Ben (Center) with Elias & me after our "Black Bear" performance.
Ben had unofficially joined our team to document Addie’s tour and share in our little European adventure. The tour had made Addie the first NY female instructor to lead a company of mambo dancers into France.

We’re not going to lie, leaving London was tough for us. Our promoters, Sai Hon Lee & Deanne Chandler were wonderful hosts. We really bonded with them and they made us feel at home. But at the same time, we were all very excited about visiting Paris, the famed city of lights, home of Notre Dame and The Eiffel Tower. Our trip there was more like a hit and run mission. We knew that upon our arrival in France, we had little time for exploring and sight seeing and had to squeeze in as much as humanly possible. Our Paris contacts (Philippe & Oliver of the Salsabor Dance Company of Paris) met us at the airport and whisked us to our hotel (Hotel Residence Maeva Latitudes) where we would have just enough time to take a quick shower before rushing off to our first performance. What can I say, except for "no rest for the weary."

The Language Thing:
France proved to be a totally different experience from London. The language barrier provided a big challenge for our group. People don’t realize how important communication is until you need to do simple things like ask for directions, buy food, get medicine or read street signs. In the past we’ve been able to use our English/Spanish knowledge to get by, but not on this occasion. As a result of this trip, I think we all have a better understanding of what its like for foreigners to live or visit the United States. Luckily for us, Addie’s Paris contacts spoke enough English for us to communicate with them.

Clifford Jasmin & The Paris Scene:
The Paris Salsa Scene was also different from London. It was much smaller, but don’t confuse size with quality. The French Salsero’s can hang with any Salsa crowd I’ve ever had the pleasure to dance with. They are a very passionate group of dancers. I think that this is largely due to the efforts of French Mambo Instructor Clifford Jasmin. Clifford is the Director of The Salsabor Dance Company of Paris and the person responsible for bringing Addie and her dance company to France. The two had meet in NY the previous year during of one Delille Thomas’s Mambo Mash Social Dances. When Addie confirmed her trip to London, she contacted Clifford to see if he be interested in having her team visit Paris. Clifford was delighted with the idea and immediately set the ball in motion.

Addie Diaz & Clifford Jasmin 
(a.k.a The "Eddie Torres" of France)

Clifford Jasmin like many great dancers I have come to know, is a very down-to-earth, polite and sincere individual. He is known in Paris for his distinctive style of dancing mambo "On 2". Envision a style similar to Philippe Polanco of Puerto Rico, but oozing with a sort of sexual energy and you get an accurate picture of what Clifford is like on the dance floor. Everything he does is done in fun and good taste. This same style of dancing was evident with many of the Paris Mamberos we had the pleasure of dancing with. Its because of the influence that Clifford has had on the Paris Salsa scene, that makes me think of him as the "Eddie Torres" of France.

Paris Clubs and Dancers:
The local salsa clubs we were able to visit varied in size. But for the most part I would say they provided ample space for the local population of dancers there. The music was very good thanks to the spinning efforts of local French DJ’s like DJ Issack. Let me tell you its always cool to listen to different DJ’s from around the world. It lets you know what’s hot and what’s not in their part of the world and occasionally you end up discovering some really cool tunes that you’ve hadn’t heard before. As for the local dancers themselves, as I said earlier, French Salseros are very passionate, but they’re also very aggressive. They had no problem coming up to any of the members of our group to ask us out to dance. I spent most of my free time moving from one partner to the next. Whenever I had a free moment to come up for air, I could see Addie, Elias and Josephine doing much of the same. Addie told me she really enjoyed dancing with these French Mamberos. They had her cracking up with their playful "Clifford-like" antics. And I know she loved "zinging" them with a little of their own medicine in return. As usual Addie seemed to act as a magnet. Women would come up to her to ask her about her styling, while men wanted to ask her out to dance. I’ve always thought that much of her popularity derives from the fact that she comes across like the person she is: sincere, down-to-earth and easy to talk to. Its nice to know she has such a nice reputation in the mambo community and never lets it get to her head. She is still the humble laid back person I first met years ago.

Posing after our "Los Mexicano" gig in Paris

Performing:
Performing in Paris left our team (particularly Josephine) with several unique memories. First Josephine developed a full fledge fever by the time we arrived there. She was so ill that she couldn’t perform at our "Los Mexicano" gig and we were forced to leave her behind at the hotel. The second occurred the following night at our "I’Evasion" gig. Josehine’s finger got slammed on a trap door so bad that she lacerated her finger to the bone. But like the pro, with pain, lacerated finger and all; Josephine finished her performance. Immediately afterwards she was taken to a local hospital by Jacque Przyblyski (Salsaweb Europe Correspondent and member of Salsabor Dance Company) to get some stitches. Luckily for Josephine, our 3^rd and last performance in the city of lights occurred without incident. We were performing at the Black Bear club (sort of what the old Bayamo Bar/Club/Restaurant was like). The elements that night seemed to be in our favor; Clifford and his Salsabor Company members were there for moral support, the crowd at the Black Bear seemed really receptive and the owners of the club were super cool with us. When it was time, Addie led us out to the floor where we took our spots. Her contagious trademark smile spread over our dance group like wildfire. We were having a great time out there (like we normally do) and the crowd felt it. By the middle of our first number, the audience was mirroring Addie’s smile. They were reflecting it right back at us as if we were feeding off of each other’s energy. No language barrier here, we were all "speaking" mambo. By the time we finish our last number, the crowd was asking for more. It was a great way to finish our last performance.

Workshops:

Addie Teaching a Ladies Styling Workshop @ "Club La Nacion"

Our last day in France (Sunday January 30, 2000) began with a full agenda of mambo workshops at "Club La Nacion". It was a grueling workload that required Addie to pace herself in order to successfully teach three back-to-back mambo workshops. Her mambo workshop marathon included a Ladies Styling Workshop, a Beginner Workshop and Intermediate/Advance Level Workshop. As usual, Addie walked in with a lesson plan in hand and was ready to go. She knew exactly what she was going to teach. No wasting time, guessing or making things up as you go alone. She takes teaching very seriously and was prepared to work. Most of her classes covered open floor shines, partner work and styling tips. She managed to fit in Ladies styling segments in all her classes, which went over well with local female salseras. The entire team pitched in to help Addie. Elias and I worked whenever possible with the men, while Addie and Josephine worked with the ladies. During partner work we all did our best to give everyone the attention that they needed. Students were grilled with shines, routines and partner work. Not only were her workshops well received, but so was her instructional video. People were flocking to buy copies of her Addie-tude Vol.1 Beginners NY Ladies Styling so fast that we ran out of copies.

Sight Seeing:

Elias & me standing in front of Norte Dame

Believe it or not, our team did manage to get in some sightseeing on our only day off (Saturday, January 29^th). We made our way around the city via: taxis, the underground and on foot. Getting around would have been really difficult if it weren’t for Ben. Luckily for us, Ben had stayed in Paris a few years back and knew his way around. With him acting as sort of a tour guide, we made our way around the city. We saw several famous sites like Notre Dame Cathedral. Boy did it seem huge!!! Sorry folks, we didn’t get to see any hunchbacks dancing to salsa music, let alone ringing any bells. We continued the rest of our morning walking, souvenir shopping, doing other errands like exchanging cash, window shopping and people watching. By early afternoon we made our way to this little French restaurant that Ben had recommended to us. Their food was great, but their service sucked. It seems that French restaurants unlike their U.S. counterparts close for a couple of hours each day until dinner. Our waiter got a little annoyed at us because we were stopping him from taking his midday break. So I think he took it out on us with "sucky" service. I guess we couldn’t expect to make friends everywhere we went. Our little mambo brigade continued the remainder of the day doing some more walking, picture taking and video taping our little escapades as we learned our way around the Paris Underground. By the end of the night, there was only one item left on our sight seeing agenda: The Eiffel Tower. Let me tell you America might have the Grand Canyon, The Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge, but the French have the Eiffel Tower. We got there just as the tower lit up with its light show extravaganza. I was told that it was the same show given during Paris’s 2000 New Year’s Eve Celebration. I could only describe it as breathe taking. By the time we got to the hotel, we were ready to do some heavy bed crashing. Though we were all going to regret not using the day off to catch up on some much needed sleep, I think that our group thought it was worth the sacrifice. At least now we could say that we saw the sites in Paris.

Going Home:
Our last night in Paris was a short one. We got home around 1 a.m., with just enough time to get to our hotel, re-pack all our clothes, costumes & souvenirs; get two hours sleep and head downstairs to catch our airport ride with Philippe and Oliver. This was the end of Addie’s European Addie-Tour 2000. Paris and London left us with a lifetime worth of memories and we will always be eternally grateful to all the wonderful people we met during this journey. Though we might have wanted to stay some more, it was time for us to get back. I know Addie for one, missed her kids was dying to see them. On the plane ride back to NY we laughed at our recent experiences in Europe, shared our thoughts on what we thought were our best moments and all looked forward to doing another European Addie-Tour again sometime in the future.