School's on

October 4, 2007

Things took a little while to develop as many were fashionably late. Zern and Cyrille were present for the lessons. Ditto for Sebastian and Polly. Euvian arrived just behind me. Ditto for the Bar Latina guy. Probably the biggest surprise was Liam, who was there to talk about the UK Congress. I think Nicola, Charlotte, Jane, Rajiv, Mark, William were all already there. Ivan, Haihan and Agnes arrived somewhat later all at about the same time. Stephanie arrived even later and Zhenzhi was the last to arrive. It felt quite lead heavy tonight, and some of the girls had hard time getting off the floor – especially the new arrivals. It might have seemed a bit cliquey to outsiders too – I don’t know. Perhaps a bit intimidating too – it seemed like it was mostly the usual suspects by the time Zhenzhi arrived. I decided to let the other guys fight for the popular ones while I opted for whoever I found convenient to pick on. In the end I think I ended up dancing with pretty much everyone anyway – some up to three times.

There was something of an On2 boom tonight. Among others, I spotted Mark and Jane dancing On2 as well as Haihan and Agnes. Liam of course was dancing On2 with various girls too. I only tried it once with Euvian to La Loma Del Tamarindo. There were a fair number of songs I was not familiar with early on although none really stood out for me. Other familiar songs played before included Presumida (Louie Ramirez & Ray De La Paz a.k.a. Noche De Salsa variation with vocals - skipped), Sun Sun Babae (the version with too many breaks w/ Agnes), Mambo Mongo (Mongo Santamaria version from Afro-Indio w/ Zhenzhi?), Lluvia Con Nieve (Mon Rivera - I didn’t find anyone quickly enough), Mujer Erotica (Tito Rodriguez Jr w/ Stephanie), Ave Maria Lola (Conjunto Imagen skipped), La-La-La (Direct Latin Influence w/ Polly), Merecumbe (Johnny Colon w/ Jane), Fragile (Massimo Scalici skipped), Alabanciosa (Manny Oquendo skipped), Tambo (??), Quitate La Mascara (Ray Barretto probably and I think I danced to this one but not sure with whom).

I suppose strictly speaking there were only four returnees - Mark, Haihan, Agnes, Stephanie (although I suppose Cyrille and Zhenzhi showed infrequently in recent weeks). I'm not sure if I should count Liam because I really don't know if he'll become a regular - having said that there is no doubt he was noticed by people who know him as well as by people who had not seen him before. So I could make the number 4, 5 or 7, but in any case the effect of their return seemed quite striking. Both Agnes and Stephanie were as good as I remembered if not better. If nothing else I guess it goes to show how small (and delicate) the Cambridge scene still is and how much more diverse it could become. Considering the size of Club Salsa, it also would be interesting to see if Thursdays become very top-heavy as it was earlier in the year.

The other day I had too much free time on my hand so I decided to take a look at Bournemouth dining scene. It appeared that it is much better than Blackpool. I seem to recall Bella Italia as being one of better option in Blackpool. No doubt there will be fast cheap options as in Blackpool. Bournemouth has a plethora of fine chain restaurants (e.g. Bella Italia, La Strada, Café Rouge, Pizza Express, Ask, Wagamama) suggesting that it might be no worse than Cambridge in food quality. The most interesting food guide I saw was essentially a blog type guide written by an ethnic Chinese couple - their reviews can be found at www.fong.co.uk if anyone is interested. I think I would trust their judgement on Chinese restaurants the most - their favorite are Oriental Garden (serves Dim Sum in the afternoon), Ocean City (Dim Sum option available as well), Ocean Palace (supposedly one of the best in Bournemouth - caters more to Western tastes and is fancier). Their favorite Indian restaurants were Westbourne Tandoori and Taj Mahal (they are basically next to each other and located to the other side of BIC from my hotel). Other options include African, Mexican, Greek, Spanish, Japanese, Thai, Lebanese, Nepalese.

Odd end note - I felt really itchy for some strange reason after dancing. No idea why. Maybe it was some sort of an allergic reaction? But to what? It made sleeping difficult.