We decided after touring the church yesterday that we would go to St. Mark’s for mass this morning! Even though we knew it would all be in Italian, we knew we would regret not experiencing such a beautiful service. It was freezing and raining but we strapped on our dresses and wedge booties and walked twenty minutes over canals and down tiny streets until we reached the SECURITY station to get into mass. It was crazy! We walked into the church and still just stood there and stared at all the detail and beauty that one sanctuary held. It is honestly so hard to describe because nothing is able to describe how majestic it is. We found our seats and found programs that were all in Italian so we attempted to try to translate it while waiting for the service to start. The service was absolutely beautiful. It was so elegant and you could feel how much these people simply wanted to worship God — and this is how they did it. The entire service was in Italian but somehow all of us still felt the message so clearly. Even though I did not understand basically anything they said, I genuinely felt a true message in the service. It really shows that the love of God surpasses all language barriers and it put the tower of babel into perspective because God simply wanted everyone to rely on him to communicate - which we did this morning. It was definitely the highlight of the trip. After church we just went and met everyone back at the hotel where we just sat there and waited to be able to leave because we were all so over Venice, which is sad to say. Once we arrived back in Florence we had our nice FREE dinner at the hotel! Needless to say we were happy to be back!! Carnevale was a lot different than I expected too! Today I saw the first performance of the whole weekend! They had a costume contest right in the square that is outside the church. Then some guy in a costume came out of the window of a tower and zip lined down to the stage!! Besides this, the costumes and booths were basically the only portrayals of the Carnevale that we experienced! It was very cool to see those and see the culture, but compared to New Orleans and Mobile, their social scene for Mardi Gras was a lot less hectic!