We went to a Ball!

Hello,

Martin and I did the most fun thing last weekend, we went to a ball! Martin's university (ETH) hosts a giant ball for reasons unknown every year that is apparently the largest ball in Europe. This year there were 10,000 guests! I was thrilled when I found out he'd gotten us tickets, excited for about three months, and the ball itself more than lived up to my expectations. The main building at ETH is staggeringly enormous and completely mazelike, which makes it perfect for an event like this. The theme was "Scheherezade," which meant everything was all decked out in Aladdin and Arabian Nights decorations put up by students and official event organizers. The people who attend the ball are a mix of students and actual adults, even people unrelated to the University, so it was a really big party.

 

 Main ballroom!

I couldn't possibly afford a dress at Zürich prices, but my big sister Sarah got married this summer and we had awesome bridesmaid dresses. My mom sent mine with a package I was getting anyway, and I became one of the only people ever to be really excited about re-wearing my bridesmaid dress!

 It's a little dark, but look how fabulous that dress is! Thanks, Sarah :)

We took the "crash course" dance class on Monday night to brush up our ballroom dancing skills, which was great because we spent the whole night going from one area to another and dancing to as many of the 20-odd live bands as we could. While bands were switching on the same stage they would have a dance show for a few minutes, so we could watch people demonstrate some super cool Charleston, swing, waltz, and salsa skills. Most of the dancing we did was swing (they had lots of big bands), salsa (two of the stages on the main floor were Latin music), and waltz in the main ballroom.

 Charleston show between sets!

When we weren't dancing, we stopped at some of the many, many bars and catering tables. Each one had its own theme, so the bar we got drinks from was Baruba. While we were swing dancing we were near the table selling waffles and ice cream, which got really appealing after a bunch of dances!

 

 This room is normally a gym! Unfortunately the big band (white blob) is between sets so you can't see the millions of dancers, but it was usually a packed dance floor!

 

We tried to explore the whole building, and we saw a lot of it. The main swing floor was down in what's normally the student gym, but was transformed into a fabulous dancehall. There was even a monkey riding a flying carpet back and forth up by the ceiling! Engineering schools are the best. We heard there was a cinema playing the Aladdin movie and its sequel (apparently it has a sequel), but we never managed to find that. The main ballroom was decorated with red and white stripes to look like that one really famous mosque (clearly I need to do my googling, but go back and look at the first picture. All of that is normally grey stone!), and the side areas of the main floor (with the Salsa bands) had a desert nights theme, complete with enormous (think half of a football field) hand-painted murals. There were murals on every plain wall, most of them massive, of Aladdin characters, constellations, scenes from Arabian nights, and famous buildings from the area. It was so cool! I'm trying to figure out how I can get on that committee next year. Even the hallways to the basement coatrooms were decorated or at least lit with colored lights.

Right before going home! Very happy campers. And no, my hair isn't shorter, I just got the layers weird.

We powerwalked home (it was below freezing and formal clothes aren't exactly warm, even with coats!) at about 3:30, found some friends for late-night snacking and recapping in the kitchen, and finally made it to bed around 4 (or 4:30, who knows?). All that plus a long run that morning, I wasn't fully recovered until Tuesday!

Katie