Christmas AGAIN!

Fortunately for me, today is Christmas again!

That's right, since St. Nicholas here in Oxford is a parish of the Moscow Patriarchate, they follow the old calendar, which means that today is Christmas!

Happy Christmas!

Unfortunately for me, today is also the first day of orientation. So I have to go a bit early, and try to explain that today is indeed Christmas, and that there is indeed Christmas service this morning.

In other news, I washed my hair two days ago, and was afraid that when I woke up this morning it would be nasty, like it usually is this much later. But to my surprise and delight, I haven't washed my hair in a few days, and it is better than ever! (Benjamin, this is for you). These Brits don't wash their hair as often as we Americans do, and if it is always this awesome to not wash your hair, I may never do so ever again. Today is a pretty good hair day.

I'm off in a bit to Orientation. I am not so much a fan of Orientations, mostly because I generally like to Orient myself at my own pace, but now that we are mostly recovered from jet lag (although I have still managed to yawn through every church service I have been to so far), they assume we just want to hit the ground running. I still haven't been into town much, save that one foray led by Michael/Thomas.

So. I must leave for orientation now, but I must not forget to write about Russian Chant ("Byzantine tones are God's tones" - Brother Jeremy) and trying to read Slavonic (seriously, like 300 letters in that alphabet).

Actually, that pretty much sums up my thoughts on those topics. :) I love the little parish here, but I'm going to have to get myself to London, I think, and mix it up with some Byzantine tones.

All my love,
Erin