Scala coach trip

May 27, 2007

Rain in the morning. Rain in the afternoon. Rain in the evening. Remarkably the rain only seemed to get heavier as the day went on. Long hours of day was largely negated by darkness resulting from thick clouds and chilly and wet air. Thus it was no surprise when Cyrille phoned me around 7:30 as I was driving home. I told him I would pick him up around 8:45. I learned that Zhenzhi tried at the last moment to get a seat on the coach destined for Scala - apparently there were six people who tried this.

When we arrived at Club Salsa, I found Vishal in a nervous state - perhaps worried about everyone showing up on time. There were less than 10 people there, but I had spotted a rather large number of people gathered at the Sauce next door. I relayed this information to Vishal, and he sounded happy to hear this and went next door to see for himself. Most people followed Vishal back to the Club Salsa. It looked like it would be difficult to ascertain if everyone was there by counting - the coach had 33 seats and supposedly it was full (two people were meeting us in London). The only people I recognized as being absent were Sally, Lindsey and Nicola, but there were also many people I did not even recognize let alone know the names of.

When I led people to the coach parked on Station Road as Vishal requested me to, I found Sally, Lindsey and Nicola already settled at the back of the coach. Vishal had asked me to save him a seat at the back - I reserved a pair of seats third from the rear for him and Danie - just in front of me and Cyrille. The the seat nearest to the rear on the opposite side - right side of the bus - was taken by Jane and Hayden (another case of misspelled name that I am going to keep for consistency).

I thought the pair of giggling Swedish girls in the backseat were amusing, but I found the trio of English girls were even wilder. The antics when described in plain language would read the same - drinking, singing, giggling, photoshoots. Perhaps it would have seemed nuttier because I could understand English but not Swedish. Perhaps I found the scene much more disorientating because of Vishal in front of me was going pretty wild and crazy too. Cyrille, Danie, Hayden and especially Jane were quieter, but they still contributed to sensory overload I felt caused by ruckus surrounding me. It reminded me of the time when I was at an airport - was it Phoenix? - the time I visited Portland/San Franciso/etc just before moving to England. Things seemed to settle down a little after we exited A11 and stopped briefly at a petrol station.

The route the coach driver took (using a sort of GPS navigation system) was quite different from the ones I have used, but it seemed to work just fine. Of course the traffic on Sunday evening on a bank holiday weekend is not a good indicator of their suitability for a drive to SOS. Because I had no knowledge of the route being taken, I was of no use until we arrived at Grays Inn Road and going towards Kings Cross station although I sat in the front when we came close to our destination - next to John and displacing Ashrafi - to keep Vishal calm. Other people I recognized in the coach included Nina, Lorraine, Sharon, Marian, and bunch of other people from Club Salsa and Rueda whose names I never learned.

The coach dropped us off about a block and half away from the Scala entrance - it seemed reasonable given the confusing road layout. Because of the rain people who got off the bus early scrambled to get inside as quickly as possible. I brought up the rear guard - I figured that people ahead of me would surely wait for me. Luckily for me and a few other stragglers, Cyrille stayed behind to let us in as part of the group while Vishal and others went upstairs. Some of the people were surprised to learn that they could not take their own drinks to Scala - I think Vishal's impromptu announcement in the coach about drinks being expensive at Scala without mentioning that they also check to make sure that people are not smuggling in drinks might have caused more confusion than good - I don't know.

It was not 11 yet when we got there. Rajiv was there - Cyrille had phoned him just before we joined Vishal et al in Cambridge. Zern was there too - taking part in the classes. Cyrille had talked Zern into coming to the lessons - saying that we would be there by around 10. Zern had taken a 3-hour Bachata workshop in the afternoon with Inaki so he must have been pretty tired and no doubt would be exhausted by the end of Scala. I heard that Liam might show up later, but he never did - much later in the evening I thought I spotted Liam but it turned out that I mistook Hayden for Liam.

There were four shows - two Salsa from America - I liked the last one best, and two Lambada - after about a minute, I told Cyrille that this wasn't too bad and after another minute I told him I changed my mind. During the second Lambada show, I said to Cyrille, "Ooh. She reminds of me of Izzy." I think Natalie overheard me and cracked a smile.

For the Latinfest amateur dance competition heat, there were three pair of contestants once again. Two of the couples were dancing On2 while I thought the third couple was supposed to be On1 - it was difficult to tell. It was also difficult for me to decide who won the heat - even more so than the last two heats I watched. Cyrille was most impressed by the guy with the glasses, and I was inclined to agree at least in terms of interestingness of their routine despite a major stumble by the girl I saw. The winner turned out to be the other couple who were dancing On2, who I thought was least flashy although quite sound. By the way, I danced with the girl from the winning couple - she was extremely sound and very nice to dance with.

Tonight's dancing was extremely good in terms of consistency possibly best yet at Scala for me. There was never a bad patch although the number of people and dances dropped quite a bit after 4 AM. It was also unusual in that I danced with three different London girls twice in the course of the evening - four if I count the girl I danced Cha Cha with first. I had a dance On1 with the winning visitor from the last CDC Salsa ball - although she remembered that I could dance On2 and tried to get me to dance On2 (the trouble for me was that I had not improved even a little since I last danced with her - at least On2) - I think her name might be Sasha. It seemed like everyone knew everyone - or at least such impression felt truer than ever as I spotted various girls gathering and talking. One of the more memorable incident involved one of the girls opting out of the dance with me because she claimed that it was too crowded. It was indeed very crowded for that particular song, but I was a little surprised because I thought I was leading her really well - I even wondered if she left because she was a little disappointed that I was not dancing On2 (I also started thinking about number of days remaining before Sergio returns so that I might be able to get more instructions on dancing On2). Much later in the evening, she found me and asked me to resume the dance we never finished, which was great except that the song being played was quite uninspiring and the dance did not feel as good as the first time around. I might also have danced with one of the American performers. About the only thing missing was one of those rare mesmerizing dances although there must have been at least six dances where I really enjoyed the connection I had between me and my partner - perhaps if the number of those had been 1 or 2 instead of 6+, I would have considered those 1 or 2 as one of those mesmerizing dances.

The music was okay. Generally much better than last time. Some songs were better than others of course. The best songs were played between 3-4 AM - coinciding with the best stretch of nice amount of space and good quality and quantity of dance partners. Some of the songs I remember include Guaguanco Del Gran Combo (no dance), Los Rumberos (Lindsey), Avisale A Mi Contario (dance, version unknown but it sounded old so maybe it was the original), a Cal Tjader tune I couldn't quite identify but it might have been 'Mambo at the "M"' (dance - my partner was slightly confused about where the end of the song was), Cao Cao Mani Picao (pure instrumental version, no dance), Anacaona (Cheo Feliciano, Martina), Soledad or something by La 33 (Nina), Sonero De Barrio (version? no dance?), Mambo Gallego (modern Tito Puente version or am I completely imagining this one? dance? early in the evening), Para Ochun (last dance before the clock hit 5 AM - Natalia).

Other amusing moments included the time when I was nearly hit by fast-spinning Sally 2-3 times within a course of a minute or two, seeing some unexpected Cambridge people on the stage (I spotted Vishal couple of times - once with Sharon, and the German friend of Johnny at least once), spotting Diana for a single song only (was she there just to have one dance only??? - I now wonder if I imagined the whole thing - she danced with one of the On2 regulars - one of the older guys - I thought he spun her a lot more (almost just for sake of spinning) than he typically does with his other partners rather doing his usual elaborate maneuvers, seeing some of my dance partners get overly excited, and the perfume guy in the men's toilet.

I guess other people including girls have good and bad nights as far as their form is concerned - although in most cases I really haven't noticed this. It's either that or my estimation of various people's abilities is still changing rapidly. It's quite possible that I don't match well with some people sometimes because they are hearing some real interesting elements in the music that I'm missing.

It was light outside by 5 AM. It was still raining - fairly heavy by England standard. I saw several people milling about downstairs. I got them to get to the bus where it had dropped us off rather than waiting for it to get right in front of the entrance - I didn't think it was likely unless the driver was a lot more resourceful than I expected. There were some people still not in the bus including Vishal and the Sally trio as well as Sharon who had gone back upstairs to look for Vishal. I went back and found Sharon, Danie and Vishal coming downstairs. Sally's trio was the last to get down (I went upstairs to look for them while Vishal waited down by the entrance), and we all ran or trotted back to the bus - Vishal waiting to let me get on first so that he would be the last one to board.

The drive back was slightly less nutty although Vishal was still raring to keep the party going a bit longer. It was also a long drive - it took more than an hour and half - I imagine that the bus driver would have went at a slower speed than I typically would have especially given poor weather. Cyrille slept through it all. Sally's trio was considerably quieter. Danie was mostly trying to keep Vishal subdued. I chatted a little bit with Hayden. Aside from a sight of a traffic jam (not a long one going the other way), a car stuck in a ditch at the center of M11 after Stansted, and another short stop on M11, I didn't notice anything major on the road back. It was still raining heavily in Cambridge and Cyrille was shivering in my car when I dropped him off.

It was a long night - arguably dark and stormy - not bad at all though.