Seminar, Westminster Abbey, and Bunty Looping

Today was our first Professional Development Seminar.  The topic du jour was Personal Leadership, and the lecture was actually pretty interesting.  It reminded me of Baby Stage Management a bit.  (And yes, Jen, I kept all of the hand-out materials to pass on to you...)

After the lecture finished, I hopped on the Tube over to the theatre district to take care of some business regarding an online booking of a ticket.  (Of course, this was preceded by about twelve heart attacks as I imagined missing Waiting for Godot because my ticket was being shipped to Indianapolis...)  All is well, though, and I will be seeing Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen on June 19.  :)

Then I headed over to Westminster, and walked down the bankside on my way to Westminster Abbey.  There was performance art everywhere...they were definitely straddling the line between innovative and touristy.  :)  When I arrived at the Abbey, the lines were relatively short, so I decided to go ahead and view it today.  The highlights for me were the tomb of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary as well as Poet's Corner.  (Interestingly enough, my audio guide died in Poet's Corner...I went back through the crowds to the front entrance to replace it, only to have the second guide die as soon as I made my way back to Poet's Corner.  The third one lasted me through to the end, fortunately.)

After Westminster Abbey, I looked around the Jewel Tower (information about Parliament, mainly) before going back to Nido and grabbing dinner and a nap...the constant walking and general rush of the city had worn me out, and I wanted to recharge my batteries for the evening.

This evening, I went to BAC because I knew that there was a free concert in the cafe.  Since I start working on Tuesday, I figured that the best way to become better oriented was to check out the festival itself (right now they're in the midst of Burst, which is their biggest festival of the year).  The artist is named Bunty, and her style was the broadest melting-pot of musical styles that I have ever witnessed.  (If anyone has seen Adam Crawley improvise music for the dance department, it was a bit similar.)  Basically, she would start off with a simple beat, then layer other rhythmic sounds over it using a microphone and some sort of sound looping equipment to keep the sounds going.  If you threw beat-boxing, rap, middle eastern folk music, German folk music, drum circles, and slam poetry in a blender (with a pinch of Regina Spektor), you would have tonight's concert.  One of my favorites was a song during which she told us to "Imagine that you are a middle-aged woman at a Moroccan wedding."  That particular song had the moments that I love so much in traditional music from that area, where you just have to close your eyes and feel the music reverberating in your chest.  :)  The concert was awesome, and Bunty was obviously having a blast...she even had an audience participation song.  Definitely a night well spent.