Halloween in Paris?

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Well, as October was coming to a close, my classes were becoming more demanding, and we started to settle into Parisian life. However, Halloween in one of my favorite holidays, and I did not want to totally miss out on it just because we were here in France. Luckily for us, Disneyland Paris had a Halloween themed month in October, and I was interested in seeing if the Disneyland over here measured up to the original southern California Park.
It was a lot of fun. For the most part the parks are the same as each other, but there were some surprising differences. For one thing the rollercoasters Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain are much more like real rollercoasters here than in the original. Thunder Mountain actually includes a fairly large drop that carries you under the lake (where the mark twain boat thingy is) and back up onto an island where the majority of the coaster takes place. It was really very fun. Amusingly enough, while on Thunder Mountain, we met a really nice English family that was there with their three sons. It was funny, it seemed like the father was more excited about the ride than his kids (and they were screaming and whooping the whole time). Also, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was a real rollercoaster (upside down loop), rather than a ride that takes you through the temple like the one in San Diego. Although this ride was fun, it was also very rough. I guess I’m just spoiled by the extreme smoothness of most of the rides at Six Flags.
One thing that made me a little sad was that there was no Matterhorn. Also, Pirates of the Caribbean was missing my favorite part, the whoop-dee-doos at the end where it gets all dark and the skull is warning you… not there.
Aside from that, we just spent the day doddleing around the park. Because it was cold, in the morning the park was really quite empty, so we went on a lot of rides very quickly with hardly any wait.
What was especially fun about being there near Halloween time was all the extra decoration that they had set up. There were these pumpkin head statues everywhere, and a huge pumpkin out on the grass circle at the end of Main Street. They were also doing hair and makeup for all the kids, so there were children running around with hair sprayed, non-permanently dyed crazy hair and makeup. They seemed to be having a blast. We watched the Villains of Disney parade and Tyler ate a candied apple that was too sweet even for him.
One other thing that we had time to do thanks to the somewhat lower attendance (we did go on a Wednesday) was shop. We looked around all the shops, and watched the artists do their really cool glasswork. Also, we bought two Christmas tree ornaments, one with the Disney castle that says Disneyland Paris, and another with Winnie the Pooh holding on to the string like when he is being the rain cloud. We decided that part of the souvenirs that we get from each place we visit should be ornaments for Christmas. Tyler also bought me an ultra soft Winnie the Pooh stocking for Christmas; it’s really cute.
I thought it might be a little to go visit Disneyland while here in Paris (what an American thing to do). But, actually I really enjoyed myself, and it was a very nice break from all my school work.

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Photos

Disney Land Paris
Sleeping Beauty's Castle- getting ready for the Villains parade

Main Street
Made up for Halloween. You can see the giant pumpkin in the distance.

Me with the Caterpillar
Who R U?

Tomarrow Land
You can see Space Mountain back there.

Halloween Land?
They turned frontier land into Haloween Land.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The roller coaster in Adventure Land.

Vilains on Parade
Maleficent and her dragon form from the parade. It was a lot of fun.