Epic European ATS Adventure!

I recently returned from Berne in Switzerland, where I completed my General Skills with the creator of the ATS format, Carolena Nericcio!
I am super rubbish at writing about awesome experiences worth writing about (fail!) so here is a handy bullet point list!

Five Awesome Things about my General Skills Workshop Experience

1. Meeting so many lovely, passionate dancers from across Europe. I had such a rockin' time hanging out with you guys!
2. Carolena was so so sweet and lovely and so cute - she was so much nicer than I ever imagined her. She was such a happy chappy. (Don't tell her, but she reminded me of a lovely, calm, friendly badger. Shhhh.) And the way she moves - hot damn. It's like snakes and ripples and oil and water and muscle all in one. Super inspiring. 
3. Polishing up all my ATS skills and FINALLY learning all the ATS goodness in a cohesive, awesome manner that all MADE SENSE, getting to ask questions, sorting out stuff that had me foxed and learning new variations. ATS is so so fab, and I am so grateful that I get to dance it.
4. Megha Gavin, Carolena's co-teacher, was so warm and bubbly and fun to dance and hang out with. She's a gorgeous dancer and an awesome teacher, and I will never forget tales of her daughter's Harry Potter/Dr Who Combination Anxiety. 
5. Fulfilling a dream I have had for years: Travelling to learn ATS, the root of tribal fusion, from the creator of the style. Wooohoo! Dream Complete! Lets do it again some time.     

Five awesome things about Berne:

1. The beautiful river running through the city is blue! Not brown, like our rivers here in blightly, but proper, beautiful, clear, see-the-bottom blue. And you can swim in it! When it's not chilly April.
2.  Amira and her husband hosting the workshop were so, so lovely and went really out of their way to make us foreigners feel welcome and looked after during our stay in Berne.
3. Open air Berne Bear Zoo! Free zoo! Come on!!
4. Everyone in Switzerland seems to earn lots of money. Everyone. Let's move to Switzerland!
5. It's gorgeous. The buildings in the center all all from the middle ages, and are so beautiful. Everything is green and there trees and gardens lining the river and along loads of back streets. It's weird, it's like being in england, but not - the architecture is kind of similar, but completly alien at the same time - the stone used is green, the buildings just seem scaled up and are more solid and enduring somehow.

Completing my General Skills was amazing, and was the best birthday present to myself ever!