Devil of a Holiday

The weekend in Hamburg was terrific. We had possibly the best Lindy hosts in the entire world, Arne and Fabian, who made sure to check with us on our breakfast preferences before we left, and then greeted us with a smile on arrival in Hamburg. They have a really interesting, large apartment at the top of a very steep spiralling staircase in a building in a handy part of the city. Hopefully they will get to Cambridge (or maybe even Melbourne?) one day so that we can return the favour. Lotte had a baptism of fire into the international lindy hop teaching world, with 12 hours of teaching over 2 days assisting Bill. The advanced classes were quite a decent level, so she had her work cut out for her, and she did an amazing job. At the end of the weekend they had them in the palm of their hands, and the students were all starting to really get it. I enjoyed the opportunity of a weekend with no responsibilities apart from doing a bit of DJing and having fun. I also met a DJ with perhaps the most astounding collection of beautiful swing music I've ever met -- Swingin' Swanee. This woman is a professional, and it shows. Bill, Ellen and I took her on in the DJ Battle and never stood a chance. I heard she owns around 4,000 albums, most of which were in her personal vinyl collection. She has only fairly recently started using CDs to DJ. I highly recommend getting hold of her CD collections Wild Party, Devil's Holiday, and That's Rhythm from Ceraton.