Do you know St. Petersburg (or Leningrad as it was named during Soviet Union time!)? What did I do there? That’s the most common question I got when saying I am / I was there. Even the Russians I met there, were asking all the time: 'what are you doing here?' Wouldn’t it be naturally that I am a tourist and want to see the place? Apparently not! Anyway, what I did there was a language course! For a long time I had wanted to speak Russian and now I finally do!  It took me 6 weeks with 120 individual [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, After having had to work during New Year Eve I enjoyed even more this first little voyage of the year 2008. More trips are to come but I started the travel-year 2008 with a short 4 day trip, combining a PARTY adventure with a PLACE adventure. On Thursday I flew from Berlin to Frankfurt, having found a cheaper flight with Lufthansa than a ticket with the German railway company Deutsche Bahn. My friend Carsten, whom I had met only recently, in November 2007 in Buenos Aires, was so kind to pick me up from the airport and staying at [View Full Entry]

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HELLO! I will be lazy this time round. What I mean to say is that I spent the whole month of November in Argentina plus a week each of October and December...so that my monthly summery on www.dancingnomad.blogspot is essentially the same as my Argentina travel blog post. And therefore I used the same text for both posts. Please forgive me but I got a good excuse: I still have to wrap all my Christmas presents and there are plenty!!! ;-) ARGENTINA.... ...Lets see….I left Berlin on October 25th in the morning and returned on December 5th in the evening. That [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, I wish I could post some really nice photos here. Unfortunately my plan of having internet access via my laptop has not materialized yet and I am sitting in the onboard 'crew internet' room. Imagine: no USB port usable and therefore no photos to upload! Well, at least I can write something.... I came onboard in Rome, Italy on July 30th and life has been very hectic and stressy. No, I am not fishing for sympathy, just explaining that though we have been in really nice ports such as Monte Carlo, Monacco / Barcelona, Spain / Livorno, Italy ... [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, jeez, for sooooo long had I heard sooooo many good things about social dancing in Paris ... Of course I had wanted to go and see for myself. Last I had been to Paris in 2004 for 6 days but with a salsa congress included so that I had not much chance to check out the social dancing / clubs. I had been at Les Etoiles and La Coupole, both of which are not anymore within the bunch of 'happening' salsa locations. Naturally a weekend of 4 nights does not allow to check out all salsa places as [View Full Entry]

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Hello, finally the weather in Germany has turned around and instead of clammy and cold it was suddenly hot and humid. Just in time for the 5th Hamburg Salsa Congress, yeahaaahhh! For the trip from Berlin to Hamburg I got a ride with one of my Berlin salsa friends (Javier). We were 4 salsero/as from Berlin and on our way to the congress we discussed the pro & con of people taping their own videos at congresses. You know the ones, who miss the workshops, shows and social dancing more or less because they keep starring onto the display of [View Full Entry]

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Arggghhhh … that is about what comes out of my throat when I think of the time I had at the Link Lounge. In the most positive version possible. I had such (!) a great time! It happened to be my last social dancing night in New York for this time round and it was the best final night imaginable. Mostly contributing to this 5* rating were, my friend and awesome DJ, David “Montreal” with his choice of music together with the dancers who were in attendance that night. David spun great music. Because of the very diverse mix of [View Full Entry]

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Oh boy! Where to start? To sum it up: I had a great time at the DC Salsa Congress! To put all I will write into perspective, I give you a quick description of my style to enjoy any salsa congress. I arrive usually just in time to see the evening performances and then continue to the dance floor to take in as much social dancing as possible. Energy levels and music choices allowing, I will dance from the first song up to and including the very last song. During the early evenings I usually check out the merchandise and [View Full Entry]

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Having heard of the clavekazi social many times via my DC salsa friends, I finally had the opportunity to check it out myself. The social is hosted by the founder of the Clavekazi dance company Shaka G. Brown. The building in which the studio is situated is really interesting and reminded me of my home town Berlin’s quirky, run-down mansions built around the 19th/20th century turn. No pun intended, the studio itself is perfectly fine, just the building is quite unique. From its layout it is pretty clear too that it was originally built for the purpose of being a [View Full Entry]

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The party goes on ... ;-) My salsa pals Bruce & Vicky and me had returned to Washington DC from the Stardust Ballroom in New Jersey at around 6am. I had been in bed at 7am and should have been beat enough to stay at home ... however ... the was another chance to rip up the dance floor ... and off I went to check out the above venue. Salsa at a pin-bowling venue? Hmm, definitly my first expericence of these type of setting. :-) How did it go? Very well! Great music by DJ Jon, as usual! ;-) [View Full Entry]

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