December 2, 2007
After trying to decide between four so-so looking options for Saturday, we opted to go to SOS on Sunday instead. It meant that I had to do my work quickly and efficiently before picking up Cyrille and Liam. As I was heading back to Cambridge, I noticed that the traffic going southwards toward M11 looked very bad. Thus I opted to take a route less frequently taken via A1. It took about 1 hour and 40 minutes with a slight delay caused by a wrong turn. Liam played tyrant with the iPod leading to playing of disparate things ranging from Villa Lobos, Henry Purcell, Sergei Prokofiev, Frederic Chopin, W A Mozart, Miles Davis, Cachao and Ray Barretto.
After arrival, the three of us ended up entering SOS (at Royal Sonesta Hotel) separately – Liam going to Tesco for some mints first, and me taking a stop in the restroom to get my contact lens on (did I mention I was busy at work?) etc, and Cyrille going in directly first. I spotted Ania sitting around outside, so I stopped by to say hello, etc. I thought she was still recovering from her injury etc so I did not bother asking her for a dance, but I saw her dancing a little towards the end and having some silly fun doing this with me having a prime spot for viewing without having to move an inch. Well – maybe I will ask her next time. She seems to recognize me as a friendly face and considers me a very sound lead if not spectacular so why not? Other higher profile people aside from Ania included Leon, Tamambo, Mauro, Aiste, Shaan, whatishisname Adam Leilani (had to look it up) - at least for the ones I know the names of and there are plenty of flashy dancers I don't know by name and/or face.
It was an invasion of Cambridge kind of night again. Ed, Mark, Andrea, Vera and Isabelle were all there (most are not based in Cambridge right now). Through the course of the evening, I had dance with all three of the girls. Isabelle was the first (both Cyrille and Liam had danced with her well before me) to El Cantante. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be the Hector Lavoe version, which would have been a little hilarious considering that it is more than 10 minutes long. It ended up being what I think is the Marc Anthony version, which is still fairly long at 6 min 47 seconds. The dance itself was quite nice, and it made me think, “What would have happened if I managed to get Sam on the phone back in May to talk about the Cambridge heat?” I was probably right in thinking that it would have been the only way to give Cyrille a run for his money. It could have had some interesting repercussions too. Who knows? Vera was very kind to tell me that my lead has gotten much better after dancing with me (or did she say it has gotten really good - not sure and not bothered about the difference). She also had me on the T stance and received a couple of surprises leading to some squeaks. There was nothing unusual about the dance with Andrea – it was good. In any case she definitely was not suffering from lack of suitors for dances tonight being a first-timer at SOS and all.
Liam thought the music was very good. I thought it was pretty good too – more because there were fewer bad songs rather than there being a lot of really good ones. Ones I can remember include Malaguena Salerosa, Chango Ta Beni (Willie Rosario), Babarabatiri (Willie Rosario again?), Avisale A Mi Contrario (Tito Rodriguez), Lamento Boliviano (unfortunately a bad one for Cyrille tonight). Amir was there but he was not the DJ.
For the first hour or so, Liam looked like he was dancing more than me. I think I caught up with him by the end more or less though. Maybe because I was being more choosy picking my dance partners, I did not have any boring or painful dances.
The shenanigans after the party were quite silly. There was an option to go to Bar Salsa afterwards, which I declined (easy decision - for one it would have killed Cyrille if we went). Roger tested my memory (it took about 5 seconds for the name and another 10 seconds for the place). Liam wanted something to eat and started walking towards Euston and Kings Cross. What I did not expect to happen was ending up at the Kings Cross station for Burger King. Even though I did not have my dinner, I couldn’t get myself to buy anything there. All that walking for Burger King – I was flabbergasted. We also stopped on Bow Street for petrol where Liam bought more snack food. Nothing appetizing there for me also so I settled for my emergency Snickers bar. At least the conversation was fairly lively. By the way, Sergio is back.
The drive back was uneventful except for a crazy swerving car on M11 between Stansted and Cambridge. It came from behind us at very high speed (and I wasn’t exactly going slow either) and passed me on my right side before cutting in front of me to pass a big 18-wheeler on the right lane. Once in front of me, the driver almost lost control of his car and almost collided into the 18-wheeler – and it was only about two or three cars length in front of me. If they collided, I would have had almost no chance to avoid getting into a collision myself. Scary. I tried to keep a good distance away from this wild driver afterwards, but it took a long time for him to get out of my sight because there were a lot of clueless drivers in front of us all. It also led to Liam talking about his father's wild and crazy driving days of old and other high speed miracles and fatalities.
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