even in the British Isles, despite being the holiday’s origins, Halloween is observed by quite a few people, but not celebrated to the extent that it’s celebrated in the US. Halloween is an ancient Anglo-Celtic holiday with pagan roots that was superimposed, over time, with Christian concepts (All Hallow’s Eve coming before All Saint’s Day), and brought to America by Anglo-Celtic invaders who started arriving in the 16th century. It eventually evolved into a fun holiday in this corner of the anglosphere (USA + Canada). It’s an American/Canadian holiday, like Thanksgiving.

Most of Europe celebrates Carnival, the pre-Lent festival which includes dressing up in costumes.

We don’t get that either. Mind you, summer holidays around Christmas an New Years is pretty awesome, so I suppose that makes up for it!

At the moment I live in Canada and I have been here for 12 years now. So most of my Christmases have been ‘white’ with snow. Lots of people here say that a Christmas without snow is not Christmas at all. But I don’t mind spending December 25 on a white sandy beach. As for the original post, don’t go looking for holidays and events you experience at home.If you can do it at home, then do it there. Instead do what the Europeans do.
For example I have friends that like to go to Mexico and some have been there at the end of October. They were disappointment to learn that instead of candy and Halloween, there is the Day of the Dead on November first which is very different and not as “fun”. But it is still a great experience to see the whole event.

I can’t believe how ignorant some people can be.

Ditto. Excellent advice.

Anything wild go on in London on Halloween? I will probably just screw around the bar at my hostel, see if they are doing anything, but if there is something better..,.

I’m sure there’ll be a couple bars or pubs in London that will be celebrating Halloween, just as you can find a bar or two in Chicago or New York that celebrate Day of the Dead (Mexican holiday). But don’t expect anything big or “wild”.

Seriously, folks, if you really want to be able to celebrate Halloween this year, then put off your trip to Europe until after Halloween passes. Halloween is my favourite holiday too, and I always make sure to be in the US to celebrate it. This is an American and Canadian holiday. Some of the best places to celebrate it are: New York, New Orleans, and Salem (Massachusetts). Not London or Madrid or Cologne.

Halloween is just fun for kids but it is just one day – in Europe we start now celabrating and it ends around end of february. And when I was young I was celebrating several times karneval – it is just amazing!

Well Halloween and Carnival are two completely different holidays (with completely different histories), although they do both have a superficial similarity: dressing up in costumes (at least in Europe there’s costumes. I’m not sure how it’s done in Brazil or Trinidad, aside from the regular Carnival outfits). Carnival is celebrated in some parts of the American South, most notably [and famously] in New Orleans, where it’s known by its French name Mardi Gras.

I like Halloween more. It has that evil/scary component that I love; from an anthropological perspective, it’s fun seeing a relatively conservative and straight-laced society like the Americans go all crazy silly for a day (or, for a couple weeks leading up to Halloween) not only by dressing up in all sorts of creative costumes, but also in confronting society’s deepest fears and superstitions, and learning how to have fun with and celebrate these fears and superstitions.

Anyways, for those of you interested in Carnival, I found this great Forbes Traveler article about Carnival beyond Rio, and it includes many destinations in Europe. http://www.msnbc.msn…

spain has a lot of great fests in October, yeah, it is not only germany who hosts the biggest events. Fests in October are on the list of top 5 Spanish fests to be visited. It is fun and interesting place where you can go in order to have as much fun as you can. First of all the weather is good:neither hot nor cold, its warm and nice, and i hope you know that Spain is real musical place. it should be on a list if you are planning a EUROI trip for sure