Private Dancer

I tried to write this yesterday right after all the excitement, but I was way too exhausted to finish. So now after my nice sleep and cold shower (hot water doesn’t get turned on until the evening) I’m rather wide awake – unlike the rest of my roommates - and ready to write.

Yesterday was the most jammed packed day ever. It was to be my first day digging on the hill so I rolled out of bed at 6am in order to grab breakfast and make it to the site for 7:00 sharp.

I decided I would walk alone listening to my iPod on the way to the site to see how fast I could make it up the hill. So I left the house and passed 7 people on my way up, making it there in 22 minutes flat (heck yeah!!) the walk up the road is a gentle slope and quite easy – with an absolutely beautiful view of the Tuscan valley I might add. The way up the path on the hill itself not so much, it was at that point that I began to break a sweat and I was really felling it by the time I reached the top breathing hard. But I made it alive and had 15 minutes to sit and regain composure before work started.

I’m also never doing that again, I’m going to give myself 40 minutes and take a leisurely stroll up each morning I think.

I was in Dan’s trench, we’re going to switch digging teams and trenchmasters each week which I’m really happy about since it will give everyone a chance to get to know everyone instead of just a few people really well as well as dig in different areas of the hill.

Dan is very quiet but if I had any questions he was very happy to answer them and he wasn’t disinterested in us, I just think he is so much older than us than the other trench masters that he feels no pull to socialize and just likes to get his work done.

We spent the morning clearing the topsoil from the trench and sifting though it for pottery, tile and bone. We were finding pieces of terracotta tile throughout as well as a couple pieces of pottery.

My best find of the day was the most ridiculously enormous worm I have ever seen in my life. I got a picture of myself pretending to eat it when Andy the trench master of the trench nearest to where I was called another staff member, Taylor, over. Once he arrived he was offered 30 euro to actually eat it.

Which he did.

And I got it on video. (it’s revolting he gags back a ¼ of the worm corpse)

By 12:00 when we finished early for the day (on account of the Palio) We didn’t quite make it through all the soil in the trench and there is a funny catwalk of dirt left through the centre where the groups of people were working towards each other.

The trot down the hill was considerably less pleasant because of the heat, but it was no less scenic. A bunch of us went to the tabacci to buy tickets for the bus into Siena then we came back to the house to wipe off the grime from digging and make ourselves somewhat presentable to go into town.

It is funny how everyone is apologetic about being filthy and sweaty all the time here but we are all equally dirty and gross. And we are so worried about our own disgusting state that we don’t notice anyone else.

So many of the students decided to go the Palio that we filled the entire bus except 3 seats. The drive into Siena is lovely and only takes about half an hour. Once we arrived we walked through crowds of people on the way to Piazza del Campo where the race takes place.

The race consists of 10 men riding bareback 3 times around the track of the Piazza. The men are from different contrade in Siena, which are the neighbourhoods that all have different symbols. There are 17 in total but only 10 of them get to race for reasons unbeknownst to me.

On the way to the Piazza we came across parades of men in costume chanting and drumming, a group of Torre (tower) men began a chant that sounded incredible. The atmosphere in the city was amazing. The amount of pride the people had for their contrade was awesome like some extreme nationalism. We found a spot in the centre of the Piazza at around 3 and waited for the festivities to begin at 6.

As the day progressed the Piazza filled with thousands of spectators from all over most wearing the flags of their contrade around their necks. We were standing near many people from the contrade of the Nicchio (seashell) which was my favourite flag although there were a lot of cool symbols, like the she wolf the dragon and the unicorn.

The spectacle began with a 2 hour presentation of the different contrada where members dressed in medieval costume some on horseback, some not, paraded around the piazza and waved and threw their flags. And although it was incredibly warm and tiring standing for hours it was an incredible experience. Lastly a bunch of members of the church on a mixture of a parade float and a chariot drawn by oxen came out and waved to the crowd.

Once the riders came out they rode in a circle as the crow cheered then everyone stopped talking and some people were saying “shh” so we all quieted down and suddenly the piazza of thousands of people were absolutely silent. You could have heard one person speaking across the piazza (if anyone were)

Then a man begins to announce the names of the contrada (in what I assume would be the order they were supposed to line up in) and the crowd reacted as each name was spoken (it was quiet disappointment or excitement then back to absolute silence.) there was one woman standing near us who would yelp as though in pain each time her contrade was not called.

Once all the horses lined up I figured the race would begin promptly

Boy was I wrong

This is extremely difficult to explain because I just barely understood what it was that I was watching so I apologize in advance.

Tony tells us that the horses are all drugged up and it was pretty evident from the frenzied way they were acting and how the jockeys seemed to struggle to keep control of them. There was one rider, the Torre jockey who would stand away from the horses as they lined up if he turned his horse away and walked back, all the riders would leave their line and follow him only to turn around and try to line up again. According to a friend of the staff who lives in Vescovado who was standing with us The Torre rider was the one who was most powerful and he was allowed to wait until he liked how the horses had lined up and he was ready to run. Finally he was happy and he turned his horse and began to run towards the line which then took off in front of him.

The race was 3 laps around the piazza and then it was over.

Boy was it a jammed packed 75 seconds. The Leocorno rider fell off his horse when it t-boned the wall of the piazza halfway through and was hurriedly carried off in a stretcher (apparently the horse is actually declared the winner of the race so had the Leocorno horse won without its rider that contrade would still have been able to win.) Jockeys were hitting each other with their crops. And it was just general madness.

After it looking like the wave was going to win for most of the race, it was the Selva (forest) who eventually came in first. And then the piazza was filled with emotion, people were weeping and screaming, grown men were hugging each other in consolation and crying and fistfights broke out among people. We left the piazza in a flood of people and as we walked there was a trail of blood leading from the square.

A large group of most of us left at the same time and everyone was hot and tired and people started arguing about what to do. It was slightly ridiculous. Things got better as we split off into smaller groups. Thankfully I ended up in a lovely group of 5 who were just happy to wander Siena and soak it all in.

We grabbed some pizza for supper (and had a hilariously difficult time doing to math to divide the bill amongst us) Then walked around the streets as the Italians celebrated. We found the contrade of the Forrest and streets were closed off and tables had been put in the streets where people ate and drank and sang and just generally made merry and celebrated together.

In our wanderings we found a Grom gelato place which is purported to be the best. And, well, the raspberry and chocolate I had was basically an orgasm in a cup. While standing outside Grom a procession of Selva people with drums and flags came walking by chanting in Italian. There were people all over with baby pacifiers tied to their scarves which Theresa (the cataloguer) tells us has to do with the religious aspect of the race and symbolized rebirth. We met two Australian girls in Grom who had been with a tourist group wearing shirts printed with “I survived the Palio.” They told us they took them off because after asking them what it sad, a surly Italian man told them he was very offended and that it wasn’t very Christian of them to wear such a thing.

After Grom we walked back to the Piazza del Campo where the cafes had put their tables out in the track and people were eating supper. We laid in the middle of the piazza and looked at the stars and talked. The perfect end to the day in Siena.

Once 11:30 came we decided it was time to find a cab and head home. This took longer than expected because since there were 5 of us we needed to wait for a van to come by and as the first one did, an angry old man skipped in front of us and took it for him self. Finally a second one did come and we began the ride back to Vescovado.

While we talked and laughed on the ride back my ear finally popped from the plane ride. And then just as we were coming to the house, Tina Turner’s Private Dancer came on.

A beautiful end to the day.

It is one I will definitely be thinking back on come dreary winter days.

that entry was so long I've been writing it intermittently throughout the day. I started at 9am and now it's 5:30.