Day 4 in the United Kingdom

Today we all discussed how lucky we were to have visited the UK. Thinking about it, we thought about how it would suck if we went to Japan, or Russia, and not understand anything they said, either because of their funky accent, or if they just didn't understand English. We decided that today was going to be our relax day, meaning without any intense physical exercise; so after a breakfast of bacon sausages and eggs, we went back to our room and talked about what we wanted to do. After much talking and debate (we're talking about a lot of talking and debate), we decided to go listen to some music. In addition, we all agreed to spend the whole day exploring different aspects and styles of music. We went to the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, a music venue, and listened to Blood Red Shoes. There were elements of punk, hardcore, post-rock, electronica, jazz and full on metal. Blood Red Shoes are two people, Laura-Mary Carter (vocals and guitar) and Steven Ansell (vocals and drums), and their album Hysterics was released on Hassle Records to huge critical acclaim in 2008. After that, we went to O'Neill's near O2 and ate a scrumptious lunch of Irish beef burgers and sodas, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, the whole deal. We then went to the St Paul Cathedral for Cancer Research UK's (a research group that researching a cure for cancer) biennial Christmas Carol Concert. There was St Paul's Cathedral choir, the Band of the Scots Guards, and extremely talented soloists. All proceeds from that event went directly towards Cancer Research UK's life-saving research. We then took a stroll around town, and when we got tired we took a taxi to the Cecil Sharp House, home to the English Folk Dance and Song Society, where we watched what we supposed would be considered a musical called "Maypoles to Mistletoe". It was a journey through the different seasons, exploring each month through music, dance, songs and stories, and all the while, they were focused on folk traditions. The entire day was a great experience, where we got to appreciate different varieties of music. We also bought lots of snacks to eat while we were being entertained, so dinner wasn't a problem at all. I'm sure that most of us would agree that that was a great day.

The "Maypoles to Mistletoe" crew


http://www.efdss.org/events/eventsdetails/eventsId/558/displaydate/2012-12-09