[caption id="attachment_889" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Happy Easter: Vesele Velikden"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-889" title="Orthodox Easter " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dsc07179.jpg?w=300" alt="Happy Easter: Vesele Velikden" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

On Saturday night, I stayed up late and then about 11:30pm I made my way to the Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church (on Graf Ignatiev).  I bought a candle from a man selling them on the street and began to get excited about the holiday.  The service starts at 12 midnight but even by 11:30pm there was a crowd starting to gather.  Many of the people there were sitting on benches sharing beer, talking and smoking.

[caption id="attachment_881" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church at Easter "]<img class="size-medium wp-image-881" title="BG Church " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dsc07147.jpg?w=300" alt="Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church at Easter " width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

By 11:45 a line was forming to walk into the church in order to pray and a throng of people were milling around outside of the church--young boys stood together in groups, couples huddled next to each other and families held on the hands of small children.  Also about this time, people started lighting their candles.  A little before midnight the church bells started to ring and the priest started to sing.  This was broadcast outside of the church on speakers.

Mostly people were still and listened but by no means were people silent.  As an outsider, it was interesting to watch this group of people participating in what is clearly a religious and cultural event.  After the priest got to the part of the service where he says: Christ is Risen and the people replied: He has Risen Indeed, the group outside of the church started to break up.  Some people began to walk home, others got out hard boiled eggs to test the luck and strength of their shells and others continued to stand outside of the church. <!--more-->

[caption id="attachment_882" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Colored Easter Eggs"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-882" title="Easter Eggs" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dsc07175.jpg?w=300" alt="Colored Easter Eggs" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

The eggs are a part of the tradition that stood out to me because it's not something that we do in the protestant tradition in United States.  I was standing next to two different groups of people: one an extended family and the other a ring of early-teenage boys maybe 13-15 years old.

The boys had stood with lit candles until after repeating Christ is Risen Indeed and at this point, out of their pockets came colored hard-boiled eggs wrapped in paper-napkins as if to protect the egg.   Each boy had an egg and the colors were much more vibrant that I've seen in the USA.  Most of the boys had red eggs but I saw a green one and a blue one as well.  They then held the egg in their hand and took turns tapping the ends of the eggs together.  The goal was to have the strongest (and thus) unbroken egg at the end.  There's great honor and good luck in being the person with the strongest egg.

It appears that if one end of your egg cracks then you can turn it around and use the other end for another contest/fight.  It was great fun watching everyone do this.  Watching the extended family was also a kick.  The mother figure pulled out 3 cartons of 6-eggs each.  Everyone took and egg and the contest ensued.  I don't know who won but I do know that as everyone was peeling their eggs (and dropping the shells on the ground) the mom pulled out of her plastic bag a salt shaker.  So that everyone could enjoy their hard-boiled eggs with salt.  I thought to myself: here's a mom who's done this a time or two.

But the service was still going on and about 30+ minutes into the singing and praying the priest lead a group of people out of the church to walk around the church three times (at this point, people still waiting outside of the church also joined in on the precession).  I hate to say this but I have no idea why the three times around the church.  I assume that it must have something to do with the trinity but I just don't know.

[caption id="attachment_883" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Me with my winning red egg"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-883" title="CAE and Egg " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dsc07170.jpg?w=225" alt="Me with my winning red egg" width="225" height="300" />[/caption]

I was home and in bed by 1am.  Got up the next morning and I ate some kozunak and got ready to go to my landlord's house for Easter lunch.  At my landlord's house I got to give the egg cracking thing a go and it went pretty well.  I was the "winner"--and this will be a tradition that I'll surely be bring home with me to the States.

Lunch was great.  We had a number of different salads and roast lamb.  The lamb was very well done but my landlord's son who speaks English wasn't at lunch so there was one funny moment when my landlord was trying to tell me in Bulgarian what kind of meat it was (агнешко).  I didn't know the word and finally I went through sounds of the top four barn-yard animals that we eat in my head (moo-moo, oink-oink, cluck-cluck and bhaa-bhaa).  I figured that it must be lamb (that and I know the names of the other animals in Bulgarian) but don't worry I did a little bhaa-ing to confirm.  And for the record, I was right.

Then we proceeded to talk to them about a range of different things in Bulgarian--I kind of wish that this lunch had been recorded because I am absolutely sure that I would have people crying if they could watch it because they'd be laughing so hard, so hard.  My Bulgarian is not good.  I can do day to day things but not much more.  Until yesterday that is when after a glass or two of homemade rakiya, I was talking about the financial crisis, my neighbors (who my landlord and his wife know), restaurants that I like to go to, monuments that I've been to in Sofia, my students and my school, places that I've traveled to and then I narrated photos from my trip to Turkey all in Bulgarian.

[caption id="attachment_885" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Easter Lunch with my landlord and his wife"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-885" title="Landlord and his Wife " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dsc071651.jpg?w=225" alt="Easter Lunch with my landlord and his wife" width="225" height="300" />[/caption]

Luckily for me, my landlord and his wife are good-natured and quick to laugh.  It almost makes me wish that I was in more situations where I had to use Bulgarian--you know sink or swim.  Because frankly, I was amazed at what was coming out of my mouth.

All in all, I had a great Orthodox Easter here in Bulgaria. Everyone was so kind to me.  The food was wonderful, my friends were so open and I came home with a few hard-boiled eggs and some kozunak with chocolate bits in it!!

Lucky, lucky me.

And Vesele Velikden to you!