I turned 38 in Caracas. Hip hip hooray!

I was lucky enough to have my birthday fall on a Saturday night so I figured it’d be relatively easy to find a place to go dancing. Je je je. None of the guys that I stay with are dancers, but there is a female volunteer (Yakelin) who stays at another house and she likes to dance, so she brought a friend and the 5 of us went out. I basically told the guys, I hadn’t gone out dancing yet because I didn’t think it was a good idea for me to walk home alone, late at night. I told them that if they came out with us, I wouldn’t bug them about dancing. I just wanted some company for the walk home so they were fine with the idea of coming out for the evening.

Overall the day was a long day for me, and very hot.
I was supposed to leave the house at 9:30 for a language practice session from 10 – 12, but I got delayed.
…For good reason! I showed Jose the 7 bites I’d gotten on my hand the night before to encourage him to find me a mosquito net. He said that he had looked at one place but that they had been out. He suggested trying the old mosquito net that I had been told existed, but had a bunch of holes in it and was pretty much useless as far as the others were concerned. I figured that it was better than nothing, so Jose showed me where the old junky mosquito net was and I got it down and took it up to my room. Anyway, I left the house about 20 minutes late, but then I went to the wrong metro station. So I ended up being about an hour late. ~ not a big deal in Venezula, but it cut our practice time in half because I had to be back at the house by 1pm for an interview.
To make up for being late, my language partner and I practiced mostly in English, but he clarified some useful phrases for me. He also loaned me a Venezuelan video that we (the house + guests) are going to watch tonight (Sunday).
One of the guys in the house was nice enough to text me and tell me that the afternoon interview had been pushed back so I was able to stay and practice for an extra hour. But then I had to walk home in the blazing sun and I was pretty tired by the time I reached the house.
When I went upstairs, it smelled absolutely scrumptious because Dada was baking a birthday cake for Hans and I. (Hans’ birthday is on Tuesday.)
At about 3pm, none of the people who were supposed to be coming to lunch had shown up, so we went ahead and ate without them.
Then Dada and I started to practice some Spanish for our evening language lesson with Yakelin. Around 5pm she and another friend, Ruth, showed up. Yakelin brought me a beautiful white rose for my birthday.  When she first arrived, she started talking to me but I just couldn’t understand what she was saying and I almost started to cry … my brain melted. So I told her that I needed to go rest for 10 minutes and that I would then come back and try again and that is what I did. I ended up skipping my Spanish lesson that evening because my brain was tired.
Jose and his friend who has a radio show arrived about 6pm and they didn’t want to eat because they were going to a party later. He invited us to go with him, but we decided against it because it was in a barrio that we didn’t know and we didn’t have anyone that we knew who was comfortable being out guide there.
Anway, Dusty and Spencer asked the radio guy a bunch of questions. It was sort of odd because there were times where I was able to understand almost everything he said and then whole other sections where I only understood a few words. I think it is because of the gaps in my vocabulary.
After the interview was over, I went up and took a shower and got ready to go out dancing. Dusty made a pot of coffee because we were all tired but everyone was still willing to go out.  [The sun can really take a lot of energy out of you!]
So, we walked down the hill around 8pm and stopped at one of the restaurants in the mall for our first beer. The conversation mostly focused on what the drinking games are in Venezula. I thought it was funny that there is a version of “I’ve never” that is played here.
We decided to go somewhere else for our second beer and took the metro to Chaicito station. There we walked around looking for Juan Sebatian Bar, when we finally found it, things didn’t go very well. Three of us were in jeans and it is a coat and tie kind of place. Yakelin talked the door man into letting us in, but as we went in, the door guy told Spencer “you’d better leave a big tip at your table” so we decided that it wasn’t the place for us to hang out. Yakelin was disappointed, but it really was a bit pricier than we’d expected. I suggested going back to a place that we’d passed that advertised pool and beer because it was still early and I didn’t think there would be much dancing.
So, we went back to where I had seen the sign and walked down to where I thought was the place. It looked like a restaurant and bar and there was good music and I thought that I saw some pool tables in back. At first they told us that the place was full, so Yakelin was making moves to leave, but I hung out and the door men relented and let us in. 
Inside people were dancing, drinking, eating. They also had buckets of beer (10 beers for 50 B … basically about $1 per beer) so the guys were happy.
The staff found us a table upstairs but when a good song came on Yakelin and I went back downstairs to dance. Everyone there was dancing as a couple, but Yakelin is young and cute, so of course one of the guys at a table wanted to dance with her. He made his friend ask me to dance so that he could dance with Yakelin and I felt bad for the guy because I could see that he really didn’t want to dance with me but I figured, heck dude, it is just one song and it is my birthday, so yes, please dance with me.
So we started dancing and about 30 seconds into it I could see his face start to change because he saw that I really could dance. About halfway through the song, he looked like he was actually having fun and I was having fun matching his footwork and at the end of the song he thanked me and said that I was a good dancer. Then the next song, one of his friends came over and danced with me. His friend was an even flashier dancer than the first guy so I really had fun matching his footwork. Then the song changed and I had to follow without being able to see his footwork, but I did Ok there too. One of the connections that we had was a forehead connection and it was so hot in there that by the time the song was done, I about looked like I had just gotten out of the shower. But it felt really good to be on a dancefloor again! 
Then I went back upstairs and hung out with the crew for a while and watched the dancing down below.
Our table was back in the corner and Spencer and Yakelin were talking a bit with the waiter. He was a nice guy, a bit older, and Spencer started saying that the waiter was saying nice things about me. At first I figured that someone at the table had told this guy to chat me up because it was my birthday. He started writing me notes in English, but I just took it all as a big joke and figured that my coworkers were having fun with it.
Later while I was still upstairs, there was another couple at a table near ours and the woman there caught my eye and gave me a thumbs up about my dancing. She and her partner were drinking and dancing upstairs and they were VERY good. They would drink and then get up next to their table and dance, then sit back down and drink some more. They were a lot of fun to watch and I loved the fact that there was enough space for them to dance right next to their table. She was doing a little foot kick that I was trying to figure out and I really enjoyed watching them.
The layout of the place was fantastic and people were really dancing everywhere, as well as infront of the band or infront of the DJ. It was basically two rooms separated by large archways with balconies over the archways so you could watch the dance floor in either room. The place was packed, with people of all different ages, including some families and little kids literally running in circles around the tables. LOL
When it came time for the really good couple to settle up their bill, they were talking to the waiter and then the guy came over and asked me to dance. I visually asked his partner/ (?wife?) if it was Ok and she said “yes.” So I got to dance with him and he was also a pleasure to dance with. It made me really happy and it reminded me of a welcome circle jam ... “Hello new person. We are glad you are here. Have fun and dance with us.”
So I felt welcomed into the Venezuelan dance scene. Definitely a good start to dancing here!
Later Yakelin and I were dancing together upstairs, goofing around and the flashy guy that I’d been dancing with downstairs came up and started dancing with the both of us. First he joined us and then he was trying to lead the both of us, but that wasn’t working very well. So the really good guy from the couple came over and danced with Yakelin and I got to dance some more with the flashy guy. I think he was Columbian. We stopped several times because he was wanted to do a different dance that I don’t know that has a hip swing or hip pop, but I couldn’t figure it out exactly and my language skills were not up to the task. So we just ended up doing some other dances instead. Of course, I should have suggested that he and I go back downstairs to dance because we scandalized my co-workers. (LOL I’d love to see their faces at a blues dance. We were being VERY tame. I promise.)
Later in the night, the chairs had been switched around and I was on the end, the waiter brought a glass with some nice whisky in it to share with me. I also shared it with Yakelin, so the three of us were passing his glass back and forth and he introduced himself and we had a nice little conversation. He said that we were friends and shook my hand, and I really appreciated the fact that he still wanted to say “hello” even though it was obvious that I wasn’t going to ask for his number nor give him mine.

So yes, best things of the night … I got to dance!!! And the people that I’m working with are cool and many of the Venezuelans that I am meeting are pretty cool and I think that overall, everyone had a good time. 