Lauren and I of course had to dance in London. London may be many things: expensive, rainy, full of people who can’t pronounce “aluminum,” but it is certainly not a bad dance town. We went on Thursday evening to a small, new venue run by Simon Selman of the London Swing Dance Society. For such a small sample of dancers, there were many good partners to be had, and we enjoyed meeting the Brits of the local swing scene. Funnily enough, we ran into a guy who had been in Tucson only a few months before at Warehouse Stomp, who is American but works at the base north of London. Strange to see a familiar face in such an unfamiliar place. Music was more geared to boogie woogie and rock and roll, but we had a great time, anyway.

After much encouragement from the other dancers and in the spirit of embracing the opportunity, we also went dancing Saturday night (yes, we had to get up at 4am to get our bus to Gatwick…more on that, later). Thursday’s crowd had promised us that Saturday’s dance would be well worth our while, and wow, were they right. The music was a bit more in tune to what we’re used to hearing: more big band, still a lot of stuff our Djs wouldn’t put on, but a bit more our style. People got gussied up real nice (we didn’t), and we met dancers from all over the place, most of whom were really quite fun and excellent. Although our jaunt down to the river bank to dance again left us literally penniless—er, penceless—and we had to ask a Tube staffer to swipe me through the turnstile, and although we had to run all the way from the Kentish Town underground to Jessica’s apartment so that she could let us into the building at 11, and although we were leaving in only a few short hours for our flight to Amsterdam, it was so worth it.

Thank you, London, for showing us a good time. We did our best to represent Tucson’s scene.