Raising the Bar-and Kicking it

Today was my first venture into the Viennese world of university sports.  I registered for Intermediate Ballet and Jazz classes, and today was Ballet Monday.  Sometimes I get myself into situations where I think This won't be too hard.  I can just fake my way through it and pretend I know what I'm doing. This technique often works for me, but sometimes there is a moment of utter panic the second you have to jump into the situation.  I felt this figurative punch in the gut as I opened the door to the dance studio that took me twenty minutes to find once I entered the building.  One thing you get really good at when you live in a foreign country is watching what everyone else does and then following along so you blend in.  I shuffled into the little locker room where I saw people in leotards and threw all of my stuff in a locker that I took a good three minutes trying to actually lock before giving up.  Just as I got to the door, the instructor closed it to start class, and there was one second where I thought I could just turn around and not try to do this and avoid a lot of embarrassment.  I shook it off and entered what I expected to be a big studio with lots of intermediate dancers and instead stumbled upon a mish-mash of ten people scattered at the bars in the middle of the small studio on the top floor of the building.  My first thought was Well, blending in and not being noticed is out of the question, so I made it my new goal to simply not be bad enough that I stuck out and was directly asked a question.  It turns out I am pretty damn good at intermediate ballet, and even when the instructor talked to me I kind of understood what she was saying most of the time.  I kind of sank into the class and just started understanding what she was saying and didn't have to translate everything into English.  It was awesome.  I only did a few ungraceful things, including my finest moment when I kicked the bar instead of delicately resting my leg upon it, but I think it was a successful adventure all in all.  I just wonder how long I can go without them knowing I speak a whole lot of English and not much Deutsch.  Whatever.  It's mostly in French anyway, right?

I wanted to finish off the day with an embarrassing picture to capture my excitement for and love of ballet (and to make my blog look more interesting).  Look away, ladies and gentlemen.  It's a keeper.  And yes, I am still wearing my ballet clothes right now, and class ended 4 hours ago.