Dance club

I imagine that street life is popular in any city.  Apartments are going to be small and expensive and having people over is most likely a hassel.  In Rochester with a house in the suburbs we can sleep six guests with relative ease, so when there is a party in town we function as a unofficial hotel, which makes sense.  We're kind hosts, we prepare huge delicious meals, the beds are comfortable, and all we require is the sacrifice of your first born son... Wait a minute, I mean a little respect.  Yeah, respect, let's go with that. 

The first reason that drives Spaniards into the streets is the realestate.  The apartment I live in here is the Bel-Air masionette of San Sebastian, there are five bedrooms with enough sleeping room for seven people.  A full three bathrooms, a kitchen, and a main room that takes on the rest of the jobs, from dining room to rollar rink (Because why the hell not).  Every time there is company over, which adds up to a total of twice in three and a half months, they remark on how amazingly huge the house.  If a family has four children and only enough money for a normal sized apartement someone is sleeping on the ground, probably the older brother.  Thus having people over is difficult and any sort of party is impossible, so virtually the whole city leaves their house to party, and one of the biggest party draws is, of course, the dance club.  San Sebastian contains one of the most famous clubs in Spain, Battaplan a discoteca on the beach, it has music, strobe lights, and young sexy people with zero inhibitions, everything necessary to dance like a hallucinating mental patient (which should be everyone's goal when they go out dancing).  When my friends told me how awesomely amazing it was it seemed like a simple choice to go there and party for a night.  I had never been to a club before and had no idea what to expect, especially out of a Spanish one.  I get into a line to enter the club with some friends, we get to the front to find four bouncers who looked like models from Abercrombie and Fitch mixed with clothes from Gentelmen's Quarterly aka Spanish James Bonds.  After taking a couple moments to look us over the head bouncer asked us for invitations, a crushing blow.  If the gaurds decide you are not good looking enough you need to be invited.  I had not realized I was not sexy enough to enter the club on looks alone, and I thought skinny-white-boy was the 'in look' this year.

Half an hour later my friends and I try again this time the bouncers only request twenty euros, my friends egarly offer it up but I'm slightly more skeptical.  They assure me that the party is totally worth it and will be blow my tits off amazing, so I give in, hand over a blue bill (their money is slightly more fabulous than ours) and head inside.  My main reason for entering was because of the dance style I've seen in the U.S and the more European dance style I heard was really popular in, you know, Europe. Although I can do some breakdancing it is not really useful for an extended club period so I was ready to learn from the Spainards. There are two types of club dancing in the U.S; Number one: Bob head up and down to beat with hands in pockets, Number two: Dry humping.  I have seen Germans and French getting their bodies going with the beats and moving their hands in rythem, and that was what I was hoping for from Spain.  In reality it is slightly different, in Spain they have two styles of dance as well, the female version (see French and German dance) and the male version (see head bobbing).  Battaplan was full of people with blasting music, sweet strobe lights, and a huge dance floor.  The thing about all that club set up is that it only looks cool if there is movement with it, instead lights burst all around a stagnant sea of people.  Sure some girls were moving, but come on, this is Europe, my previously established sterotypes dictate that everyone here dances really well.

Instead of learning to dance at clubs I have taken to the refugee of amateurs aspiring for something more, Youtube.  I type in 'how to dance at clubs' and get loads of tutorials, I then sneak away into my room to practice.  I pop in my ipod and set up the video camera on my computer so I can judge my dancing skills later on.  I can see a possibly devestatingly awckward moment where, in a sit-com like scene, I'm dressed in pyjamas, jumping around to music that is only in my head (iPod),  with a video camera watching me, and my host mom walks in to tell me dinners ready.  That will be a sad day, but until then I will keep practicing in my room until I'm good enough to dance at a club.  After all someone has to make a fool of themselves to start a change, and I want that fool to be me.