Just a quick update - last night after posting my last update I decided I’d give Salsa another go over here. The hostel I was at was a bit out of the way and didn’t really have anything interesting around it. Added to that it was like a trendy hotel with shared bedrooms…just weird. Wasn’t the backpacker crowd and I wasn’t a huge fan of the people there - Now I\’m sitting in the computer cafe part of the new hostel much closer to downtown now - just off the Lambeth North station and near the Imperial War Museum.

Anyhow - last night headed into town to try one of the two Salsa clubs I pulled off the web. To my suprise the club - Club Salsa - was located right off of Leicester Square and a very prominant restaurant/club. The place was huge - with great wooden floors all over the place. I arrived around 9 - towards the end of the lesson and was suprised to find at least a 100 people or so already there. It continued to get busier and busier. I was really impressed … there was a great atmosphere, the music was fun (though the DJs could have been a bit more focused on playing good dance music instead of showing off how good they were), and for the most part the girls were friendly, approachable, and skilled. I think of the 15 or so I approached, maybe 3 said no - not bad at all given the setting.

Danced up a storm, eventually ended up meeting a fun local. We spent a good bit of the night socializing/dancing before calling it quits at around 12:45. A recent university grad, she was just starting her masters after working for a newspaper for a bit. Unfortunately, the tube stops running at 12 - which meant the last tube run was at about 11:15. Only having a general idea which route to hop on, I wandered around for a good 20 minutes or so, grabbed a quick bite, then eventually hopped on the n97 - I knew the n9 and n28 would take me back generally near the hostel so I figured n97 would as well - which it did, lol..luckily. Even then the closest stop was a good 10 minutes walk through a deserted area at 1:00 in the morning….oops!

Arrived back at the hostel and made it in safe and sound. A great night all around. Slept like a baby until about 8 - the fun part about group rooms is inevitably 2 or 3 people decide that anything past 7:00 qualifies as ffa time and that it’s ok to talk in normal voices and bang around making a huge commotion. Gah.

Anyhow - stiff and sore today, but I’ll probably look into either catching Macbeth (Patrick Stewart) or the LoTR - depending on the cost. it’s a rainy day unfortunately, so probably going for museums and the lot!