A Successful Ale

Well, our Ale was a success. Whew! Actually, it was really fun, and I think just about everybody enjoyed themselves most of the time (how's that for equivocal?) We had a couple of tense moments, like when Hugo couldn't get ahold of the bus company to make sure the buses were coming to get us, but everything turned out alright in the end. Our starting location in the banquet room of Bridgeport Brewing was absolutely perfect -- a great dancing space, tons and tons of food (somebody remarked that the pizzas that kept coming up the stairs reminded him of the broomsticks in the Sorceror's Apprentice), and lots of dancers and musicians who were just happy to be in Portland for the weekend. On Saturday we danced at PSU, and my friend Cate from my Spanish class brought her husband to watch. They even followed us to The Bite of Oregon, and food and wine festival benefiting the Special Olympics, and watched us dance there. So that was nice. We got into the festival for free because we were performing, but we passed the hat and collected about $100 which we donated to the Special Olympics, so I think they were glad we came.

Saturday afternoon after dancing at the Bite, we hopped on a couple of buses and made our way down to the Salem 4-H camp where we stayed last year. We were in a different location this year, and had really nice cabins, a dining hall and an amphitheater which was perfect for skits. Our Renegade Rose skit was a take-off on Mad-Libs, with a conversation between a morris dancer and an observer from Southern US. Ellie and I stood on stage and requested nouns, adjectives, etc. from the audience, and then Hugo and Jim Phillips acted out the scene. If the Vancouver Morris Men had had their way, every blank would have been filled with the word "turnip," but we only accepted it twice. :) Here's a bit of the dialogue, just so you can get an idea of it... [S = Southerner (Jim), M = Morris dancer (Hugo)]

S: Hey y'all, whad'ya call that sweaty dancing?
M: It's called Morris dancing.
S: Looks gross to me! Is it from Greece?
M: No. It's from England.
S: Is that near Sussex?
M: Um, yes, in a way....
S: I like that Welsh music!
M: Actually, that's English, too....
S: How old are these dances?
M: We believe them to be at least 7,823 years old, possibly older. We know they date back to at least the Pleistocene Era.
S: So, why are you turniping these greasy dances?
M: Well, my Canadian friend, we believe these dances were originally shagged as part of Republican rituals.

.... And it degenerated from there.

Anyway, it was a very fun weekend, including a champagne brunch at Eola Hills Winery on Sunday and some low-key (hmm, maybe that's not quite the right term) singing at Portland Brewing for the last folks to leave. I actually managed not to get totally burnt out this year, which was a really good thing. I did realize though, that although I managed to track down and recover three pillows that were left at our Friday night lodging and get them back to their owners, I somehow managed to come home without my own sleeping bag. Sigh. I'm hoping it ended up in somebody's car, rather than going back to Salem on the bus. (Which would be highly possible, seeing as we managed to take the luggage of somebody from a different group that was also staying at the 4-H camp -- we gave the bus driver an extra tip to take it back to them the next day.)

And now I get to think about Costa Rica! I had my final written exam in Spanish this morning, and I have my oral exam tomorrow, and then I'm done with classes for the summer! Hooray! And Graham and I are going to Costa Rica in less than a week! Yipeeeeee!!!!!! And then, when I get home from Costa Rica I get to start thinking about going down to California to visit everybody! Yay!!! And then, of course, I have to start classes again. :)