Feis ATL post-mortem

Today, I was at the Marriott Marquis.  I have a lot of great memories there, as it's been my home base for many Dragon*Cons.  However, this time was different, and a little weird at first.  This may have been the first time I was in the Marriott wearing jeans, sober, and could see the floor.  It was still comforting to see a number of overly styled wigs and outrageous outfits, but this, dear reader, was no sci-fi con.  This was a feis.

You may be asking yourself, "What the hell is a feis?  Is that even a real word?" A fees, dear reader, is an Irish dance competition.  Lots of dancing (duh), lots of expensive dresses, big curly hair, and a number of vendors to satisfy your every dance related impulse buying need.  Because, you know, an event without something you don't need screaming "BUY ME!" is an event incomplete.

My ID teacher and a bunch of new beginners met up in our school t-shirts so we could go see what this feis thing was about without the stress of being thrown into this bizarre new environment and expected to dance and somehow know what the hell is going on.

Within a few minutes of arriving, I saw a number of fluffy curly wigs and elaborately decorated dresses waiting in line at the Starbucks, and my reaction was basically "FDSNJKFERNOA I NEED TO MAKE ONE!"  I have seen photos of these dresses, but it did not prepare me for how they look in person.  I mean, loads of rhinestones and sequins in a photo are pretty, but in person it's like blinding twinkling madness.  I couldn't pay attention to anything, sparkles kept walking past and distracting me.

The main thing we did was watch the dancing, and let me just say after I got over my initial reaction of feeling so insecure and newbly, let me tell you, it gave me a lot of motivation to practice.  In fact, after I finish writing this I'll probably get off of my butt and practice my slip jig.

After watching some dancing, we travelled en masse to the shoe vendor.  Most dancers at my school already have soft shoes and will be starting hardshoe in January.  I still didn't have ghillies (I've been wearing leather ballet slippers), so that's what I was shopping for.  Tried on some hardshoes as well so I'll know what I need when the time comes.

I was so excited to get my shoes, but then I couldn't.  The vendor only had my size in split soles, and my teacher insisted upon full soles, so I had to order them based on how the split soled shoes fit.  A bit of a shame, as the shoes I tried on were very attractive on my feet.  I can only hope the full soles look good too!

The rest of the day was more watching dancing and feeling awe stricken, staring at dresses, and browsing the pretty things for sale.  That's about it.  Now I need to practice my butt off.