Inner, Inner City, Inner City Pressure

The second day I got back, I went with my roommate and some of his friends and old students downtown to go hang out. One of the students, Alex, I had met before. I remember him because he was this tall, skinny goth kid with long hair that was wearing leather pants. He's kind of an odd duck. Anyway, we were walking and we heard some music and saw a crowd of people. Oh, it sounds like hip-hop, he said to me. I asked him if he was going to show me some dance moves. He said he might, as he had been studying hip-hop dancing for a while now. I thought it was a joke...

We walked down to the crowd and it was a promotion for Puma and they were inviting people to sign up to participate in dance battles. The group convinced Alex to sign up. He signed up. This is when I realized that he really had been studying hip-hop dancing. He got his chance to dance and proceeded to fling his freakishly long arms and legs at a high rate of speed (presumably to impress the audience). We stayed and watched for a bit and saw some pretty talented amateurs. But then the dance crew rolled up (see picture above). They were fantastic but it's hard to take Slavs break dancing seriously (especially when they're doing their poses and flashing their signs). Bizarre.

Speaking of urban promotions, at the supermarket I go to (Ideya) they always have these weird things going on. You know how in the US beer advertisements usually aren't aiming for "classy"? The same is true here. I walked in to my Ideya and there is this girl standing just inside the door in a skimpy soccer uniform. Her job was to recite a spiel about this beer every time a male customer walked in. You just can't get away with stuff like that in America (and probably quite rightly).