Siena is great

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Siena is great. In some ways it is a typical Italian city. The buildings are close together to provide shade on hot summer days. It seems that Italian engineers were unable to build 2 things. 1- Towers that can stand up straight and 3- straight boulevards and streets. At least they have great trains and mass transit.
Siena stood out from other cities in that the city center was on top of a hill and while walking there was a lot of elevation changes. I wandered around the city for a while and ended up at the main square. This main city square was awesome. Smaller than others I have seen but it was still big. And the buildings surrounding it were gorgeous. I got there in time to see the final practice race of the Pallio and all the festivities that occurred before hand.
1st- It took about 90 mins to 2 hours to get the school children (aged 6-11 or so) who came in as neighborhood groups all singing into the square. I don’t think there were any ryme or reason as wo who came first or when. There were about 50-70 from each neighborhood dressed in their colors and took pre-assigned seats in the stands. You could tell which neighborhoods were sworn enemies to one another and who were friendly with who. For instance the yellow kids and the red/blue kids sand songs at one another and yelled in an organized fashion (led by 14-24 year olds)… This went on for hours. There was one group who sat down for and did hardly any singing for 45 mins or so until there rival came in and then things just got heated (remember these are 6-11 year olds) Never did any of the rival “hoods” sit next to one another, there were usually 2-3 friendly’s in between. But these songs with the kids were only in a small setion of the square- about 10% or so. The rest of the stands had the adults (20-40 year olds) who would sing to their rivals from across the square. It was much more fun to watch the kids.
After all the singing revelry, some cannon shots went off, some horses came in and some pageantry ensued. Then 12 horses being rode slowly by Napoleon look-a-likes with swords took a lap being led by Captain. During the first lap their swords were by their ears in a ceremonial trot. What happened next got my heart going and was a sight. The captain screams what I could only guess was “charge” and the riders broke ranks had their swords straight out and went as fast as they could. It was a sight to see and I could imagine being a lonely infantrymen 300 years ago being terrified at 12 guys on horses with their swords out trying coming to kill me.
Soon I got to see a trail run as to what I should expect to see the next day for the race. During the final trial some jockeys were yelling at each other and trying to out maneuver one another for a better spot to start at. You could say the jockeys were jockeying over positions (I guess I just realized where that term derived from) During the race the orange jockey fell off but everyone kept going.
After the trial runs I explored all the alleys and back streets. I came across what I could say was a club house for the porcupine district. It looked like a drinking lodge that a VFW, mosaic or some other type of US group would have. I went in because it looked fun. I felt like a black man walking into a whites only dinner in Birmingham Alabama back in 1957. I knew I should not have been in there. There were porcupine statues all over and I made my way to the back bar. The 5 bartenders were gorgeous, whoever was in charge of hiring the talent did well. All 10’s, and possible models. For the 5 mins I was there I could not get a drink to save my life. But after seeing the quality of the staff I found who I would be rooting for the next day- go porcupines!
I walked around a little longer, came across 3 or 4 neighborhood dinners with table seating for 100-200 people each. Again I was not welcomed so I headed home for the night.

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