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Showing posts from January 13, 2008

Christmas Eve

In Alkmaar it's a tradition that on Christmas Eve crowds of people gather at Grote Sint Laurenskerk, a huge, 15th century French Gothic style church just a few blocks away. There was a stage setup inside and groups of people moving in and out all evening as each performance changed. The floor is composed of large, black stone slabs with beautiful art carvings in most of them, and two world-famous organs, the Van Covelens (also known as Koororgel, 1511) and the Van Hagerbeer or Big Schnitger (1636), were played during the service. Hundreds joined in on 12 songs during the service, with readings and a long sermon by a priest/pastor spaced in between the singing. The entire service was in the native language, so we were singing classics like "Silent Night" in Dutch, ha! A friendly guy with his son sat next to me. He couldn't speak English and I'm still not speaking a whole lot of Dutch, yet we actually enjoyed a great conversation and each others company. The whole t