Domkirk, Utrecht

Today was the first day I really got to do anything. I crashed out at six PM last night, when I could no longer hold my head up when sitting in a recliner. I woke up around six AM, so I'm calling that twelve hours of sleep. And that is the last I'm going to say about jet-lag.

I went out and grabbed a bus into the city center, walked around for a couple hours, then took the tour up the Domkirk. More on this below, as it's a big deal. I got harassed by some teenagers at some point - I could tell they were hacked off because I'm a foreigner, but quite frankly whatever maledictions they were heaving went quite over my head. Please note - if you're going to insult someone on the basis that they don't speak your language, it would behoove you to do it in theirs. Otherwise, you know, it somewhat loses the intended effect. It certainly wasn't intimidating, as there were only three of them, and they looked like bored upper-middle-class white kids.

I managed to order things from a takeaway stand, buy some other necessities, and communicate needed information with the bus driver. So, my language skills are getting better. That is, I know maybe ten or fifteen words now. Still pretty crappy. I need to study my language stuff tonight, if I feel up to it.

And now, the good part: The Domkirk.

The Domkirk is a big damn ancient church, in a nation, indeed a continent, of big damn ancient churches. The part between the transept and the bell tower/bishop's quarters was destroyed by, allegedly, a tornado, but you don't get a lot of tornados up here so it was probably just really high winds. History is a murky place. In any case, the tower is now a separate structure from the church (kirk) proper, and they take tours up it. You end up about a hundred meters high, so this involves a whole lot of walking. Anyway. This is the church:

And this is the tower:
There is a lot of stained glass, which is something I have a weakness for.

There are a crap-ton of stairs inside. You go up however many meters, and then the guide will stop in some big room and give you a history lesson. This is pretty interesting, but I didn't get in a lot of pictures. Nobody else was taking them, and I was worried there was some no flash photography rule (because I couldn't figure out why else tourists wouldn't be snapping photographs like paparazzi on speed.) However, I couldn't resist getting a picture of this room when I managed to slip away from the guide for a bit. This was the bishop's private chapel, where he could pray by himself, write, study, and do whatever else it is bishops do. I imagine him sprinting diagonally around the room, myself. My poor tiny flash couldn't do much for this room, which is frighteningly large, but here you go.
Then, we got to the top.
There was actually a guy somewhere up in that playing the bells while we were there. Those are the new ones, by the way. There are also the original ones down in the guts of the tower. The big one weighs over 8 metric tons. It was pretty sizeable. I'm given to understand that ringing them all (which only happens on special occasions) takes a team of 25 men. I conclude that they are very, very loud. I am most glad the hyperkinetic children in the group did not attempt to ring it.

Photos from the top:





As you can see from this series of slides, the European person is never satisfied with a single church. It offends his sense of radial symmetry. Once he has finished building, say, the largest gothic cathedral in his nation, which was of course at that time the highest man-made structure in the nation, he is immediately displeased with his own work. In order to create a sort of protective zone of sanctity, he must immediately surround it with other, smaller churches, much as a large solar body naturally attracts a group of orbiting celestial objects.

Coming soon: Cultural Notes.