She also took us to St. Paraschiva Metropolitan Cathedral. This cathedral is the largest Orthodox church (biserica) in Romania. The main religion in Romania is Orthodox. It was really neat to go inside their church. It was very different and unlike anything I know. While I was inside I mostly watched the people that were inside and looked at the building. So many of the Romanians were kissing the pictures inside. Also a lot of them were just kneeling and praying. Inside you get the chance to kiss the hand of Paraschiva and write a prayer. We ended up doing both. We waited in line to go kiss the hand of Paraschiva. I touched the blanket of where her hand was but I wasn't too sure about the whole thing so I didn't kiss it. After that we wrote a prayer and handed them to the priest. After we handed him our prayers he rubbed something on our forehead. I'm not really sure what it was, neither was Chelsea. Some oil maybe. After that we waited inside and just observed. One thing I noticed is that these people are very passionate in their religion. They all seemed very dedicated and focused. The whole time there was someone reading prayers. Well thats what we thought they were doing. Chelsea also thought that maybe they were doing the sacrament. There was a huge circle of people around a table. We couldn't get close enough to see but that is what Chelsea thought. On the outside of the building on the side was a little room with a whole bunch of candles. They would light candles for people that have passed away.
After the church we walked down main street and looked at different stores.
Ate my first covrigi
We came back to the apartment for lunch and then went and explored! We walked down the streets in Podu Ros. It is just a small place within Iasi. Mostly we just window shopped. We also stopped by the Palace Mall again. The rest of the night we stayed in the apartment and just relaxed.
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