The Train

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Friday 7/6, 9:22 a.m. Il Palio
I’m taking a train right now from Firenze to Pisa as I type. We’re actually on our way to Cinque Terre, the Italian Riviera which is supposedly more amazing than the French Riviera (anything Italian is better than anything French, j/k), and we’re stopping by Pisa to take pictures because according to others, there really isn’t much to do there. This whole train riding thing is something new to me, and there have been a few close calls. Our apartment is about a 15-20 minute walk from the train station, and we’ve been arriving at the station about 5 minutes before departure. And we’re usually sweating and out of breath.
So on Monday, it was the Palio in Siena. IL PALIO. I’m not sure of the English translation, but il = the, I learned that in my Italian class. Anyways, to briefly describe what il palio is without the reader having to look it up on Wikipedia, it’s a horse race between the different villages of the city of Siena without any rules. Before the start of the race, there is pageantry that rivals any parade. I mean, each town’s representatives walk around the dirt track in total medieval gear. I’m talking tights, armor and all. Getting in the viewing section was crazy enough. They literally squish 60,000 people into the piazza, but since the track isn’t even, each viewer gets a short view of the race. We were far enough as to where we were able to see the sharp turn of death. So we waited, and waited, had old annoying Italian women shove us (that’s the thing here, people here are NOT big at all, and if a person is, he/she tends to have a huge ego about it). We were talking about how they should have had a jumbo HD screen to keep us entertained, but perhaps that might have taken away from the whole medieval experience. And then they picked the order of the horses (9 horses line up, and the last horse on the outside gets a running start which signals the beginning of the race); it was the most amazing thing. I mean, I have never seen a crowd that loud go quiet so quickly. Imagine over 60,000 people trying to tune in to something as audible as a megaphone, it would’ve never worked in LA; I thought someone died or something. LA LUPA was drawn FIRST! But for some odd reason, I didn’t hear much jubilation… after watching the race, I knew way. Because again, there are no rules. That means there is bribery, collusion, match fixing, and pretty much anything you can think of. There was false start after false start, the crowd would get restless, villages would scream if they saw their jockey talk/bicker with another jockey, it was sheer madness. Then after 40 minutes of ridiculousness, the race started. CRAZY! The horses go around that track so swiftly. As expected, the horses and jockeys would crash into the walls at the sharp turns. There was a hard turn behind me that the horses took while going uphill, but it was tough for me to see… but I could definitely hear the hooves and the horses crashing into the walls. By the end of the race, about 7 horses crossed the finish line, and only a handle of them still had their jockeys on ‘em. And then, madness broke out. People, young and old, were crying. And we’re talking about Italians here. They wear their emotions on their sleeves. Until that day, I hadn’t seen the stereotypical sign language using, mafia-mentality Italian. I saw everything that night. We honestly did not know who had won (our seats were good, but not the best, and we had no view of the finish line), it seemed like EVERYONE was in tears, screaming, using God’s name in vain. The girls got scared. So they all wanted to get out of town.
10 p.m.
Cinque Terre is BEAUTIFUL. Too bad my camera died… So no pictures. It was relaxing; kicking it by the beach (barely any sand) and kayaking. The water truly is salty, no doubt about it. Ciao.

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