Göteborg Lindy Exchange
It was the first time GBGLX was arranged and it had some minor things that can be improved, but the entire arrangement was really fun! Thursday night I arrived and checked in, danced a bit at the ordinary social night at Forum in Gbg, centrum for the West Coast Jitterbug community. It wasn't a huge amount of people but very decent according to the space on the floor. They kept DJing till close to 2am.
Friday most Gothenborg living people still worked but some of us could go shopping or, as I did, met up with Linda-Marie to practice some dance moves and aerials in Slottsskogen's park. At 8pm the band started playing at Medborgarhuset, where it was very nice. The floor was pretty slippery but nice, but the temperature was probably the biggest problem. No AC (it was broken) and already when I entered the building I started sweating. It was very high humidiy (almost 100%) and high temperatures as well with 28C
At midnight the band was done and at 1 clock we moved up to the gym, for the late night dance. First though, they had an awesome surprise - free snacks and food, by serving bread, chips, nutella and so on. It was just AWESOME and I want to give the arrangement team lots of creds for really doing a great job supplying everything to eat! Also the free coffe bread on Thursday was good.
The floor in the gym wasn't that good for dancing, it was a badminton gym floor, but it still served us well and about 4.30am the last of us decided to find a tram back home.
Saturday some social activities were held but we had to decide so I picked a boat trip and some swimming out at the sea. It was sweeet!! So hot and nice, so the water was really nice. In the night, again the band started playing at 8pm and it was still very warm and I left about the same time this night. It's still close to 6-7am before I got home and the feeling from Herrang, of never getting enough sleep started being familiar.
Sunday it was held "lindy in the park" at Slottsskogen between 2 and 7pm and after that the band played from 8pm at Medborgarhuset in the north of Gbg. The floor sucked in many ways in the park, but it was still a very socially nice arrangement and lots of fun.
The Sunday night I and Linda-Marie both had our tickets leaving the station at 6am so we planned to dance until (as announced) almost 6am but around 3.30pm they floor went empty and we had to head out. We had a nice walk back to the station before I now have spent most of this day travelling back home, 15 hours on bus/train - buuh...
But overall, the arrangement was a lot of fun and I hope more people will show up next year, but also that more people will know about it beforehand.
About the dancing, the Seattle people made a strong contribution increasing the average dance skill but very few people were bad, but the individual styles became very clear and the differences wasn't always easy to handle. I got maybe 30+ hours of dancing and more inspiration for the lindy but next I arrange my luggage for my moving to Luleå.
Good kayaking and some wakeboard
Saturday the sky was covered in clouds again but we made a hike for an hour around the island before we left and paddled against the northern part of Ulvön. Now around noon it started getting windy and we had to follow the inside coast of the island, but after a couple of hours we had to make a break at Ronön where we decided we couldn't keep paddling to the goal, so we went another 30min to Ulvön and pitched one's camp at the gulf next to Fjären. We grilled some meat before we hiked to Ulvö village in the night.
Sunday became the nicest day with wonderful weather, a blue sky with sun all over the sea! We went to Kälsviken and hiked up to Slåtterdalsskrevan, a crevice about 200m (yard) in distance, and about 40m high. On the way back to Hummelviken we had the wind from behind and could catch the waves and "surf" them, in an incredible speed! It was amazing to get a kayak going that fast. Three of us went ahead of the others and therefore ran back to Köpmanholmen (about 4K) to catch our cars for picking up the others. I had switched kayak with a girl, so I didn't have my running shoes and therefore had to run in whatever I was wearing, and that was Crocs! Simon just said, "those Crocs can be used to everything!" and yeah, I guess he's right =)
Sunday night my friend Erik called and wanted to test a wakeboard he has made. He both planned, sketched, constructed and adjusted his own wakeboard, which is pretty cool! He bought kite-bindings and put plast on a plywood thing... It went OK but was tricky, so on Monday night we had to go testing it even more and do some adjustions and now it worked nice!
Tuesday, I was kayaking a bit for lunch - the weather is awesome!! and in the night I ran some intervals in the skiresort and up the ski-jumping building in town before visiting my sisters birthday in her new apartment. It was nice to see my relatives, but they missed me and complained they didn't see me enough.... Maybe they don't?
Another week with some weird dances and tickets reserved
Well, well determined I decided I have to dance more bugg and foxtrot again so Thursday we went to Kovland (170K south) and Blender, but that's way south compared to Baggböle and a different type of people dancing there. At least their style was different. I have danced there last summer, without any bigger problems but this night only a few girls matched me in a decent way. The girls in Sundsvall (kovland) are known for sometimes dancing in a weird off-beat, and those girls made it very confusing for me. I started wondering if I was off-beat or was dancing wrong, but then all my "old" and known dance partners said I was doing OK and matched me perfectly fine.... I had to tell myself they were dancing different.
It was a lot of snobbyness though, just a few nice girls from there smiled to me and even if it was many more young girls than guys I still wasn't asked for a dance when the girls were supposed to ask for dances. This rarely happens to me, but this big crowd danced mostly with their own already known people, and some other of my friends told me about this 'problems' as known, since before, especially when it's crowded and this night it definitely was.
I was dissappointed about the night, BUT... again... it isn't the first time weird things about dancing is coming up to me, and I also know it's all about keep dancing, practice more and get to know more people. So... no more whining, just keep dancing!
Tonight I'm leaving with 9 of my friends for a kayaking weekend, out on the sea, bringing tents and stuff. And next Thursday I'm going to Gothenburg for a lindy exchange, that I'm really excited about!!
Oh yeah, I guess I should mention I'm gonna visit Denver again this winter! Now I've booked my flight to New York on Jan 1 and I hope I can arrive Denver the same evening. I'm staying for heaped two weeks, flying out from NY on Jan 18 and am probably leaving Denver around the 16th. I'm really excited about it!