in which these pictures are accompanied by an accordion in my head

Lomography LC-A+, Fuji Natura 1000

On our first afternoon in Venice, we walked around the Jewish ghetto and the surrounding areas. Cut short by the rain, our exploration ended at a quaint coffee shop (which turned out to be a chain), where I had the most amazing lemon meringue. The rain let up, and instead going back to the hotel, we decided to venture out near the city center. We were met with the most amazing sunset.

Slowly, the sky changed from a brilliant orange into a vivid sort of purple. It wasn’t a bruised-up sky, but a bright, tinted purple. Somehow, as we found ourselves at the edge of Venice, as we chased the sun down. It was thrilling and somewhat romantic. Our sprint was cut short by the water, and the scene unfolded like something I would have liked to read about in a story or to watch in a film.


Taken with my iPhone 4 & Instagram

I know that people often consider Paris as the City of Love and Romance, but I truthfully felt this buzzing, swelling feeling in Venice. Crazy, right? Maybe it’s all the American tourists aboard the gondoliers at every turn, or something in the air (love?). But perhaps it’s sunsets like this, introduced by heavy rains and a rainbow, coloring everything with a wash of warmth. Or witnessing a man’s proposal to a beautiful woman on a random street corner, accompanied by “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on an accordion.

Sometimes, I witness something remarkably, undeniably magical, and I wonder how these things fall into place. I wonder about the possibility and the likelihood that I be a piece of these puzzles, and I think about how lucky I am to have been a part of this one little pocket of magic—in Venice, no less!—that afternoon.