I went to a ceilidh and didn't hurt anyone!

Last night I went to a ceilidh, and it was absolutely amazing. Before now, my previous experiences with dancing (other than freestyling it at my cousin’s wedding) were limited to compulsory square dance week in primary school PE class, and the Movement Styles for Singers class I took my second year at uni to learn useful baroque and renaissance dances for operas. Ergo I was rather nervous, because mostly what I learned from these experiences was that I am a terrible dancer and need things explained to me very slowly a lot of times.

Fortunately, my lovely friend Eleanor is very experienced at ceilidhs, and she nudged me and turned me and pulled me in all the proper directions so that I did not hurt myself or kick someone else in the face.

In case anyone doesn’t know (I didn’t), a ceilidh is a big social dance that is the funnest thing ever. The nearest thing I can approximate it to is square dancing – it’s not the same kind of dancing, but there is a band and someone who calls the dances.

The difference is that ceilidhs are awesome. No offense to hardcore square dancers, but you know how the cool people of America wouldn’t be caught dead at a square dance? Everyone wants to go to a ceilidh. The one we went to last night was sold out, and it was packed. With cool people.

The dancing is I think Scottish country dancing, and it’s simple enough at first when each dance starts but then it gets VERY FAST so I spent a great portion of the night frantically spinning around and jumping up and down and trying not to hurt anyone, whilst also trying to understand instructions shouted out over the band in a serious Scottish accent distorted by a microphone. I was screaming and laughing the whole time though, so I count it as a grand success. I can’t really describe it, so here is a video I swiped from the youtubes. It is not the ceilidh I went to, but it is in the same room, and I’m reasonably certain we did that same dance at some point.

I should also note the after effects of a ceilidh if you are as out of shape as me. I have NEVER done anything so physically demanding in my life. It lasted three hours, and this morning my whole body hurts. Also I have a dehydration headache, because I sweated out most of my body’s water content. *Seasonally appropriate movie reference alert* You know that scene in Hocus Pocus when the witches wind up on stage at the Halloween dance and they put a spell on everyone so they can’t stop dancing and Winifred screams, “Dance! Dance until you die!!!”? That’s kind of what it’s like.

That said, I had such a great time and I’m totally having a ceilidh at my wedding. Wear comfortable shoes. 

I don't do team sports

This afternoon I took myself to the park with a book, because it was nice outside. I didn't stay long, because this is Britain and ten minutes after I got there the sun disappeared and it was 65 degrees, cloudy, and windy. But before I left, I witnessed the fairest, most equitable method of picking teams that I have ever had the privilege to see in the world of kids sports.

As a devout non-athlete, my entire childhood PE class experience was basically one long miserable episode of boredom, exhaustion, and physical inadequacy, punctuated by moments of extreme anxiety that were usually induced by someone hitting a ball in my direction (who do I throw it to??), being forced to attempt to climb the rope in front of the entire class even though we all knew perfectly well that I wouldn't even be able to reach the first knot*, or having the PE teacher line us all up to be picked for teams.

Being picked last for a team is super embarrassing, even if you have absolutely no interest in playing whatever game is about to happen. But these little kids in the park today were on point with their team-picking method. The two captains stood a little ways away out of earshot, and the rest of the kids assigned themselves numbers. Then they lined up in front of the captains, who took turns calling out numbers without knowing to whom they were assigned. THIS WAS THE LEAST STRESSFUL THING I HAVE EVER SEEN and I wanted to stand up from my blanket and give them a round of applause, but then I thought that would be weird, and even at twenty-nine years of age, I feared their judgement. So I pretended to still be reading my book but inside I was thinking, "Well done, grasshoppers. Well done."

*Remember the Presidential Fitness Test, you guys? There's the pull-up challenge, and if you can't do a single pull-up (I couldn't) they had you do this other thing they called the flex arm hang, which means that you stand on a chair in front of the bar, grab the bar so that your hands are up by your shoulders, and then they take the chair away and you see how long you can hold yourself up. Every year I was the only one who had to do the flex arm hang, and every year as soon as they took the chair away I dropped to the ground like a back of rocks. True story. 

Vacation Eating

I don't think my subconscious has figured out that I'm not on vacation here. See, when I'm on vacation (or "holiday", if you will) in a foreign country, two things happen: the first thing that happens is that I don't feel like I'm actually spending any money when I use cash, because foreign currency pretty much just looks like Monopoly money to me. (Spoiler alert: I am terrible at Monopoly.) The other thing that happens is that I revert to Vacation Eating. (Vacation Eating = eating whatever I want whenever I want it, because it's my vacation and I do what I want. Shut up.) 

The thing where the money seems like Monopoly money lasted until the first time I desperately wanted Starbucks, and I realized that the £2 coin I'd been saving because it was shiny and looked cool was actually REAL MONEY and would buy me almost a whole chai latte. However, there is clearly some part of me that still thinks I'm on vacation, because the Vacation Eating is in full swing, and I'm starting to feel like it might be just a bit unhealthy. This is not a vacation! This is real life, and I live here now. So I need to stop eating like an idiot and start eating like a real person, because I am dangerously close to having to buy new jeans. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

I fell on my face helping a tourist

Today, the most coveted of temporary-ex-pat experiences finally happened to me: a pair of tourists asked me for directions, and I knew the answer. And then I fell on my face.

Two old Italian ladies with backpacks and about a thousand different maps approached me at Euston Station wanting to know where they could get the 91 bus to Trafalgar Square. I told them exactly where they could find the nearest stop going in the right direction, and then about ten seconds after they walked away, I briefly thought I'd told them the wrong thing (I hadn't). If they had been obnoxious young people I would have just let them sort themselves out, but as they were nice old ladies, I decided to chase after them and let them know that I'd steered them in the wrong direction (again, I hadn't).

I made it about twenty feet before I tripped over the pavement and bit the dust in a full penguin belly slide, arms out in front like Superman. (It was slick pavement, and I was wearing a slippery coat.) I was completely mortified, but I collected the shattered remains of my dignity, put them in a little bag, and got back up because I am a survivor.

By then the ladies were too far away for me to catch up, so I abandoned the chase. And obviously I wanted everyone to know that falling down at a crowded bus station in such spectacular fashion didn't bother me in the slightest, so I walked confidently back to my bus, head held high, whistling all the way. (Unfortunately, the first song that came to my head was the theme from "Sanford and Sons", but I think I got away with it.)

 It was at that point that I realized I actually had told the ladies the right thing after all, and my concern for my fellow (wo)man had nearly killed me for nothing. I patted myself on the back, climbed onto the bus, claimed my rightful seat at the front of the upper deck, and gave the old ladies a jaunty little salute as I rode past them at their stop. 
Tragic Heroine Risks All for Confused Tourists, Saves Day. 

And now, mostly for the Verus crowd since I haven't updated them in a while, here are some random pics from the last few months. Included is one of the package my mother sent to me for Valentine's day, because everyone at the office should know that she is amazing, and should stop by her desk before the end of the day and tell her so. Congratulations for working with her.