A lot of holidays happen in the spring, especially religious holidays. That is why in this period I feel more of a stranger than ever in the great country of Denmark. The most spread religion here is Protestantism. So, they are Christians following the catholic religious calendar...just like most of the Western countries.
Now, I am officially an Orthodox. This to them has no meaning, as most of them never heard this term in their life. So..this makes it so difficult for me to explain what Romania actually is historically and so difficult for them to understand the way Romanians might be by following cultural patterns such as language and religion. How could it be easy for a person who doesn't really learn in school anything about East Europe to understand that Romania in a Latin country with a Latin language, surrounded by Slavic countries and which has actually a Slavic religion but was not part of the USSR and actually has a long time history in the area? As my IPM teacher would say *This is not poooosible*
I am not a religious person, though I have been baptized as an Orthodox. This was actually not my decision to make...it's just following traditions. Traditions which from birth take a democratic right away from you..the right to choose and perform your religion. Anyway, this is a controversial topic, for me at least. Not only was I baptised and became part of something I don't really feel part of, but it was and still is mandatory to learn it in school. So, even if I am not a religious person, I still have this great frustration of not really being able to choose and properly celebrate. And now for me it is chaos. Easter is getting closer and everybody will celebrate it here on the 12th of April, and we will have a long holiday to enjoy Easter at that point. I don't mind some time off from school, is just that I feel somehow sorry that on the Orthodox Easter (19th of April) I will not have part of anything. I am again forced to celebrate something which doesn't really exist for me. I am free to do whatever right, but not really...I have to take that long holiday for the Catholic Easter and not work for 3 days in that period. If I could choose I could actually finish with school a week earlier and I would also earn money for those 3 days of work which I don't actually have to take off.
Oh yeah and today it's St. Patrick's day. It has absolutelly no emaning for me and I have no idea what it is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick), but I will celebrate it as everybody does with green bier and a green outfit.