LDA X-Mas Party 2008

December 13, 2008

Heavy rain and potentially confusing roads to navigate through Camden Town worried me a little as I started my drive around 9:30 PM. What I did not anticipate was that M11 southbound would be closed between Stansted and Harlow for reasons unexplained. It was not at all clear which route if any was being suggested as an alternate route.

Usually with planned road closures (and these are truly ubiquitous in all of the UK), road signs for diversions are given. They are meandering, but they get you where you need to go eventually. With no obvious signs and no map, I first went down B1256 thinking A120 towards Stansted definitely was not the answer. That got me back to A120 after about 15 minutes and me ending up where I started after 5 minutes or so.

Next I went around in circles about 5 times in the original roundabout looking desperately for diversion signs. There were none. I stopped for about a minute to gather my thoughts. I decided that A10 would get me to London somehow so I headed west. In the next roundabout, I finally spotted a diversion sign leading me to Bishops Stortford. After a few miles, however, I lost the sign again and was merely heading west towards A10.

Eventually I hit A10 and took it all the way down past North Circular. It was slow, but it was okay until I hit that confusing intersection at the Roundway – I always end up taking the turn to right; I must have done this now four or five times. That led me to small roads with me looking for a way to get me back to familiar roads.

I finally breathed a sigh of relief as I turned onto Seven Sisters Road at the Manor House underground junction. Things were fine afterwards even though I had to alter my routes two more times – at least I had contingency plan in hand prepared before departing. Even finding parking was easy thanks to the Google satellite map. The M11 closure on the other hand was simply ridiculous. It was as if this country was telling the motorists to go **** themselves.

I don’t know if M11 is worse than the average UK motorway, but planned late night closures of the entire northbound M11 from Bishops Stortford (exit 8) to Duxford/A505 (exit 10) lasting well over 15 miles are very common. I think I have noticed it about dozen times this year alone. Even with good diversion signs, it means the travel time is essentially doubled. So during “normal” hours, your travels are liable to be delayed due to heavy traffic while during “off” hours, road closures are the biggest risks.

Anyhow it meant I didn’t get to Kajima Centre (new digs for LDA extension) until 11:20 PM. I’m thinking I lost 30-50 minutes because of M11 closure. On the return trip, I noticed that M11 was open again going southbound although there was a small stretch where two of the lanes were closed off. The road system here is another thing I won’t miss about the UK.

So what about Salsa? LDA X-mas Party 2008 was a social – in a dancehall setting rather than club setting. It was like SOS with fewer flashy dancers and more beginners. It was also quite steamy, and the dozen or so fans scattered around the room was certainly welcome. I regretted wearing a trouser with thick fabric. About half of my dances were On2. Perhaps half of the better dances were with complete strangers. One Cha Cha was one of the more fun ones in past couple of months. I would characterize the evening as workman-like - nothing particularly memorable.

Principal DJs while I was there were Mario and (I think) Del Salereo. Mario played mostly easy music whereas Del seemed to try to up the tempo a fair bit. There was a performance by Shaan and Aiste – same one from the one in Athens I caught on youtube. There was a birthday dance for Mario and two girls. Mario was still wearing a cast to his left hand. Susana was still wearing braces on her right ankle, but she didn’t seem to be limping as badly as she did in Athens. Other people I noted included Andrew, Sean, James and Maria (?) from Drill Hall. Dennis was minding the entry table when I entered. I didn’t remember many others from my LDA class days – maybe one from my level and two from one level below.

Home around 3:30 AM. One down, three to go.

p.s. (1) I think I have a diagnosis for the shoe problem. I think with the new pair, all the weight is squarely placed on a small area on the balls of my feet. With the old pair and with more flexible soles, the weight was distributed onto a larger area. (2) I have been working on a manuever to lead follower to walk around me in counterclockwise manner going forward (after cross body lead, etc) with mixed results. Probably the best one was done with a beginner/improver on my first try! I'd really like to get it polished before the end of the year.