15 April 2012 - Russian Orthodox Easter

A tasty cake/bread with raisins for Easter

The Russian Orthodox church follows the Julian calendar, which creates differences in when Easter and Christmas are celebrated, so this year Easter was celebrated last weekend in most of Christianity but is celebrated today by the Russian Orthodox church.

I was curious whether there might be other differences in the celebrations and there do appear to be a few noteworthy aspects.  Let me say in advance, though (and in case it wasn't clear from my last post), that I am not a Catholic so some of the things that I may note may not be different from how non-Russian Orthodox Catholics may celebrate the holiday.

The biggest difference seems to be that the big celebration is not on Easter Sunday but the night before.  I had heard a bit about this celebration from a colleague (you may recall Larry from a previous posting) this week.  It came up as his birthday was this past week but he said he wanted to celebrate it next week because this is a special religious week.  I'm not sure whether that is a reflection of Lent still being in effect (it is apparently a seven week period here) and thus he couldn't indulge in cake or something else.  Anyway, he had mentioned that Saturday night was the big deal and he noted that the biggest celebration would be carried online on all the major channels and they culminated in the opening of the cathedral doors around midnight.  I was intrigued and wanted to learn more.

The celebration begins a bit before Saturday night, though.  A flame from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is flown to Moscow and is known as the Holy Fire.  I am curious about the logistics of having a fire aboard a plane, I will admit.  Anyway, this Holy Fire is used to light a bunch of candles, which the patriarch and other priests/officials take outside with them.  They then walk around the church, and approach the cathedral doors and enter as the bells chime that it is midnight.  The remainder of the audience is still inside the cathedral during this time.  The patriarch then goes to the front and proclaims that Christ is risen, while swinging the thurible.  The crowd responds back as he says this several times.

As far as I can tell, the remainder of the service seems to be a regular mass with all the traditions, beauty, music, ornate vestments and pomp that one would expect of an important holiday.  I believe that the service that was broadcast is the largest service in Russia and perhaps the world.  It was held in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior (which has an interesting history of its own) and was attended by over 6,000 people.  Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister (for now) Putin were in attendance and apparently (I didn't catch this part, so perhaps it was performed off-camera) exchanged Easter eggs with Patriarch Kirill who led the service.

A very interesting event that, of course, makes me wish I could understand Russian.  The following link provides a bit more background if you're interested and some photos and video links from the event.  Russia Today's article on Easter

This video link also provides some background.



One other thing that I have learned about the season through my grocery shopping, is that little cakes with some icing and other decorations appear to be popular for the season.  I bought the one pictured at the top of this blog and devoured it this morning.  Quite tasty and apparently a traditional cake/bread made with raisins.  It tastes like a braided bread my Mom makes at Christmas called Houska.  I looked that up today and it appears that Houska is a traditional Czech bread often made for Easter.  Who knew?

14 April 2009 - Back home

[Selections from the soundtrack from "The Lion King," in particular, "Circle of Life" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight." It'll make more sense at the end.]

I went home for Easter. Correction, I went to Illinois for Easter. Not because it's a particularly special holiday for my family, but because we get both Good Friday and Easter Monday (who knew there was such a thing?) off as holidays here and it was a good excuse to head back to the States. Highlights (and lowlights -- but no, I didn't have time for hair repigmentation, if you were wondering) included the following (in chronological order):


1. Economy class on American Airlines. This clearly is a lowlight, even though I had managed to score exit aisle seating. Nutshell, the firm's allowance for one trip home per year in business class is not enough for a single trip in business class, so I was left to my own devices. Wretched food, old planes, narrow seats, poor service, bad movies, unhappy (and not particularly attractive) flight attendants -- what's not to like?! It's perhaps no surprise that, even before I took this trip, I agreed to pay €50 more to fly on Lufthansa when I head back for a wedding in May.

2. Staying at my friend's (codename, Vixen) place on Lake Shore Drive the first two nights. The "SIP Suite," as she calls it, along with all other rooms in the condo, face directly onto the lake, so I woke up both mornings with sun streaming in over the horizon above Lake Michigan. Tough times....


3. Dinner with Vixen at Su Casa, one of my favorite Mexican restuarants. It's not particularly fancy but the food's good and Miguel, the handsome bartender, knows Vixen by name (her real name) and keeps us supplied with chips and the very, very tasty salsa. (Eat your heart out, Fuego brand sweet-and-sour tasting salsa.)


4. Providing a facilitation gift to the doorman at Vixen's digs. I set out for some Dunkin' Donuts on Thursday morning because I kinda missed it and asked the doorman where the nearest DD was. He told me and I asked if he wanted anything. Oddly enough, he did. So I brought back some coffee for him, only to discover that Vixen had forgotten to put me on her permission-to-enter list. Uhhh.... But he assumed (correctly) that if I had come out of the condo, I must have had permission to enter in the first place. Later in the day, a new doorman was on duty who I had not previously, um, facilitated. Long story, but he ended up calling the morning doorman who, upon learning it was the coffee chick trying to get in, told him to let me in immediately. Best coffee purchase I have made in a while (though I was shocked at the size of my own coffee as I have started getting used to the tiny coffee servings here, apparently, and was wired for hours).


5. Chipotle lunch with the Chicago team. My peeps in Chicago organized a group Chipotle order that we ate together in a conference room in the office. (Yes, we paid for our orders personally, for those who are ready to remind me that food is not to be provided for internal meetings.) About 30 people showed up, which was so touching. Alas, I didn't get to eat much of my steak burrito bowl because I was too busy answering questions about Germany! Also nice to just take a walk around the office and say hello to some of my favorite people who make the office hum like a well-oiled machine. (Ask me sometime about my plot to make sure the artwork from my former office - a bucolic scene that reminds me of a road and fields on the farm where I grew up - is not lost in the shuffle of moving to a new building which the firm does in 18 months.)


6. Adult beverages with some friends at the Berghoff. Need I say more?


7. Workout and spa action at East Bank Club. You may recall how I miss my gym and, since I am on inactive status, I am not allowed to go there. UNLESS, I am the guest of a current member. Lucky for me, Vixen had Friday off and recently rejoined EBC, so we got our respective workouts in and I scored a pedicure. Alas, my favorite massage therapist was not in. :-( And the huevos rancheros at The Grille were every bit as tasty and fat-laden as I had recalled. Mmmm....


8. Shopping. Love those cheap dollars. I particularly enjoyed having a fraud alert issued twice by the same American (!!) credit card company that apparently thought I lived in a post office box in New Jersey (which is just my mailing address) and someone was defrauding me making multiple purchases in Chicago. Nice.... As if it wasn't bad enough when Avis started speaking slowly and loudly to me when I presented my German driver's licensed, like I was a foreigner who couldn't speak English.


9. Blasts from the past. I headed out to the suburbs on Friday afternoon to attend a surprise birthday party with my brother and sister-in-law. I know the birthday boy, but know his wife better as I used to work with her some, um --well, since I was in high school and I don't want to count that many years. Turns out that some of the people I knew from way back then when I was a young punk clerk in purchasing, marketing operations, customer returns, advertising, and other departments are still there and were at the party. Nutty.


10. Quality time with my entire immediate family (except my oldest niece), plus some of Seth's in-laws who are always great to hang out with (and I'm not just saying that because some of them happen to read this blog, honest!). It's always a treat but I admit that it is also exhausting trying to keep up with my nieces! Combine their normal energy and multiply it several times because it seems to increase exponentially when they are together, add the excitement (and candy) of Easter and a new foster cat who didn't quite realize what he was getting into and you get the picture. Favorite moment might have been when the youngest (age 6, I believe) immediately upon seeing me started shouting, "Essen! Lesen! Musik hören!" Uhhh.... Eat, read, and listen to music? Yup. She'd been learning some German phrases on her Leap Pad in preparation for seeing me again. A geek after my own heart.

11. Cocoa Wheats at Mom's. I spent Saturday night at Mom's and she made me my favorite breakfast of Cocoa Wheats, which is a chocolate-flavored hot wheat cereal. And she even agreed to make them just like I love them -- with lots of lumps. Yummmm!!! And, true to her word, she also provided me with a supply of Cadbury creme eggs. Yes, I know how disgustingly sweet (and just plain disgusting) they are, but I like the things. I have come up with a process for carefully peeling off the foil at the top, leaving the bottom half intact so the egg's chocolate doesn't start melting on your fingers, and then carefully folding the foil from the top into a little ring that makes a nice holder for the egg while you rest between courses. Cuz seriously, not even I can eat one of those all at one time. Best of all, they freeze well. So Mom got me twelve of them -- one for each month -- which are now chilling in Frankfurt. Love it!

12. Easter mass and movies with one of my best friends (code name "Green") who is also with the firm. I am not Catholic, but Green is a regular attendee of Old St. Pat's in Chicago and invited me to attend Easter mass there. Beautiful church and a nice service. I am still a little slow on the responses to key phrases, though. Need a "Mass for Dummies" cheat sheet. Some other colleagues from the firm joined us at mass and then for brunch afterwards, which was a nice surprise and I do so miss Sunday brunch in Chicago. (We weren't working on Easter, honest!) Afterwards, another friend met us and we wandered around in the cold, windy weather for a while, grabbed dinner, and watched one of my new favorite movies, "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" which reminds me greatly of Green and me (I would, alas, be the frumpy Miss Pettigrew).

13. Afternoon Potbelly cookie break with my "brother" and "sister" at the firm. Miss both of them even more than I miss the Potbelly oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

14. Ending on 13 would just be bad luck, right? So let me end by saying that while I had a great time back in Chicago, it was also a surprisingly difficult experience for me. I considered it kind of like going home after the end of a long, multi-week project, but that was an underestimation. It wasn't even quite like going home after my three month corporate social responsibility stint in El Salvador. It was different. It was a realization that Chicago is my hometown but Frankfurt is now home. That my life there has moved on, whether I was conscious of it or not. That much as I love and miss my family, friends, and peeps, we are all moving on in our own way. Kind of sad sometimes, but it's the neverending process of life and growth.


So when I first started blogging, I took stock of the USD currency on hand ($150.06) and promised to revalue that amount each time I went home. It is now worth €112,77, versus €107,84 when I came over. Just in case you were dying of curiosity.