It looks like I'll be posting some of my tales a little out of order...

Ironically, at the place where internet access was free and I had plenty of time (the youth hostel after the contiki tour), blogger was being absolute shit and wouldn't work at all. So I couldn't update despite all my promises to do so. I have uploaded some photos which are just waiting to be blogged about, so it's only a matter of time.

Currently I'm at Herrang Dance Camp and I've just finished 4 hours of classes. This has left me in a pleasantly exhilarated, but exhausted state and all I want is a shower and to collapse in bed before the nighttime activities are to begin.

God, I love this place. I've been here for 3 days and this is the first time I've even thought of checking my email. And even so, it's only to check if there's anything important out there for me because i have a few hours up my sleeve. As many of you, I'm usually completely addicted to IM and email, checking it at least once daily. Here, I don't care. There's more swing dance than you can poke a stick at and every way you turn are people from various countries. Australia, England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Poland, China, Singapore... the list goes on and on.

You get up in the morning, have a nice filling breakfast, then go to a class with someone of the likes of Steven Mitchell and Virginie, or Frankie Manning... then you potter around for lunch, chatting with random people from your classes. Then you go to another couple classes and do it all over again at dinner. Then there's the meeting at 9 where several hundred people cram into a smallish hall, and we get entertained for an hour by various funny people and videos. Social dancing starts after the meeting and goes on till the wee hours of the morning. What more could you want?

If it weren't for the contant need to change clothes and fend off mosquitos, I'd want to live here forever. But then, the fact that I've been swing deprived for a month might have something to do with that sentiment.

Some aspects of the camp are a little odd. The showers in the main accommodation are communal. For someone like me from little old Australia, it's quite confronting to wander into the bathroom and be greeted by somebody's breasts. I tend to be a little shy in there, and aim for the times when the least number of people is present. Many of the Europeans appear to have no qualms about it whatsoever, stripping off and wandering over to the shower like they do it with an audience every day and are quite bored of it, really. Apparently there are semi private showers down the road, but you have to pay for them... so it ends up being a fight between my wallet and my inhibitions. So hrm. Who would have thought I'd be missing the likes of a shower with a door? I could handle the toilets in Russia which were holes in the floor, or which involved a bush in the forest, but communal showers seem to piss me off.

Yes, well. That was a bit of a rant, wasn't it?

Aside from that, it's all good... I only have a dozen or so mozzie bites... :) Maybe they should move Herrang to a less mozzie infected region... lake and all!

To all you swing people - aren't you jealous? :)