Snow, Rain, Sleet, Wind and a Dance

Well, finally a day off from the constant reading and analyzing that is required for my classes. . .

So last Friaday we, the Americans were invited to a ball that was to be held here at the faculty (it is the word they use for a learning facility). We were told that the dress code was nice, but not as extreme as prom. . . so we thought "okay. . .a nice but not formal dress. . .like homecoming" Ooohhh nooo. .. when the evening finally came we, dressed in our finest, were verily underdressed. Imagine wearing a homecoming dress to prom. . . . yep. . . that bad. However, the Slovak students welcomed us merrily and the evening commenced. It was an amazing evening. We were provided with a dinner, entertainment in the form of a skit (which one of the students traslated for us) and music for dancing.

Dancing. Yeesh. The one thing that I wasn't looking forward to was the part of the ball that I enjoyed the most. Slovak dancing is still quite different from contemporary American dancing. In the begining the band played some traditoinal Slovak songs and I was asked to dance. The gentleman (no, I don't know his name or have any photos of him. According to a girl in my group, he was actually an American teaching English at a neighboring faculty, but I'm not for sure) who asked me and I danced a swing/polka.

After this the band began playing a playlist of American oldies (it is the music played on most of the radios here. . . my type of music) such as The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", "I'm Walking on Sunshine", and "It's My Party". . . . they also played some Slovak and Czech Rock but, of course, I couldn't understand it but it had a good beat and was fun to dance to. . .

On the note of dancing, like I said earlier, they don't dance the same. . . It was like watching a combination of 60s and 70s dance move. . No lie. . they weren't goofing off, they were doing the twist and the like. . . Lucky for me, I knew how to do the "gorrilla" and "swimming" dance moves.

All in all it was a great dance and we all had fun albeit it was awkard at first, especially because we were so underdressed. The night ended on a happy note as the senior in our group, Christy, won the title Ball Queen which was nice because it was also her birthday.

Pictures:

Melina (sister of Christy's Slovak friend that came to visit) and me.

The group of us in our corner watching the dancing. . .