Day 37 MONASTERIES

Sorry.. I do not know why the formatting got messed up on this entry! I cannot seem to find a way to fix the fonts.'

So the monasteries were 400something kilometers away so it was a very long drive. We visited 3 monasteries and a salt mine as a surprise stop on the way home. Every square inch of wall space on the outside and inside of the monasteries was painted with frescoes. These frescoes consisted of Old Testament and New Testament scenes as well as a lot of saint's lives and a little bit of historical-ness. It was gorgeous. The pictures do not do it justice. There was so much symbolism that it would take forever to just sit down and decipher it all. It was like one massive puzzle. Dr. Porter was saying that the monks and nuns use these frescoes as very visual ways to teach the gospel. I could have spent hours identifying the scenes from the bible etc. The chapels' architecture even was riddled with symbolism. The floorplans greatly resemble the floorplan of solomons temple. Different from catholic churches, orthadox churches are seperated into 3 distinct rooms and a 4th room called 'altar' that lays beyond the innermost room. The 'altar' is where the communion wine and bread is kept and only the priests are allowed to go back there. It is separated by an elaborate wall and the door is covered with a 'veil'. Mario is orthodox so she answered all of our questions and it was cool for us to teach us more about her religion that is so deeply ingrained in her own life and personal history.

We bought prayer candles for 50 bani (15 cents). You light the candle, say the prayer and place the candle on the side for the living or for the dead depending on who your prayer is for.

Mario was saying that during communism, the government were afraid of the people attending church. They thought that it provided too much unity. She said that the government promoted the dance clubs and discotecs instead. She said the police would lock the dorm hall and dance hall doors with the students inside. She said that her friends and her would sneak out the windows to visit the churches.

Wishing well... jk.. it was the nuns water source. You could drink from it!

The Head Nun and I. She was the nicest woman ever!

The landscape was breathtaking.. just farms and farms. The forests were gorgeous with the fog.. the trees were unbelievably tall. I could not get over it! They were just skinny and tall pine trees that shot up for-ev-er. One girl was saying that it is a lot like this in the northwest with just skyscraping trees and just mossy and ferny (is that a word) forest floors but I have never been so this was so incredible to me! but yeahhhh our professors leave tomorrow morning but it seriously was such a fun trip. We were all laughing and joking and snacking and the drive home was so nice to sit and relax and listen to my Incubus and think about my love back home!

So next week is a massive holiday in the city. The Saint Sfanta Paraschiva's "day" is next thursday and so it has just turned into one big week of celebration starting tomorrow. They have shut down a couple of the main streets and just have stands and stands of shops and food and music. There is also two massive Octoberfest tents dedicated to beer down the road and I can hear them right now from my apartment haha. We are all very excited for next week though.. that is when I am planning on buying my souveneirs and christmas gifts because there will be so many local things for sale.