Who'd have thought it?

So, here it is, my first blog installment. I am not sure if my life in interesting enough to deserve its own blog, but this is not the time to judge; that'll be much later, when I'll try and sell it to a publisher.

To start this off with an exciting episode from my life, I'll recount yesterday's visit to a Slavic Orthodox service. The Slavic Orthodox church is basically the same as the Russian Orthodox one, only it's officially part of the Roman Catholic church. Still, they do everything the same.

As the Slavic Orthodox church has been in Maastricht for forty years, they had a special celebratory service yesterday, and I attended. We were actually going to attend with a lot of people from Tafelstraat, but I presume most of them overslept or couldn't be bothered in the end, as only myself, Noémi and her sister, who came over from Groningen for the weekend, were there.

There were a lot more people than I had expected - I had envisaged it in advance as ten elderly people in the church, and there actually being more clergymen than visitors, with us clearly the youngest and then subjected to lots of questions as to why we were there. We were still some of the youngest, and we were asked some questions, but my thoughts on the clergyman/visitor ratio as well as the attendance numbers were off in the extreme - the church was so crowded we had to sit in a chapel on the side, from which we couldn't see much of what was going on (only the occasional incense-waving and bible-lifting, really).

The service altogether was an entirely new phenomenon to me: to me, going to a church service is basically sitting in the church benches for about an hour, listening to the pastor, singing a psalm or protestant song - usually at a very slow pace, the way we Dutch like it (even our anthem's tune was taken from a French battle-song, but we toned down the speed so much you'd expect the music to have come from a funeral march instead!). Then, after the singing and listening, you have a cup of tea or coffee and go home.

FORGET ALL THAT

That is nothing like a Slavic Orthodox service at all.

Firstly, imagine a service where everything, yes, EVERYTHING, is sung. And not simply sung, no. IT IS SUNG IN RUSSIAN. That may seem a little odd. Then remember (or hear for the first time, whichever applies), that Orthodox services think long = good. So, basically, we sat in church for two hours, by which time the service had progressed to the communion part (after three quarters of an hour of foreplay). However, Orthodox communions are different - you have to tell the priest your Christian name, put your head back and then the priest will stuff the communion down your throat (the Protestant communion is to be preferred, as someone will hand you the bread and the wineglass and you can take as much as you like). As this was a longer procedure, and apparently many people were interested in getting the communion (not including us), and we weren't all too keen on sitting for another two hours, we decided to call it a service and leave. Apparently, it is not uncommon in the Orthodox church to leave in the middle of a service. Now you know why.

Then we went to a terrace on the Slevrouwe-plein, where we had a drink and some vlaai.

Quote of the Day:

"English villages aren't run. They just happen."