This trip has been glorious. I have never traveled much, and this is my first trip to anywhere in Europe. I'm stopping everywhere for pictures (my poor, patient companions!), some of which will get downloaded to the blog within the next couple of days.

Singing in the cathedral is amazing! Many, many thousands of people have worshiped in this space over the course of more than 800 years. As we were processing up the aisle at the beginning of our first evensong Monday night, I felt the beauty and the majesty of the space. In the choir stalls, there are candles on either side of each space that a chorister sits at. The candles make sense in a way that they never have for me in American churches. Here, they LOOK like torches; the cathedral gets the bulk of its light from the stained glass windows and these candles, with some electric lighting supplementing them during the service, but not much.

I don't have the words to describe the sound in the space. The architecture magnifies and reverberates the sound, and creates something truly beautiful. When I got hold of the earphones tonight after the service, I looked at David Maurand and said, "This is us???" Some of the music from tonight's evensong will be posted on the blog tomorrow; please look for it. Our congregation has heard tonight's anthem MANY times over the years, but it didn't sound like this!

The people have been very friendly here, and I've enjoyed sharing our reason for being here with some that I've met along the way, and inviting them to the cathedral for services.

The cafe is about to close, and so shall I; I'll drop in again later in the week.

Robin