Carnevale

Venice! The city of lovers. It's also the city of canals, gondollas, gelato, and Carnivale. And, the city where I got to celebrate my 21st birthday! Venice is my favorite city in Italy, and I was so excited to get to spend a day there with my closest friends just relaxing and enjoying Italy. I had been to Italy before with my family, but this was the first trip here during my semester. The sound of the Italian language, the smells coming from the restaurants and cafes, and the sun gleaming off of the canal water made my heart burst with joy as we walked out of the train station. Italia!

We realized very quickly that Carnivale was happening that weekend, which we had no idea about! It was a nice surprise, to come on a weekend with so many festivities going on. Many people were wearing the beautiful masks in every shape, size, and color. Some people were even wearing full-length costumes. There was an atmosphere of celebration on every corner.

Venice came at such a perfect time in the semester. We had been working hard at our studies for almost 2 months, were preparing for midterms, and were under a lot of stress. Not to mention the intense emotional stress of Poland we were still processing, and the physical exhaustion of traveling every weekend that had begun to catch up with us. We needed a break. And, although we had to take an overnight train there and an overnight train back due to the short weekend, we got just that. We just wandered around the city, doing what the Italians know how to do best- sit, eat, and enjoy life. We didn't have an itinerary, didn't have a tight train schedule, didn't have to rush. It was a beautiful birthday present!

We basically took the whole day to walk from the train station to St. Mark's Square and back, a pretty long distance that took us the whole length of the city. We got gelato (more than once..), took a gondolla ride, and had a dance party to Stereo Love on a tiny random bridge that no one else was on. We got to St. Mark's Square, which was absolutely packed, in time to see a Carnivale performance. There was confetti everywhere, on the sidewalks and in the water! It was magical.

Of course, we didn't pass up the opportunity to see the churches of two great saints, one quite well-known and the other more obscure- St. Mark and St. Lucy. St. Lucy's incorrupt body is in a church by the train station. She is the patron sight of vision, since her eyes were plucked out by the Romans as she was being martyred in the Early Church. She was our age, if not younger, and was given the courage by God to stand up for her faith, even to the death. Her body is different from most, for there is no wax covering her hands or feet, which are about halfway decayed. It is proof that these saints really are incorrupt- that it's not just a bunch of fools putting a wax figure in a glass case and calling it an incorrupt body. I could see her skin and her bones, right in front of me. A young woman who died in the 300s. Now that's miraculous. We also saw St. Mark's tomb in the main cathedral of Venice dedicated to him. He is the man who wrote the Gospel according to Mark, and was a great witness to Christ. The cathedral is absolutely gorgeous both inside and out, with gold everywhere.

My last birthday present of the day was from Jesus Himself, in the adoration chapel of the cathedral. We went in to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament for a few moments, and ended up being there for Benediction. This is a series of prayers honoring the Blessed Sacrament, and ends with the priest holding up the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament and making the sign of the cross with it, blessing all of us present in front of it. It's basically Jesus blessing us as if He was standing right in front of us, because He is present body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. So He gave me a special birthday blessing to end a perfect day :)