98 percent of Italian are Catholics and they take their religious holidays very seriously. As I understand it, tomorrow is the birthday of The Virgin Mary, a clear call for a city wide celebration. Tonight around sunset we met out front of Santa Croce (a very famous church for those of you who don’t know) to participate in the annual Lantern Festival honoring Mary. It is an intricate and odd tradition I do not completely comprehend, but fun nonetheless. A large crowd gathered aimlessly in the Piazza until a group of musicians came and played music that could best be described as high school football game meets Mambo #5, to rally the troops. The band lead the parade of people, many carrying paper lanterns, around Florence until we finally reached another Piazza. Well, the lanterns that people were carrying have candles in them. I guess the tradition is for kids to shoot beans at the lanterns from new age spitball straws. The goal is to puncture the paper lanterns and knock the candle inside over, lighting it on fire. Keep in mind, this is a very crowded event, so paper lanterns bursting into flames sporadically can get quite unnerving for anyone with hair. I have to admit, I did get pelted with a few poorly aimed projectiles and it really hurt. Its almost like an odd version of a pinata. Either way, after that happens a bishop speaks to the crowd and a kids choir sings some adorable songs. It was an odd affair but it was very cool to see the city come together like that. Stuff like that just does not happen in the US.
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