Church in Spain

I figured that because I'm in Spain, I should attend a church service. Now, they're all Catholic (I haven't seen any Protestant churches anywhere, sorry Dad) but I figured it'd be a good experience. A few days ago, I realized that this would really be the last Sunday where I'd have a chance to go. I noticed one church that had hours posted. Unfortunately it was in Catalan. However, later that day I walked by one close to my house with signs in Spanish. There was a service at 12, so I decided to go on Sunday. Here's a picture of the inside.
Now, I've only been to a Catholic service twice before. Once with my family when Carrie was in her maybe-I-want-to-be-Catholic stage (We still love you Carrie!) and another time with Michelle (yes, she's Catholic).

Boy, there's a lot of rituals, and they are even more noticeable when you can't understand most of the words (although I was catching some, which was cool). Catholicism is, um, a little different, but we're all ending up in the same place.

Ah, one funny thing, I remember when we went as a family, while Chris and I stayed behind, my parents and Carrie went up for communion (hmm, is that capitalized?). I guess because they were not Catholic, they just crossed their arms and the priest just blessed them. I figured, pssh, when are you going to get another chance to do this, Chad? So I got in line here. As I got up to the priest he said, "El cuerpo de Cristo" (The body of Christ) and I crossed my arms across my chest. Hmm... I don't think they get too many non-Catholics in Catholic churches in Spain. He was kinda confused, and still offered the little wafer thing to me. There was a little awkward pause, because at this point I was already drifting away, but it was all good.

Anyway, it was nice to go to a service here in Spain. Gotta keep those random, different experiences coming!

Also, on a similar note, I suppose people have heard about the empty pews in Europe. How Europe is religious, yet not really and church attendance is down. Well, based on my guess of around 8 people a pew, the church could fit about 500 people. Based on a headcount, and adding on more to account for the "trickle" I'd say there were 70 people in there. Not that bad of a crowd.

Ah, but to my point, from what I've kind of heard and pieced together for myself, in Spain, one reason why there might not be great church attendance is because of what happened in the Spanish Civil War. The Catholic Church was on the "Right Side," or Franco's side, the dictator who overthrew the previous government and put Spain under a dictatorship until his death in 1975. Of course, not all Catholic priests and stuff were on the Right, but the reason why it was officially on that side is a little confusing to me. I think because communism was on the Left, and they were against the church (and in fact, many priests were killed during this war), and for various other reasons. Well, anyway, basically, that tarnished the Catholic image pretty bad. I mean, they supported a dictatorship. So that could be one attributing factor (pssh, hey, there's always the Protestants, Spaniards!).

I don't know if I've talked about ambulances in Spain yet. They seem to be everywhere, with their annoying little sierens.
It's also funny, and well I may not understand the complete picture, from my point of view and friends of mine whom I've talked to about this, it doesn't seem Spaniards get out of the way as vehemently as we do in the U.S. I've tried to pay attention to it more, and yes, at first it seemed like people would practically cut off ambulances and not budge at all, on closer inspection (with a more open mind) I think they just do a more carefree drift out of the way. This still forces the ambulances to dodge cars a bit, but not as extreme as I first thought.

And I just realized I can add videos to my blogs. Ooo!

And Nebraska is breaking my heart.