Hello my fellow human beings. It is finally time for another blog post! Why? Because Prom.
Yup. Finally. Prom. It all took place last weekend, on Saturday.
And it was a very nice Saturday. I believe there is a lot that European people think they know about prom, and some of it I found was true, other things not.
Anyways, I had a lot of fun!
We took nice pictures, I had an absolutely delicious meal, I had fun at the dance itself, After prom was hilarious and I even went to a nice little after party.
I didn't know just how different American proms are from Austrian proms. (Even though I wouldn't call our Austrian "Schulbälle" prom anyways...)
Two of the most obvious differences are that first, the American drinking age is 21 and therefor there are no alcoholic drinks offered at prom, and second, that you go in couples here. This is also something that most of the people I talked to about prom, already knew. You don't have to have a date to go to prom, but most people go with one. Even though I had a very nice date (his name is Matt and it was great to go with him) I think it might be less stress-full to go the way we go in Austria: We kind of just all go together in small groups. This also means no prom-posals though. (This is when one person asks another person to go to prom with them. Traditionally the guy asks the girl. I have heard some crazy stories about prom-posals but at my High School they were pretty tame).
Another one is that in Austria people usually come to prom taking the subway or maybe a cab (that's more on the way home though...), whilst in America most people came by car and a couple people even rented party busses or limousines.
I did also notice a lot of stress amongst my (Kansas) classmates starting about a month prior to the actual dance, which is another thing that I don't think happens a lot in Austria. It is just generally a more chill event, people just go to or they don't. I personally wasn't stressed about it in Kansas either, but it was a huge deal to many of my classmates. A lot of people didn't just spend a lot of money but a lot of energy on that night. Especially girls. Many got their hair and nails and make up professionally done, but the preparation actually starts before prom weekend itself! It is just a lot of planning, especially because there are some big groups. I was in a group of about 40 people, but there were even bigger groups. That means you have to find a good spot to take pictures, you have to find a restaurant that takes that many people, etc.
Also, in America, prom is just for pupils and their dates. While in Austria friends and family might come to your school's prom too, here in the US I only saw students, their dates, and teachers and other grown-ups as chaperones.
The last difference I want to mention is after prom, because it was actually really nice! (That picture on the left is of Amy, Kaine and I at afterprom in our green shirts we got at prom, and in the background you can see the gym a little bit... I don't have any better pictures sadly) After prom is an event planned by the school, right after prom (duh). Anyone from the school can come, it was at the gym in school anyways. It started at about 12 am and lasted until 3 am and there was a lot of cool stuff to do. There were three really cool things that I don't know what to call, but one of them was like a big "bouncy castle" (that's from google translate, yes) but kind of like a parkour so you could run through it and there were obstacles and there were two more things kind of similar to that. There were also a lot of poker tables and smaller little activities, and of course there was a lot of food and drinks (for free!). The whole thing was western themed, and the whole area was decorated really nicely!
Anyways, while I could go one listing differences between Austrian and American proms, that isn't really the point. The point is I had an awesome night, I enjoyed it a lot, and I am happy my one and only prom here went like it did!
(And by the way: No, I did not buy that dress. It was the one my hostsister wore the year prior. Since prom dresses here can be very expensive, I thought I'd rather take hers. I know it isn't exactly typical for me to wear a dress like this, but I thought for a night I could like it.)
