Monday,
August 9, 1999

I really, really want to learn how to swing dance

I was reading Diana Rowland's journal, and her descriptions of swing dancing with Kent Brewster just sound like so much fun. I mean, I love to dance anyway -- we cut quite the rug at Dangerous's wedding last weekend, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, and I haven't had that much fun in ages. And I even happen to be married to someone who took ballroom dancing lessons when he was a kid (and won some kind of award for it, too), so he's not adverse to the idea. Which helps, as it's kind of hard to learn swing dancing without a partner to, well, swing you. Then, as I was leaving through "Metro" (the free daily of Stockholm's pubic transport system, and a boon to anyone learning Swedish), I found a page that listed all kinds of "further education" opportunities, including -- you guessed it -- dancing.

The only downside about this, is that I think we'd have to wait until we had a car. We do have excellent public transportation, true, and it's not that bad of a walk from the Tunnelbana to our house. In nice weather. But 1) these classes would take place after work, 2) it's going to get cold and dark real fast around here soon, and 3) I know for a fact that we'd think "Oh, God -- I've just had the day from hell. Do I really want to slog out in the freezing snow to go dancing, then slog back?"

And the answer is, of course -- no. So it'll be easier to stick to the lessons and go if we wait until we have private transportation. Which leads me to another thing (also found in "Metro") -- I knew that rental cars over here were cheap, but I had no idea HOW cheap! I can rent a car here for essentially 12 bucks a day, 73 bucks for a three-day weekend, and 143 bucks for a full week. Yeah, I know, that may not be all that impressive in the States, but I once rented a car (and we're talking about a glorified skateboard wrapped in tinfoil) in England for £95. For one day. That's $152 bucks, for a single day. And yeah, I know that's ridiculous, but I didn't have a choice -- I was at Manchester Airport with a lot of luggage, there wasn't an easy way to get to my in-laws, and I was exhausted by that point. I was willing to sign away a kidney for a glorified skateboard.

I already sent email to the Bodacious Brit suggesting that we take advantage of these prices as soon as I get my license and do some sightseeing before the weather completely craps out on us. Oh, to be tooling out on the highway once again. . .