My first Dia de los Muertos

Walking in the parade

 On November 2nd, I went to my first Dia de los Muertos event. I got a lot of good pictures and had a nice time. My sister, my buddy Nathaniel and I decided at the last second that we would rather go (even after staying up so late on Halloween night) than miss out on a cultural learning experience.

Mischief at its best

 Just to fill in some of the blanks, I'll share my limited knowledge of what Dia de los Muertos is all about. First, the name means The Day of the Dead. From what I understand, this is a day that people gather in graveyards and around specially made altars, to commemorate their deceased loved ones, and invite them back from the spirit world for a day.

 People will put out their dearly departeds' favorite foods, photographs-- I even saw favorite DVDs and bottles of perfume. Legend has it, I'm told, that the scent of the marigold flower leads the souls back to the land of the living. Hence people wear marigolds in their hair, place them on tombstones et c. My flowers (okay, it's pretty much just a sideways hat...) was modeled after the marigold.

Papel picado (y plastico picado... heehee!)

 People also make skulls out of sugar and decorate them with colourful frosting/food dyes.

I left mine plain.

 We found this girl, all dressed up with heels, tea-length dress, makeup and flowers, and found out she was a cover-girl for a cultural magazine!

An altar

I get the feeling that this holiday is really abundant in decoration and details. I loved how many candles, tea-lights, Christmas lights where all around; everything was reverently lit even after sunset. 

 The makeup reflects that beautiful busy quality, too. And when I said I might not wear any, my friend Nathaniel whipped out some eyeshadow and said "Yes, okay. But I'm going to ignore you a little bit... because you have to wear some at least." I'm glad he insisted.

You start by making your hair look like a little sea urchin that has perched on your head... :p

My sis

Nathaniel (The master-mind behind the makeup for that day)

Nathaniel making me laugh at dinner

 I wanted to show some pictures of other peoples' costumes, and I'm usually shy about publishing pictures of strangers, but I figure everyone is mostly in disguise, here.

Really detailed costumes

 I have two pictures that I got with my camera phone from Halloween. I went to a big street party (so new for me!), and found so many people from TV shows, movies et c. If I can find more (get them from friends), I will post them posthaste... wait... you know what I mean!

I found Krieger and Megumi-chan (finally in real life!) from Archer.

The couple from Beetlejuice and my friends, the Addams children. :)