Portland Redux - Part 3

September 1, 2007

I woke up at 6:15 AM local time. A little over 6 hours of sleep is an improvement over less than 4 hours of sleep the evening before. My flight was due to depart at 8:20. When I discovered that the only seats were middle seats, I opted to pay an extra $68 (money just flies away) for a minor upgrade resulting in slightly more legroom and a window seat and an aisle seat for the rest of the trip to Portland.

The first leg was to Denver. The biggest annoyance was a young boy behind me who screamed for the first half of the trip while kicking the back of my seat – it took some bite out of supposed additional comfort provided by the more expensive seats. The movie was Fracture starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. I think I have seen parts of it before. It still was more diverting than any of the movies from yesterday.

At the Denver airport (layover of just over an hour), I picked a place slightly out of the main thoroughfare called Mexican Grille for lunch. It was surprisingly expensive (a burrito and water cost $9.30), but it was also quite decent. To me it ranked as one of better burritos I tasted with caveat that in my experience the best burritos with drinks would have cost $6-7 in California or in Boston. Still I get a feeling that the quality of airport food may have increased considerably. I speculate if the fact that airlines stopped providing complimentary food in domestic flights is helping to drive this trend.

Before boarding the second airplane taking me finally to Portland, I went to the gate desk to ask whereabouts of my checked-in luggage. I was relieved to learn that it was safely stowed in the airline storage in Portland. Finally things were becoming like the way it should be – no more dramas – the most alarming happening being a very heavy woman sitting in front of me and causing quite a lot of shaking whenever she got up or sat down – or for that matter whenever she stirred. No movies for the Denver-to-Portland leg, but there were no screaming kids either. Because the battery for my iPod was running low, I used my laptop for listening to music.

Finding my luggage was pretty simple – it took less than 2 minutes. I was a bit annoyed when I found that considerable amount shampoo leaked out of the container. Fortunately, it did not reach any of the clothes. It’s not over until it’s over.

After the rehearsal party, croquet and brief stop at the hotel, I decided to head off to Aztec Willie’s early. It was only 9:30 and the free beginner class was supposed to have started only then. I didn’t feel like hanging around in the hotel – mostly because I thought I would have better chance of staying awake.

I decided to have a little snack while watching the beginner instruction. It was surprisingly heavy on shines. The instructor also went through surprisingly large amount of partner work too by concentrating on steps and foregoing on technique. I was most surprised by there being no partner rotation.

There was a fair amount of space – the main dance floor was equivalent of the LeL without the columns in the middle of the space in LeL. One of the girls mentioned that it was a quiet night because of Labor day – thus the space was not a big issue. At its busiest, I would estimate there were 30-40 couples dancing. The busiest time was around midnight to 1 AM.

The composition of the crowd was like having a typical Thursday Club Salsa crowd and an extremely busy Friday night crowd and add in an extra dozen plus men watching on the sidelines without a partner. There were a couple of people seemingly dancing On2 at fairly rudimentary level. The top leads were leading multiple turns quite a lot, but no one really impressed much until I saw one guy dancing (just once) well after 1 AM – he reminded me of Domenic – similar emphasis on musicality. And then I realized that this was the guy who hosted the local Salsa dance competition back in June 2005. I think the winner of that competition was the instructor for the beginner class.

Finding followers who seemed capable of staying on time on their own was something of a challenge. I think there were 8 of them, and I danced with 7 – in most cases twice each. I wasn’t paying attention to people dancing Cuban style, but I don’t think they were any better with timing. According to one of my partner, my lead is considerably gentler than what she’s used to. She struggled a bit the first time, but did better second time around with me leading fairly simple things throughout.

I think I had 4-5 declines tonight. In all but 2 cases, they had to dance with someone else and I subsequently danced with them later. One other case seemed to be because of lack of confidence. The last case – no idea although lack of experience is the prime suspect – she was probably number 7 on my list of 8 who seemed aware of proper timing and be able to stay on time while doing turns and spins. This is quite typical in events outside Cambridge excluding very small and very big events. I guess it’s notable only for things staying in form 8 time zones away.

Songs heard at Aztec Willie’s include Perico Macona (Angel Canales), Hay Craneo (Tito Rodriguez), Brujeria (El Gran Combo), Y No Hago Mas Na’ (some remix), Tres Dias De Carnaval (Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco), Anacaona (2 versions – first one was Cheo Feliciano), Alejate (Hector Lavoe), Salsa Y Control (Isidro Infante).