Swingin' UK-style

I turned 23.5 today.
(Those of you with summer birthdays appreciate the significance of half-birthdays, which allow you to not miss out on bringing cupcakes to school...)

In other news, on Monday I went to the Cambridge Swing Dance Society's weekly Speakeasy! Amazing and appropriate name, I guess, considering it happens in a pub (which is called The Man on the Moon and has a giant mural of a guy in a spacesuit playing the saxophone!). It was SO FUN and felt exactly like the swing dance at U of C, where I spent basically every Friday of the past four years... except that the Speakeasy has alcohol, a 5 pound entry fee (yikes), and boys who say "bollocks" when they step on your feet. Otherwise, exactly the same. :)

They played songs about Chicago and jazz and "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"... songs that transport me back to the sweaty attic of U of C's old student center where we lindy-hopped in Hyde Park. The class before the Speakeasy was taught by two people in ass-hugging wide-leg jeans (the uniform of every swing dancer- so you have lots of room at the knees to Charleston but you also get to show off the big butt you've earned from all the jump steps!) and they taught the steps in the exact same way as every Chicago dancer, even with the same names for the steps! I <3 global culture.

One funny difference was when one of the teachers (who was German! Swing dance is everywhere!) said "You have to dance two songs with each partner and then change partners- it's tradition." I'd never heard of that, and I asked the guy I was dancing with about it and he said, "Yeah, well, this is Cambridge. They have their own traditions." Ha! Cambridge has 800 years' worth of traditions of its own, yet it insists on also having a tradition about an American dance?! I love that!

Wishing you a night of fun and familiarity in a new place!