Weddings.

Last weekend, there was a wedding at the Pentecostal church across the street from our apartment.  Jack and I often sit and watch the comings and goings of this congregation from our balcony on the fifth floor -- they meet every evening for worship, and we know many of the attendees, so it's fun to wave at friends as they leave the service and we sit outside eating dinner and, occasionally, drinking beer.  (Heathens that we are.)

But anyway.  The whole church thing is a matter for another post.

So, last weekend was a wedding.  We knew the groom a little bit, but we had forgotten that Saturday was his big day -- until we heard the horns.  See, just like funerals, weddings in Lupeni also make a lot of noise.  A lot of noise.  Before the wedding party and guests arrive at the church, they make a few trips through town in their ribbon-festooned cars, blaring their horns as loudly as possible.  It's impossible not to know when a wedding is happening (or two or three, distinguishable only by the various colored ribbons and bows on the cars of the various parties).  You can also tell where the bride lives, as the entrance to that apartment building is adorned the week before the wedding with pine boughs.  It's beautiful and smells delightful (and makes a nice change from the usual stairwell aroma).

I love this, too -- the fact that weddings are occasions of such joy that the whole neighborhood, and in fact, the whole city, gets to hear about it.  (Many times.)  Lupeni is a noisy place all around, with the prolific street dogs and the coal trains that come roaring through town at all hours of day and night.  But this cacophony of joyful horns is a sound I don't mind -- the sound of promises being made and supported by a raucous, enthusiastic "amen."

Beautiful.