And I thought the Rocket was hot…

July 23, 2006

I groaned as I saw simultaneously the closed door, written notice, and the man standing in front directing us to the alternate venue at the same time. So it’s going to be at the hotel. Which side? Left side. That means the smaller South ballroom. Oh no. I hate that room with passion. I have told myself before that one of these days I would simply turn around and go home if I had to face the South ballroom. It was bad enough that traffic was unkind especially near Kings Cross station, and it was already 8:45 PM. Supposedly they closed the Mary Ward House tonight because of an electrical fire.

As we walked to the hotel, I related to Sergio all the bad things about this alternate venue. It has a small wooden floor (much of the room is carpeted), and I never have a very good time dancing in that room - it’s like a curse for me. I even talked about possibility of heading back or finding something else (but what else is there?).

At the door we were greeted with several familiar faces associated with Cambridge including Vera, who told us that half the Cambridge people were here – including Johnny & Serap, Chris & Sally, and Chris & Lindsey (although it turned out Sally and Lindsey were not here – it would have been surprising if they had indeed shown up given their injuries). In the end, I counted 13 people I recognized from Cambridge Salsa scene including myself – some of them are now based in London but others traveled from further distance than Sergio and me.

It was also very apparent merely from standing by the door that the ballroom was very hot and humid. I turned to Sergio and said something like, “There you have it. That’s what it is. We could go in or leave it. I’m going to leave it up to you.” Sergio might have hesitated, but if so then only for a split second. We went in.

Now this was like a real Sauna. I think this was worse than conditions at the Rocket about 2-3 months ago. Simply standing in the room was enough to get me to start perspiring. Did I mention that I just don’t have good time dancing in this room? Negative vibes were mounting. Perhaps because of these trying conditions, I was not only in a good dancing mood but I also was not in a good socializing mood – the only thing I could think was to complain about was the heat, humidity and string of bad nights in this wretched room.

I think I ended up avoiding asking some people I would have liked to ask for a dance in more normal circumstances. Reasons for this included – (1) I didn’t trust myself to dance well (bad luck factor), (2) I wasn’t sure if people I danced would want to exert themselves (heat factor) thus giving me a dilemma – do I risk boring them or risk getting them too tired and/or sweaty? I didn’t want to leave a bad impression, and I was feeling too tentative and unsure of everything.

After two or three songs following our arrival, I managed venture out and have maybe 4 dances during next hour. Unfortunately, none of these dances eased my mind; in fact I was more worried than ever. I was also dripping wet.

I spent some time thereafter standing around and doing little. Chris stopped by for a short time (this was when I learned for sure that Sally and Lindsey were not here as well as hearing about a Salsa musician whose name has slipped me since). I also had a brief exchange with one of the LDA guys. Liam also popped up commenting about the heat not wanting him to want to dance and going out to get a drink. I followed. It was cooler in the lobby. I bought a bottle of water from the bar, left Liam and Sergio to catch up with each other, and returned to the entrance. I stood around with the LDA people briefly then also with the Cambridge crowd also. Feeling restless, I finally went back in to the ballroom only to stand around. I checked the time – 9:50 PM. I have been here for over an hour. There’s only about an hour left, and I have had only 4-5 dances. I was not sure if I was going to dance again tonight.

I’m not sure which happened first; people started leaving and I started dancing again. Before leaving (around 10:55 PM), I had about 6-8 more dances (so the total for the evening must be 10-13). I had decided to take the approach towards doing less and exerting less energy both for myself and for my partner. Some of the dances in this period was better, especially the first three or four with the third one probably being the most satisfactory (or at least that was the impression I took from my partner).

So in the end, this was not a total disaster; I was fully expecting a total disaster around 10 PM. Again I don’t even want to count these SOS substitutes in the South Ballroom of that hotel as a proper SOS outing – unfortunately, this happens at alarmingly high rate. So do I come again next week? Will they have solved the fire problem by next week?

Does Salsa work better as a winter sport?

In the iPod today in order – Pete Rodriguez, Joe Cuba, Lebron Brothers, Cheo Feliciano, Cachao, Eddie Palmieri. Conversations topics – a beach outing, reading magazines and books, music on at the time notably about references to drugs in couple of Lebron Brothers songs, work, names, family tree, life in the USA, and the usual Cambridge Salsa social stuff.