Bayrischer Volkstanzkurs - Day 27

Yesterday (Saturday, April 25), I went with a group of JYM-ers to a Bavarian folk-dance lesson.  Now, I know that my coordination as far as dancing goes amounts to just about nothing, but I figured if someone could tell me exactly what I'm supposed to do, maybe I'd have a chance of not looking completely ridiculous.  It ended up being a lot of fun - there were about twenty-five of us total, and a German folk-dancer taught us a couple different dances.  There's a JYM Bayernabend party next Friday, and the theory is that those of us who went to this course will do two or three of the dances we learned...assuming we all remember what we're doing...

We took an afternoon train to Peissenberg, a small town about an hour and twenty minutes from Munich.  One of my favorite parts of train rides is getting to see the country side.  These photos turned out pretty good, if I say so myself, especially considering they're through the train window...you can almost see the Alps in the background:

Once we got to Peissenberg, it was about a twenty minute walk to the Gasthof zur Post, a restaurant and hotel in town.  We had our lesson in one of the small halls, and after our lesson had dinner in the dining room.  On the second floor, we got to see a small display of furniture from the room in the hotel where King Ludwig II of Bavaria frequently stayed the night on his way between Munich and his castle Neuschwanstein:

Learning the dances was interesting, but also a little confusing.  Tony, the dance instructor, spoke a mix of Hochdeutsch ("standard" German) and Bayrisch (the dialect in Bavaria that's pretty hard to understand).  You can't really see it in this picture, but I think most of us had an expression of complete and utter confusion on our faces for at least half the class...at least, I know I did:

In a lot of the dances, we switched dance partners throughout the dance.  At this point, I ended up with Tony (the instructor) as my partner...we were learning a waltz, and I think I did pretty well, but that's only because I just had to follow wherever he pushed me...it was much harder when I tried to do it with another partner.  That's me and Tony in the middle of the circle:

It will be interesting to see how much of this we can all remember a week from now for the JYM dance, but it was a fun way to spend my Saturday.  Much better than all the homework I should have done yesterday and should be doing right now...