Grad Nite

One of the reasons I'm always jealous of Americans is that they have so many cool events, concerts, performances,etc that I wouldn't usually get access to in Australia. So finally I got a chance to participate in something exclusive to American seniors, Grad Nite.  It is literally 'the night of all nights' and I say that because I honestly believe it beat out prom. Actually I can't really judge because I missed my American prom as I had booked to go on a cruise to mexico with my foreign exchange group but attending grad nite definitely made me feel like I hadn't missed out on anything. If you're a little confused about Grad Nite, let me explain. Basically Disneyland gets opened up after hours from midnight til 6am to graduating seniors from California and even from interstate! They do it over the course of several weeks because of the amount of schools attending but this didn't mean that a couple schools had the park to themselves for the night(or should I say morning?). There were approxiamately 30 000 teens jam-packed in there!

Our school was lucky enough to have the Blast Off! pre-party included on our night which meant from 9pm til 12pm the seniors could 'take over' California Adventure(Disneyland's adjoining themepark) and get a free meal. It was just amazing seeing so many different American teenagers, especially since the school I come from has a large majority of Latino students so seeing lots of white/black teens and listening to their stereotypical american accents was pretty darn cool! And I swear, none of these kids had been hit with the ugly stick- the girls were all so beautiful and the guys were all so tall, broad-shouldered, buff and totally swoon-worthy!

You could tell everyone was just brimming with excitement and they started playing songs on the loudspeakers like 'Teenage Dream'(very fitting song I would think) and my group of friends just linked arms, started singing and skipping along. There are not many moments in life where that is appropriate! We only managed to go on one ride, the Tower Of Terror which is a free-fall ride but the queue was definitely worth it, especially when some black guy asked our group where we were from and I got to brag and say 'Australia!' which of course had to be followed up with a "Crikey, mate!". As you do.

At midnight everyone flooded out of California Adventure and over to Disneyland. They aren't kidding when they say that it's the happiest place on earth. The music was pumping loud, there were lights everywhere and this feel good vibe surrounding everyone. They had lots of dance clubs basically dotted around the park so we went to the closest one but it seemed it was just for the 'show-off' dancers. Not that that's a bad thing but basically people just form circles around the kids who can dance like a match has been lit underneath them. Everyone else just kind of stood around. Luckily we found a 'dance music' club that you actually had to queue to get in to and everyone was dancing not just the cool 'shuffle' kids. Every day I'm shuffle-in'.


We basically spent the 'morning' club-hopping. The hip hop club was definitely interesting. For some reason it seems only Americans have embraced the style of dancing known as 'grinding'. Really appealing name. Which as it suggests involves a girl and a guy rubbing up against each other and somehow it's called dancing. A foreign exchange friend of mine, Sophia likes to call it "Sex on the dancefloor". An experience in itself was when towards the end of the event some random attempted to grab my waist and well you know...he soon realised I was not digging it though. The best dance location was right in front of the pink castle and luckily when we first got there it was just before 1am when the fireworks were due to start and that really was spectacular as we got a front-row view and there were professional dancers living it up on stage, some wearing light-up costumes. And the whole time all the seniors were dancing and I learnt a bunch of snazzy dance moves that night. I really just let loose after a while and whilst we were walking around the park I would just bust out a move but I was definitely not the only one. Like a real-life musical where people just burst out into song and dance.

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Oh and I can't forget the fashion of the night. Some girls were wearing sky-high stilettos. No idea how they survived the night. Then there were these three guys who took the Pauly D look to a whole new level they had their hair gelled glued straight up in the air, it was about 50cm(20 inches) high! The more sane seniors of the event wore the graduation caps you could buy there that had mickey mouse ears sticking out of them and most bought light-up items so that we were all walking disco balls.


Grad Nite completely made up for skipping prom. No expensive dresses or uncomfortable heels, heaps more seniors from all around the state and beyond, the option to go on rides(although we waited an hour and a half to go on space mountain), more than one DJ and the location being Disneyland- it owns prom any night!