Self-test for Halloween In this haunted hotel, your heart will slip right down to your little toe

Halloween is often associated with scary characters and horror. Two things that our social media team doesn't like at all. So it was high time we visited a horror escape room - with a few surprises.

The haunted hotel

Our two social media editors Yaiza and Yannik describe themselves as scaredy-cats. They don't like horror and being scared at all, so Halloween is definitely not their favorite time of year. To help them face their fears and hopefully overcome them, they have ventured into Mission Escape's Nightmare Hotel.

If you've never been to an escape room before, you can imagine it like this: You are locked in a room. You have to earn your freedom. You have to solve small puzzles with clues to find your way to the next room or the next puzzle. But the challenge of this challenge was that some nasty surprises awaited the team. As if that wasn't enough, they were joined by disguised actors who gave them a real fright.

The folk custom from Ireland

What many people don't know is that the Halloween custom originally comes from Ireland. People commemorate the deceased on "All Hallows Eve", which translates as the evening before All Saints' Day. In Christianity, the day is also known as All Saints' Day.

Halloween came to the USA through emigrants and became even more popular there. Originally, turnips were also hollowed out and lit up - but there were too many pumpkins in the USA, which is why the custom changed somewhat and pumpkins were hollowed out as they are today.

Halloween as we know it came to Europe in the 1990s. There are now all kinds of products for Halloween here too: from carved pumpkins and costumes to themed sweets.

That's why we dress up as ghosts

According to mythology, the dead come to Halloween in search of the living, who are supposed to die the following year. To scare them off, people dressed up as monsters themselves in an attempt to frighten off the dead. Fire was also said to help and keep spirits away.

Now it's high time to unpack the scary costumes and get some sweets ready. Or get really spooked again if you dare.