Jet Lag

Greetings from exotic Poughkeepsie! I am back safe and sound, though missing both Siena and Fort Atkinson.
The last week in Siena was a frenzy of work. We had a final project, which consisted of a 5-7 minute oral presentation in Italian on any topic we wanted, due Thursday, and our exam was Friday. Yikes. The project was much more stressful than the exam. 5-7 minutes is a lot of dialogue to have memorized. I chose to research St. Catherine, the patron Saint of both Siena and Italy. I discovered that she’d never learned to write so I decided to do a monologue of her life. It was the longest monologue I have ever attempted to memorize, and it was in Italian… sometimes I’m not very smart… so every day after school I practiced for hours. I pretty much didn’t leave my room from Monday to Wednesday, which was a shame considering it was my last week. But it ended up being worth it because the monologue went incredibly well and my professor loved it. She actually asked me for a copy of the text to keep. I have yet to see my grade, but I’m thinking it’s good… Then Thursday night I needed a break, so I wandered around Siena with Claudia and Dronile. We got lost, but it’s okay because we saw parts of Siena we’d never seen before and it was very pretty. We ended up eating at a little restaurant we’d never seen before, and it was quite good. Then I went back to my room and studied for the exam. I think the exam went well. I’m hoping, anyway. At any rate, it’s over and I’m done thinking about it.
Friday afternoon Gabi and I wandered around buying all the final things we had neglected to buy for five weeks. And a shopkeeper asked us if we were Italian! YES! Friday night we meant to all hang out, but everyone was exhausted and ended up falling asleep really early.
Saturday was Palio! Have I explained Palio at all? My apologies if I haven’t, it’s basically a huge horse race. Siena is broken up into 17 Contrade, and 10 compete in the Palio. Which 10 compete depends on who competed last year and a random draw, etc. There are two Palios, one in July and one in August. August is the bigger, technically more important, one. Almost every Contrada has an enemy Contrada, who they will prevent from winning at any cost. Our dorm was located in the Contrada della Chiocciola (the snail), so that’s who we should have been rooting for. Unfortunately, Chiocciola wasn’t running. Their enemy, Tortuca (the tortoise), was. So obviously we couldn’t root for them. Some of us ended up rooting for Pantera (panther), one for Drago (dragon), I think one for Nicchio (shell), and some, including myself, rooted for Torre (the tower, but represented by an elephant). The race itself takes place in the piazza. The horses run three laps. It’s over in just about 2 minutes.
We got to the Piazza at about 3:30pm. The race starts at 7. By 5, the piazza was packed. Then the parade started. It’s about a million people dressed in medieval clothing twirling flags and beating drums and riding in carts pulled by oxen and lasts until about 7. Then the main event begins. By the time the Palio actually started (after about 6 false starts), the Piazza was so crowded I could hardly see a thing. I swear tall people were popping out of the ground. It was a little frustrating. But I saw enough of the race for it to be really fun! Bruco (the caterpillar) won! Which was good and bad, good because it wasn’t Tortuca, and no one in our group got bragging rights, but bad because it wasn’t Torre.
After the Palio, while parties raged outside (the entire city pretty much gets reeling drunk. Even though Chiocciola didn’t run, they were partying like they had won just because Tortuca hadn’t.) we went and slept. Boring, I know, but necessary.
Sunday we packed. Depressing. Then Gabi and I went out and finally took pictures of ourselves in cool doors, which we’d meant to do since the first week and never had. It was hilarious! Gabi has all those pictures, though, because my camera ran out of batteries. I got Pippo Pippo gelato one last time. Then we went back to the dorm to work on the presents the class gave to Pazit, Guzzi, Lucia, Dudu, and Carlotta. We had dinner all together at Due Porte (or Du Porta as the Canadians call it), which is where we ate the first night in Siena. It was fun, but kinda sad. And Pazit was out of control! Oh man. Then we got gelato and sat in the Piazza one last time. I planned on going back to the dorm to sleep, but, due to circumstances beyond my control, I ended up getting very little sleep.
Being at the airport was very sad. We had to say goodbye to Edoardo and Carlotta  and Gabi, because she was going to Ecuador on a separate flight. The flight itself was ok, tho. I sat next to Serena and we kicked butt at a couple crossword puzzles. And slept. That was good. When we landed, most people either got picked up by their parents or caught flights home. Claudia and I, however, took the familiar bus-to-train to Poughkeepsie. I am very, very lucky that Claudia was traveling with me, because when we arrived at Vassar at 10:30pm, the ROC, where I was supposed to get my key, was closed. Claudia was staying with friends, though, and they were wonderful enough to let me crash their house. And give me a ride back to Vassar the next day. So I’m in my room right now, and very much looking forward to the arrival of my roommate later today!