Vor Frue Kirke

Today I went to my first-ever Lutheran service at Vor Frue Kirke, Copenhagen's cathedral. Understanding Danish hymns is a lot like understanding salsa music: you can get the gist of all the songs if you know the basic vocab. In salsa it's "heart", "bandit", "blood", "heat", "love," and "pain." The hymns also have lots of "love" and some "blood", but also lots of "heaven", "earth", "Lord", "law", and "word." Both got lucky with some rhymes: in Danish "blood" and "bread" rhyme, which is handy for communion hymns, and in Spanish "beer" and "headache" rhyme, which is just handy.

On Sunday nights there's a night church, where the place is all lit with candles and you can wander in and sit down for as long as you want in silence. I sort of like it better than the actual service because listening to a sermon in Danish is dead boring (in Denmark they say ass-boring), although I do like the singing. Church and football matches are about the only opportunities for group singing here.