Sweden & salsa

Hola!!!!

I hope that you are all well.

I have to say that I'm having one helluva fantastic time.

Last week and this week my salsa dancing has really taken off. I finally took a class last week which was nice and started dancing again - after about 1 month off. I'd been visiting a few Salsa clubs mid-week, but just watching and hanging about.

I'm frequenting two clubs: Ipanema and Bar Risa, both on Broad Street - the main dining, entertainment area in Brum (Birmingham). Ipanema is a very funky bar/restaurant with a large dance floor and outdoor terrace which all the dancers spill out into.

Being the night before a bank holiday (Good Friday) Ipanema was packed last night. In the past fortnight I've started being recognised, ie starting to know some of the other regulars too. Which is making me feel more comfortable and at home with the Salsa scene here. However, I don't have many different clothes to wear, so perhaps it's easier to identify me! :)

Last weekend I went to Stenungsund, Sweden. It's about 40 minutes north of Gothenburg. It was AWESOME. Firstly I'm quite lucky that I've not missed a train, plane bus or anything yet. I've been very lucky in that regard.

There were two others from London that were on the same flight. Both were instructors at teh congress and one was also one of the DJs for the Salsa party on Saturday night.

In queueing at the Gothenburg (goteburg) airport to get through passport control, this one guy was looking at me and finally said 'Salsa?'. To which I was much relieved to have found the two strangers I was meant to catch a ride with to the congress (rather they found me).

Passport control was strange. They are very particular in Sweden! They scanned my passport or something. Then continued to look back and forth between me and my passport several times. They were also checking details on the screen, obviously to check my history etc. It was very unnerving.

Just a little note about Goteburg City Airport - it's tiny. The other main airport is Landvetter, I'm assumning it's much bigger. This airport was a landing strip in the middle of some fields with the airport terminal as not much more than a tin shed. :)

It was -6 degress celcius when we arrived. A bit chilly. Last Friday (the day before I arrived in Sweden) was beautiful in England. The sun was out. It was warm (10-13 degrees). I went outdoors without a jacket it was that warm!!!!!!!!!

We didn't have much luck with the local swede who was meant to meet us and take us to the venue. Apparently he was there and did see us (he later admitted) but did not realise that we were his cargo. :) So he left after 1/2 hour. We were given no details of who was picking us up so had no idea who to look for. We waited 2 hours before I finally found the details of the hotel/venue and rang up. We got picked up by the brother in law of the organiser of the event.

He happened to be a swede who married a Bolivian woman and spends 6-8 months in Bolivia working and the other time in Sweden. He was a very interesting person adn I found out a lot more of Bolivia than I had ever known.

We finally arrived at our destination and it was beautiful. The drive up was lovely too. Mountains lined with pine like trees, graced with snow. Stenungsund is on near two islands that are very popular for summer vacation for the locals. So our hotel was set on a bay that led out to sea. It was pristine and beautiful. I could have spent the whole weekend looking out the window and enjoying the view.

Fortunately I managed to tear myself away from the view for about 1 hr at atime to attend the classes which had the picturesque view on one side of the chandelier lit rooms. The dancers I met were amazing.

I found the Salsa community amazing. I did not know a soul. However from emailing the leader of the group of instructors from London, I found that I had an instant group of friends. All the swedish people kept coming up and introducing themselves to me. Everyone made sure I was alright and I happened to meet a great number of very friendly an interesting people in a very safe environment. We all share the one passion of salsa dancing. It was wonderful. I met people from France, Scotland, London and of course Sweden.

The funny thing was that the majority of the 800 that attended were Swedish. So doing the classes some were 100% in swedish (strangely enough it was still easy to take the class & comprehend what was happening) but my fellow students (and those i danced with at the party) would instinctively talk to me in Swedish. Sometimes the encounters were so brief I'd just nod my head or what have you as sometimes it was easy to tell what they meant. But if they asked a question and were looking at me for an answer, that was the time I'd say 'Sorry I dont' speak Swedish'. They'd instantly convert to English and go through the whole spiel of 'where are you from and what are you doing here in Sweden?'.

So it was a little complicated to explain that I'm Australian (which was instantly like, oh you travelled all the way from there for this, as they always asked when I was leaving and when I arrived). Then I had to explain I was working in England just for 3months. Then the fact that I knew no one here, well other than those i had just met too. So I had quite a few repetitive conversations but it was more I couldnt' think of an easier way to explain my situation.

However i have almost the same difficulty with the local Brum dancers too. Everyone I have met dancing knows immediately that i'm not a local wherever I am because of the way I dance. :) But fortunately they all tell me that I dance well and ask me where I learnt to dance.

I did meet a fellow Aussie Salsa dancer from Sydney in Sweden. We had a great chat. She returns next month as well.

The London crew I met in Sweden I will most likely see again this weekend. There is a huge Salsa party in London due to the Bank holiday (that's what they call it!) on Monday. It starts 6pm Sunday night and goes to -6am Monday morning. They said it's a massive event with 000s attending. I'm very much lookign forward to it and meeting all the instructors/people I met in Sweden again. I'm already on this particular Salsa club's mailing list... :)
The Swedes I met were very friendly, one was a perfect stranger and drove me to the bus stop so I could get back to the Airport on Sunday as i had to catch an earlier flight than the other Londoners.

I ran into some luck when I arrived into Gothenburg, the airport bus only runs once, 2 hrs and 20 mins prior to departure of the flight. I arrived about 1 1/2 hours prior. An english speaking gentleman entered the travel centre as I just made that realisation (and starting to count how much money I had for a taxi) and was asking the customer service person when the buses go to the airport. He was on the same flight as me (there aren't that many obviously) so we caught a taxi out together and only cost about £10 ($24) each. It was quite good given that the bus is half the price, but runs so infrequently. It total it took me abotu 8 hours to travel back to Birmingham. Which in reflection is a lot of time. A lot of time I spent sleeping!!!

I think I have perfected the art of sleeping on public transport. As soon as it starts moving I'm out like a light. :) However, it might have something to do with the fact I was dancing until 3am in the morning the night before. :) But it's ok mum, the dance party was just on the floor below where I was staying in the hotel, so did not have far to walk to go to bed. :)

Thanks must go to my cousin Marcus who let me crash at his place Friday night before leaving at 4am to catch my 7am flight from Stansted (takes about 2 hours to travel there by public transport at that time of the morning and have to be there at the latest 40 minutes before take off to check in).

Oh the food. I got to taste Swedish food - I like it!!! We had buffet lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch. It was different and very good. Tasty - I don't know half teh stuff I was eating, but it was good. :) The bread is very nice too. :)

Also going back about a month ago, when I went to Brugge, Belgium I must thank Tina for letting me stay at her place under similar circumstances. Only difference was i got to party with her big corporate friends in MAYFAIR!!!!! It was a very cool jazz/funk club (just suited to me) that one of the directors of her company paid £15 (AUD 40) each for us to enter the club and then someone was paying for bottles of Veuve Cliquot champagne (about £50/AUD 122 a bottle). I had half a glass as I could not be rude a refuse such expensive champagne! It was a very unexpected pleasant surprise. We arrived home about 4am before I had to leave at 5am to get to Waterloo for my 6:30am Eurostar/train to Belgium.

So this is how I manage to sleep on flights and all methods of transport.... :)

Oh. this week has been very good too. Being 4 days and all. Last night there was a work Pool comp. I got to meet a lot more people from the Birmingham and Wolverhampton office (about 45 mins north). I even played pool and lost badly. I won 1 game by default because my opponent sunk the black ball. It was very enjoyable evening and am glad to have met and socialised with more people from this office. It was another late night not as late as the others, the clubs/bars seem to be opened late to 2pm. We stayed at the one venue that was closed off for us. Again on Broad street just opposite the road from Ipanema. So I snuck across for an hour and had a glorious time dancing and meeting new people before coming back.

I actually got to drive for the first time last night. As I was the only one sober I drove Jo (my house mate's) new mini (about 2 months old) home. I even managed to navigate my way home without assistance (except the first bit getting out of the city). Not that it was particularly hard, but it was nice to be able to drive again. It was a very nice car to drive. :)

This weekend I will be heading down to London to go to the theatre with Tina and George (her house mate). Sunday I'll be going to that Salsa party. Monday will be going to Bath (famous roman spa town) with Tina and George.

In the upcoming weeks I'll be heading off to Paris next weekend. London the following as Sam (from Paris) will be coming across. The weekend after I plan to be in Birmingham - my only full weekend here!!!!. After that I'll be hopping across to Brussels for another Salsa congress. Then the following week will be the end of my secondment. I will spend that last weekend in London in another Salsa congress before skipping across to Paris and leaving from there back for Australia.

So more emails to come, but that's what you can look forward to reading about.