Returning from the Chianti countryside to Florence is akin to crawling out from under your warm comfy patchwork down quilt that enveloped you in your private, quiet bedroom and opening your door straight into a cold, shopping street on Christmas Eve. Easter in Florence is one of the busiest weekends, if not the busiest, of the entire year. The city is flooded with Catholics on pilgrimage, foreign students and Italian families gathering.
Randy, Hannah and I have been looking forward to this weekend before we left Canada and we were not disappointed in the least. This Easter weekend will be a highlight moment for the rest of our lives. We were grateful to have Rachael with us. I must certainly add family is the ingredient missing, especially Luke, but we are gifted in having Boots, Betty and Jess here to share it with us. To capture the weekend we will give a day to day breakdown and watch the video.....
Good Friday dawned in brilliant sun. The Episcopalian church was doing a "Nine Stations of the Cross" walk through the historic centre of Florence, so Randy and I thought that would be cool. Upon arrival at the church we discovered that the walk would be back in our neighborhood so I called the girls and told them to meet us in a piazza. What we would soon discover is that the walk included individuals in the group carrying a cross as we walked through the streets packed with thousands of people. There were 8 people in the group, including some older women in dresses and heels. You do the math and think about Randy and I... It was inevitable we would have to carry the cross. My personal conflict of emotion inside was stunning and shocking. I was embarassed to be seen with a rag tag group of Protestants, angry and chagrined at self, internally confronting myself to step up and identify publicly with Jesus yet trying to remain unseen. It was a shadow of the original Good Friday for the disciples and not even on the radar screen compared to Jesus' humiliation. Randy, being the largest and healthiest of all, carried it across town into the piazza where we met the girls. Imagine the shock that was on their faces as Randy lead the group into the main piazza. The throngs of people were staring or indifferent, carrying on and making comments about Randy as "a blonde Jesus." Hannah and I also carried the cross through sections of town. She now has a bruised shoulder. It was a healthy, sobering and powerful exercise. Would you carry the cross?
Saturday
We spent the day shopping and preparing for Sunday dinner.
Easter Sunday What was the main reason we looked forward to Easter in Florence? Easter Sunday morning was the annual "Scoppio del Carro." Explosion of the cart. Hannah and I arrived in Piazza del Duomo around 8:30am and the fireworks didn't happen till 11:15am. Sandy joined us on the edge of the barricade after we had been there an hour and the place was already ringed with thousands of people. Like everyone else, we stood the whole time like vertical sardines waiting and watching. Around 10:30am a parade of multi-coloured "renaissance" costumed flag bearers, drummers, trumpeters, crossbow and spear carriers marched into the piazza. The festive procession was followed by 4 white oxen pulling an enormous cart, full of fireworks. See attached video. The explosion and light show were worth the wait. Loud and bright. What an unusual Easter tradition.
Our Easter dinner was next and is never complete without including someone who is without their family or friends so our table was graced with a young art student, Laura, from Maine USA.
Randy and I incorporated some Italian Easter traditions at the beginning and end of the meal. Our first course was boiled eggs (new life), and spinach (the bitter herbs of the Passover). For dessert we enjoyed big, glorious chocolate eggs with prizes inside and Colomba (dove shaped Easter bread that is the Italian version of paska).
The day ended in the wee early morning with an iChat at the Johnson clan dinner.
Buona Pasqua!
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