Church is fun!

After class and lunch (a delicious sandwich, which had eggplant, I'm really expanding my palate guys!), Miriam, Emily, and I went to the Duomo so we could really see everything Siena has to offer. Our ticket included not only the Duomo, but also a museum, a panoramic view of Siena, the baptista, and the catacombs. The Duomo was stunning--absolutely huge and just had incredible craftsmanship. When I got up near the altar I literally just stared with my mouth open, unable to shut it. I probably could have stood there all day just looking around because there was so much detail that I just saw something new every time I turned my head even the slightest bit. It was so beautiful and I could not fathom how people could make something like this. We went into a little room off the side of the Cathedral that served as little library and it had really old, really giant prayer books complete with music notes. Although we couldn't read the words, I thought it was awesome that I could still read the music. Obviously it had its differences from the sheet music we're used to today, but if I really wanted to I could have played it out. It's so cool that even though these books are hundreds of years old, we can still use the same music today. The church ceiling was decorated with these super-creepy busts of all the different popes--after noticing them I had to stop looking at the ceiling because they creeped me out so much. After the cathedral we went into the museum where there were lots of paintings and old Christian memorabilia, including dead people's bones--gross. From the museum you can climb up this gorgeous old tower and at the top there are INCREDIBLE views of Siena. The staircase up was one of the claustrophobic, tiny, spiral ones--that was fun, and by fun I mean dizzy-ing and small. We went up another set of even smaller stairs to go even higher, and the view was stunning. We hung out up there for a little bit just admiring the town and taking pictures. Then we climbed down the stairs--which was even more dizzy-ing--sat in the museum for a little while, and then went into the catacombs. The catacombs weren't that exciting, although they did have scary glass floors so you could look down. Then we went into the baptista, which was very pretty, and again had gorgeous ceilings. Italy is really good at ceilings. After we stopped at this pizza place to get water, but they also had "duff beer" from the The Simpsons, and something labeled "sexy pasta", which was really just spaghetti. Then we went back to the hotel before our AIFS FREE dinner.
**You can skip this if you don’t feel like learning about Italian history at the moment…no judgement**
Before dinner we (as in the entirety of my program) went to hear about one of the 17 Sienese contrada, or districts. In Siena, these districts are extremely important, and people feel a strong sense of loyalty to their particular contrada. Fun Fact: my school is in the Tortuga, or turtle district, GO TERPS!. They even had a little mini Testudo fountain along the side of the street. Every summer Siena holds Il Palio, a horserace where each contrada has a participating jockey and they turn the Piazza del Campo (where I eat all the time) into a track. Doesn’t sound like such a big deal, except for the fact that this has been going on for 400 years. The race is run in honor of the Virgin Mary, so nobody gets any prize money, the winning Contrada simply receives a banner.
**You can can start reading again now**
We had a tour of the contrada represented by this dolphin/fish type thing, except I don’t know the name of it because it was hard to hear the tour guide and everyone was talking. The tour was kind of long, which would have been fine except we were starving, but it was cool to see all these really old costumes from old Il Palio races. Dinner was served family style and we had these 15 year old Italian boys as waiters who just looked so frazzled. The vegetarian rissoto that I got tasted like they had dumped a pound and a half of salt in it, so I only had a few bites, but dessert was incredible and of course, there was good wine. Most of the program left early, so we took the extra dessert home. And by we, I mean Miriam carried a tray of pastries home because I was told I was not capable of not dropping them. On the way home this random American guy from Riverdale came up to us (meaning me and about 12 of my friends) and essentially offered us free food and drinks. He seemed pretty legit so we went into the restaurant, carrying a tray of pastries, but we got up there and it was weird, so we left. And then he continued to try and get us to go this other bar, but we just said we had class the next day. It was strange. He had told us that he wanted to show us the fun side of Siena (Because at this point we were going nuts in this tiny little town), sorry buddy! We got back to the hotel, did our homework, and then stared at the 15 (absurdly delicious) pastries sitting in our room, wondering why the hell we decided to bring them home. They did make for good breakfast the next morning though.