Ready to scare or impress? Or already in the Halloween spirit? Manchester’s halloween parties started off well into last week with the scarErasmus party at Tiger Tiger and several other parties throughout the weekend at clubs like the Attic, Sankeys and 5th Ave.

But halloween is only tomorrow and I’ve already seen some very impressive outfits throughout the city, from axe murderers to alleged ‘first time’ cross dressers. Although impulse dressers did party in horns and wings (some of which had the bodies to get away with only that) I was left impressed with the ammount of effort put into other costume ideas. I personally wore out a tarzan costume (being from South Africa I was aiming more for the African Warrior look but hey) and almost froze my cahones off, but it was well worth it, although several pieces of my costume did go missing, and if you are holding a piece of it, keep it, just let me know where they wound up

That brought me to my problem at hand, I never found any woman (or man :s ) dressed as tarzan’s other half, Jane. So if anyone see’s her, take a picture and send it to me. Lets see if there’s any daring young people who risked the cold for a good laugh.

Well being South African in England right now is pretty much like being a donut at a weight-watchers meeting, everyone knows you’re there but are pretending they have want nothing to do with you.

Many might ask wtf I’m on about, but with the count-down to the Rugby World Cup finals drawing even closer, being played this Saturday, both English and South African fans are hoping for the win. However it’s a little bit more complicated being from South Africa and being in the UK as most your friends, fellow students and co-workers are probably English or more swayed to supporting the red striped guys, making supporting your team a tiny bit less appealing. I mean even I have been told that the game is a lose lose situation considering I live in a residence that 70% comprises of English students.

But this is my call to all South Africans living in this cold country… meet up with fellow Africans and be anywhere on Saturday wearing the green and gold…  Show your colours because you know if we were back home, there would always be some Englishman wandering into the pubs/bars with that white kit on.

Come on bokke! Make us proud!

[and yes I DO realise this post will recieve a lot of anti-SA responses, but so will SA winning the World Cup ]

Well I’ve been here for one whole month and in my third week of Uni, so I figured I’d start up my blog again, since I’ve finished ’settling in’ or at least reached a level where I feel comfortable enough to get back into the wonderful world wide web.

“So how is Manchester after the army?” is probably the most asked question I get from people who realise my dog tags are more than just a passing fashion statement, and the answer is mostly a facial expression that could probably be tagged as ‘look around, what do YOU think?’

Manchester is a vibrant student city with two Uni’s, Manchester Metropolitan and the University of Manchester, being located right next to each other, which means that the people are almost always friendly and up for a good time. As for the night life, throughout the week its like a full blown battle between the promoters for claiming their night as the best student night out.

We have the Vodka Island guys pushing through on Mondays, the Headphone Disco on Tuesdays, Roller Disco on Wednesdays and the Erasmus Latin Crash Parties on every second Thursday, with Friday and Saturday being the nights for regular parties and a large number of gigs and concerts. However, these are just the most popular parties for the studying masses from my opinion, there are also some crazy hectic raves throughout the week at clubs like Sankeys and the Attic over the weekend.