Salsa!

Not the condiment, the dance. Silly. I just got back from salsa night at the Quest club in Minneapolis, and I LOVE salsa dancing. I'm not really particularily good at it. I mean, I can do the basic steps, but then I start dancing with a guy and he's turning and flipping and stepping and twisting all over and I mostly just try to hang on and go where he pushes me. When the guy is good at it, and nice enough to give you some pointers it can be really thrilling.
It was so fun just to go out and do something different. I've been getting a bit bored at home. Don't get me wrong, I like being home and I like not having lots of stuff to do. It's nice to wake up in the morning and not have to do anything in particular. But after a few weeks of interacting only with my family I get a little stir crazy. I didn't even really go out all that much while I was at school, but I was at least always interacting with people, meeting people, and doing and learning new things. Just walking around to classes and going to the library was a social event.
I miss meeting people. I like that there are often a lot of people from all over the world at salsa clubs. Usually a lot of Latin Americans. Tonight I met a really nice Russian guy who lives in Toronto and was here on buisness for the week. We talked for a bit and he showed me some dance steps. He was such a sweet interesting person. Oddly it seems like it's harder to meet people where you live than it is when you're traveling. Traveling around Europe it's so easy to meet people, in trians and at hostels and in school, especially other international people. And you all have something in common already. But here there's not really any reason to just introduce yourself to people. I don't know. It's just different. I'm excited to go live in Munich next year and meet lots of new people, and see some people I met last time I was there!
Oh! I found a synchro team in Munich! A masters team, so I could swim with them. Wouldn't that be a great way to meet people? I think I'll e-mail them, I just have to do it in German so I might take a bit. I'm still nervous about e-mailing in German. If you mess up while speaking you just keep going, but when it's all typed out I feel like it should be perfect. Anyway, I'll do that.

Synchro! it's everywhere, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop. I'm helping coach a club team nearby this week and next before they head to national. Oiy, it's a lot of work, coaching is. It's kinda hard to come in at the end of the season and try to help when you don't know the rutines or anything. It's especially difficult when you're working with 6-8th graders who just got out of school a week ago and definitely don't want to be cooped up in an indoor pool all afternoon. Plus they've been doing this rutine since October... I'd be restless and obnoxious too. So they were a little diffcult to work with, to say the least. I was horse by the end of practice from trying to yell over them. But it's still fun, now there are synchro moves going through my head and I'm sure I'll fall asleep trying to figure out how I can get that line formation they do in the second lap to work better...