Siena Sites and Sounds

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Well, I've been in Siena for nearly 3 weeks now, but have pitifully little to report about what I have been doing here (more on that later). I spend my evenings wandering the old city, and walking around Siena to and from my digs about a mile from town, but still feel like I need to experience more. My pitiful Italian is even more pronounced the longer I stay and try to participate in normal life.

Palio was an amazing experience, even through I didn't get to see it in person, I saw some of the preparations and after parties. Palio is a medieval tradition where the local districts of the city each put forth a horse for two races, once in July and once in August. Each quarter of the city has its own decorations and each team has a flag and a church. There is much pomp and circumstance as each team, accompanied by important people, drummers and others presents its horse. The participants are in medieval costumes and wigs and the 2 flag men twirl, throw and pass their flags to each other. (Yes I did think of marching band and how bad our flag twirlers were, but these men are quite good, even though they look a little ridiculous in their page boy wigs and tights.) Each team (I think there are 10) enters Il Campo, the main square (covered with dirt for the race), at the end of each team is the beautiful horse and its jockey (they ride bareback). There were at least 3 false starts to the race and finally the team with the porcupine flag won -- the outcome of course is subject to heaving betting. Many people were devastated. After all of that it is over after only 3 passes around the square -- it's less than 3 minutes. The parties lasted for days. The horse is paraded through the streets with people chanting. Everyone wears the winning scarves for weeks on end.

I have been busy with life instead of touring I guess, and I have been distracted by a romance for the past few weeks with a local chef. His name is Alex.

At the beginning of August I'm going to Amsterdam and then on to Brussels with my Mom and sister, Kat, for the last couple weeks in Europe. I can't believe I'm done with 1/3 of my trip already. So many more things to see and experience as I have Africa and Asia still ahead of me. Europe so far has been wonderful -- I've met new friends and seen incredible sites, how can I ask for it to get better, but I hope the rest matches this?

Ciao, Eliz