Dancing Queen

For weeks us ladies have been dying to get out of the house at night and go dancing. Finally, since my host mother does not have to teach this week, she offered on Saturday to take us young devushkis out to tantsvat (to dance). She called up some of her younger friends and asked them to meet up with us. It turns out the younger gals suggested that it was too early to go to the disco and that we should take advantage of the super weather outside and join the rest of the town in buying a beer and drinking out in the park. My host was only planning on staying out for an hour, so she took off leaving myself and the other two young women in my cluster with her friends.

Shortly there after, we took off for the disco to shake our tailfeathers, which we took little time in doing.

The music at the disco was probably the regular Eastern European fare, some Ukrainian/Russian dance tracks thrown in with some other European, English, and American music. For example, I got to down to "Hollaback Girl" but chose to sit out a J Lo track. Even I have standards, people.

It was also an interesting cultural experience, as most of the night we were here only young women were dancing, and I am not even entirely sure that I could call it that, as it was more of a sort of ritual. In America, women will usually dance in groups. Here they do it alone, each in their tall shoes, short short skirts and see through tops, each working their hardest to look 'enticing' or 'sexy' for the male onlookers. One member of my group even commented on how this is the least favorite part of Eastern Europe, as having lived here extensively for some time. That the idea of women's rights or feminism has not really taken any hold here, and a man who isn't drunk all the time is considered an awesome catch.

So, we got up and did our thing, not in our high heels or skirts, and I'm sure that we stuck out, but who cares? We had a great time. And we did so enough to attract the attention on one courageous man who danced with another member of my group. His moves involved swivelling his hips and giving two thumbs up. Very interesting and sophisticated stuff here. Apparently he was dared by the two Ukrainian ladies to take his clothes off, which he also did (his sweater and shirt) and left his American dancing partner and myself feeling rather awkward about the whole thing (what drug is this man on???). Again, the Ukrainian ladies thought this dude was an awesome catch and seemed to enjoy his attention, while we Americans were like, he dude, that was cool, but let's just dance alone here...

At any rate, he was harmless, and he was nice, and he stayed later to probably try and find someone more receptive. We had a great time and I hope that we will be able to go back another night!