Halloween here in Budapest

I wasn’t planning for my first Budapest entry to be about Halloween. Afterall Halloween isn’t even a Hungarian tradition and it’s definitely not widely celebrated here in Hungary. But it is Halloween after all and I am feeling all those Halloween feels so here I am writing this piece and I promise it’s going to be rather helpful and interesting.

First things first, I’m sure you all do know what Halloween is and I’m not going to repeat what you already know. We also know that Halloween is mostly celebrated in the United States and it’s not that big of a deal here in Europe.

When you walk the streets of Budapest on Halloween, you don’t see kids trick or treating or your neighbours having spooky clowns in their lawns but that doesn’t mean Halloween isn’t fun here.

Given this was my first time celebrating Halloween in Budapest, I decided to go all out. I was determined to show myself a good time, even though it meant putting a lot of effort into a costume and figuring out the perfect plan. It all started when my friends sent me this flyer about an event happening near us for this occasion, naturally I was tempted to see what it was all about. So I began pondering to come up with costume ideas, it was difficult especially because I didn’t know where I could shop or where to even begin with.

So the first question was where could we get a costume?

After surfing the Internet for quite a bit, I found this costume shop called “Maszka” pronounced “ Maska”. In Hungarian the letter “s” is written as “sz”, and the letter “s” is actually pronounced “sh”, so technically they call me Shaba here. Don’t even get me started on it.

(The sign of the shop, go down the stairway when you see this)

(The photo is obviously taken by me just look at the quality)

Anyhow after those long hours of searching ( I’m exaggerating it took like 20 mins) I decided to pay a visit to this shop, but before we go any further let me tell you all how you can get there. Just in case for future occasions (doesn’t have to be halloween really).

How to get there:

Budapest’s public transport is quite convenient actually, the accessibility is great and the ticket prices are reasonable. Anyhow the costume shop is located on: 20, Irányi utca, 1056 Budapest. That means it’s the building number 20 in Irányi street. (Utca means street in Hungarian). The location is easily accessible via metro line M3, you can get on any station within the M3 metro line and get off at Deak ferenc tér.

For more information on Budapest’s public transport, read my piece on it. At the station you will see multiple exits, look for the one containing the name “Irányi utca” and go out from there. Use google maps and the shop is about 2 minutes away from the metro station by walking. Be careful because the address is kind of tricky, number 20 actually has a gate and someone needs to open the door for you, once in you will see a small sign which has “Maszka” written on it. Enter the corridor and go down the stairs, the shop is located on the underground level. (More on that in the next paragraph)

Description and Experience:

Yes, great you’re there now! As you go down the stairs you get this spooky eerie feeling as if you actually entered a haunted house. I loved it, I could feel the Halloween spirit at its finest. Once you’re there, you’ll see a computer and a machine to take your queue number from. Press on the English version and get a number. Before going there, I saw a lot of reviews of people complaining that the queue lines were simply too long or that they were understaffed. I didn’t see any of that, it was my turn almost instantly and despite the fact that there were a lot of customers, their service was actually pretty great.

(The spooky stairway I was talking about)

Once in the shop, the assistant asked me about what kind of costume I want and if I had any ideas. I went with flapper, since I had this obsession with flapper and 1920’s styles when I was younger ( I mean like a year younger), see searched great gastby on her data base and showed me the available costumes in the sizes they came in and their rental fee. Thing is that the costumes came without the accessories so basically I was just going to pay for the dress and I had to buy all the accessories, which wasn’t so economical for me to be honest. I realized I had a dress at home which I could wear and so I decided to buy the accessories from them, I bought a cigarette holder, those long gloves and a flapper headband which was a must. They added up to about 3000 forints (that is about 10 euros).

(Literally every type of stocking that one would need for a costume)

The costumes cost anywhere from 5000 forints to 10, 000 forints (rental fee), you could rent the costume for a whole week which was convenient because you didn’t have to rush to bring it back. I think if you really wanted a special costume, one that you couldn’t possibly make yourself, then you should rent it from them.

The staff there are extremely helpful and well mannered, I absolutely recommend going to this shop if you ever get invited to a costume party here in Budapest or just for any other occasions that require dressing up. Oh another thing apart from costumes, they had every single type of mask, wigs, glasses and other accessories that one would need. So if there is one place you going to go to, it should be Maszka.

(Some of the flapper styles, including headbands, cigarette holders etc. )

Okay so I got my costume now what?

Well like I said halloween isn’t widely celebrated here in Budapest but Akvarium club (a famous club in Budapest) hosts an international Halloween event every year and this year it was their 10 th year anniversary (Halloween madness). Since it was an event we had to buy our tickets before hand, the early bird tickets which were available until one week before the event cost about 3000 forint (10 euros), the normal tickets were around 4000 forints and if you bought your ticket at the door they cost about 5000 forint. The VIP tickets were 8000 forints, which I have no idea how they were worth it. Anyways my friend and I got our tickets online one week before the event so we could take advantage of the early bird option. Like I said Akvarium is a really famous club here in Budapest, they host a lot of international events which is such a great place to meet other international students or tourists even. They are mostly famous because of the swimming pool which is on the roof of the club, in summer most of their events are held outside but the pool but since it’s already autumn, the party was moved inside, and they have quite a few dance floors inside. Before we go any further let’s see how you can get to Akvarium club.

How to get there:

Getting there like getting to any other place in Budapest is as easy as it gets. Just like getting to Maszka, you have to take metro line M3 to get to Deak Ferenc Ter and walk for about 2-3 minutes to get to the club. Now you need to be aware of the fact that the metro in Budapest is only open until 11 pm and after that you need to think of other transport options. I would suggest taking the bus. Depending on which location you’re coming from, there are quite a number of buses which you can take. I would suggest looking it up on google maps or the “BKK” application which is the Budapest public transport app and it’s quite useful. For example if you want to go to the club from octagon, you could take the bus number 105 and there are many other buses.

And obviously you can always get s taxi if it’s too late; Download this application called “Taxify” which is basically like uber but it’s only for taxies. I wouldn’t say it’s the best application ever but it is all you got here in Budapest so just stick to it. Fun fact is that Uber was boycotted here in Budapest because taxi drivers protested against it and got the government to prohibit the running of the application here! Can you believe it? That’s some mafia thing they’ve got going on here. Some crazy amount of power, say and influence. Anyhow this is how you can get to the club, I’m going to write a piece on budapest public transportation soon for all of you lost souls out there.

Experience:

The party was great. The whole club was designed with spooky decorations and smiley pumpkins, looking exactly like the pumpkin emoji in your phone. There were three dance floors if I’m not mistaken or two (please disregard my blurry memory of that night, it was Halloween after all), the first dance floor was playing Spanish and pop songs which was definitely our first choice. The second dance floor which was located in the basement was playing EDM songs the whole night and practically everyone was glowing in there. It looked like a real electro festival down there. I found the music a little obnoxious I don’t know why, I guess I was just not in the mood for electronic music that night so we spent most of the night in the Spanish room which had a smaller dance floor and fewer people making it even more fun. We danced the night away as one should do in a club. Pretty much everyone was wearing costumes or had some sort of scary make up done which was good to see because I expected people to not be dressed up at all.

I’d definitely suggest checking out Akvarium’s events if you are ever here in Budapest, and not just during Halloween. It’s a good club and they’ve got pretty good music. Oh one thing that I almost forgot, there are other events that happen each year for Halloween, there are small Halloween boat parties on the Danube, there are certain events near heroes square for kids and families, but most of the are rather small events. The only semi large event which is held is pretty much these kind of parties in clubs for internationals. As for next year, we’ve gotta see what budapest has to offer to us for Halloween but if you do end up here just let me know and i’ll tell you all about the ongoing events.

(The club hen it’s not too cold outside)

Hope you guys enjoy my first piece on Budapest.

And as usual, please get in touch with me with any questions or just generally if you want to make a new friend. I promise I’m nice, (Not really).

Also I swear I’m going to try and stay more active, it’s just that medical school is consuming me from inside out and I currently look like one of those zombies from the walking dead; but no worries, I will survive you guys just enjoy the piece.

Cheers!

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