Going Home

Tuesday I left San Vincenzo for Siena. It wasn't even bittersweet for me it was just a transition. I feel like I am at a pretty steady high right not and not much can break that. On the train ride I got such crazy butterflies like I was reuniting with a long lost love or something. I couldn't focus.

When we arrived, we went to our hostel, which i had no idea where it was i just sort of found it with my little feelers, which i think are rather finely tuned, then i went to see Antonella, Mario and Laura.
The walk there felt like this weird mix between dream and reality. I guess that is sort of a theme of my trip. I have had so many dreams about coming back to Siena and going to see my host parents and walking that long walk from the center to our house, that it is almost more familiar to my dream self to be in Siena, and at the same time it felt like I had never left. To see those big cobblestones under my feet, and to see all the shops that I walked past every single day, and even to recognize a handful of people just walking around, was so natural and so completely un-strange, it felt like I had never left.

Antonella was my host cousin, i suppose. She lived downstairs from me, was so beautiful and vivacious and laughed a lot and i felt like we had a really easy understanding of each other. Despite the language barrier, which was a lot stronger then, it was just the most natural friendship. She wasn't there so I left her a note and then had to muster up the courage to righ my host parents' doorbell. I was worried that they would not like to be surprised by me, they are very set in their habits and it is a stressful time for them right now but I thought i might not get to see them otherwise so i rang and laura answered 'chi è?' like she always does and i said sono Sophia and she just rang me in without saying anything like she had expected me. After we'd talked for a while mario came home. THEY ARE SO GREAT!! so loving, such cute tuscan accents, so happy to see me. Mario kept weirdly commenting on my appearance. He stopped and looked at me for a while and asked me if I changed my nose, then pointed out that my hair is lighter and my skin is darker and then said I look more beautiful than ever before, and said that a lot. He is a funny balance between father and flirtacious italian man. I felt so complete after talking to them.
When I left i was walking down the street so elated, even an hour with them really quelled all the missing and other odd feelings I had had, and then i hear 'sophia!!' and I turn around and they are both standing on the balcony waving frantically. Laura used to do that every day when I left for school. I love it. I kept walking and turned around a couple more times and they were still waving. Eventually I had to stop looking back and make that goodbye final. But it felt really good.

Siena is just as I remembered. Amazing coffee, dark stone windy buildings that I magically can find my way through, beautiful men and women that look stoic and perfect like they just stepped off the pages of vogue but then will go out of their way to hold a door open for you or give you the best pastry. Sophie and I ate wild boar and pappa and ravioli for dinner at this trattoria behind the piazza and the tower and heard the crows screaming and the horns blaring and the cannons sounding as the palio celebrations began. That was even two days before the palio. It is really all this city cares about. I saw my friend Giovanni who makes gelato that he sells at his own gelateria. I was so excited to see him. He is the sweetest man and he just looks like he is always glowing and I had a little crush on him for certain. I was thinking he might not remember me but when he saw me walk up his face lit up like it always did and then we kissed a bunch the italian way and he showed me all his new flavors. Then he introduced me to his wife who is shortish and stout and very smiley and nice and i began to plot ways to eliminate her. I don't even know what else to say about that.

The palio was emotional. The city was buzzing and still is. All the dark stone buildings are adorned with the brilliant colors of each contrada. We went into the piazza and then found a nice position and then watched midaeval people parading around with drums and cannons, big flags on horseback, oxen, funny outfits, knights in shining armor, funny little hats. For hours people paraded around the piazza as it filled up. Then we all had to pee but weren't allowed to leave for another three hours. They called the lineup over and over (the whole piazza of thousands and thousands of people was completely and totally silent) and we had to wait for the dragon contrada to get it together and get their horse in line, for about an hour, and the tension was so high and then all of a sudden the started running and everyone started screaming. My contrada, l'istrice who is the giant porcupine was third at the beginning but then finished second to last. Whatever. The horses were so incredibly fast the race was over in a flash, three times around the piazza.The tartuca won, that is the turtle contrada, and they won by a long shot. And now everyone else took most of their flags down and is really sad, while the tartuca people are parading around all day and all night with their flags and drums and horns and outfits and they sing constantly and probably will all year. It is a very emotional thing and I don't know that I captured that because I am not feeling very emotional right now because my head is itchy and i haven't had a shower in 4 days or so because we have been so busy.

Yesterday i went with Sophie, Jessica (who changed her plans and met up with us impromptu) and Antonella to this river outside siena with big rocks and waterfalls. It was so lovely. I ate a strawberry that tasted like a gummy bear and then jumped around from huge rock to huge rock and swam with little fish and swam under a waterfall where one of the guys we were with thought it would be a good idea to kiss me at that point, and I was very not into it, so I swam away and then he stayed near me for the rest of the time saying and doing every single stereotypical thing an italian man would to to try to convince you to kiss him. He explained to me the phrase 'carpe diem' as if I didn't know, quotedl Lorenzo dei Medici, talked about how we are in the most beautiful place in all of tuscany and no one can see and it doesn't matter that he has a girlfriend because 'here in italia things are different' and told me i was beautiful blah blah whatever then he literally poked me a lot on my side, like that was his last resort. haha.
I went back with the others and we found these rocks that you can rub together and they make clay and we rubbed the clay all over ourselves. Antonella insisted that I paint a moustache and unibrow on her, I drew a little picture on jessica's back, and as for me I just smeared the clay all over my body so i was completely purple brown- then when it dried it turned white. It was like a beauty mask. Then we basked on the warm rocks like lizards, hiked back then piled all seven of us in the little car and drove through the forest holding the leash for the dog out the window as he ran next to the car. HE was so tired after that he fell straight asleep in the car. We ate a huge tuscan dinner at this restaurant in the foothills over looking the countryside in this TINY midaeval town of less than a thousand people. We had all sorts of meats and cheese appetizers, gnocchi, pasta, amazing mushrooms, wine and wine and wine and bread and tiramisù and panna cotta and strawberry tart and port and all of us were talking loudly and laughing at the table in english/italian or whatever we could muster. IT was a great day.

The piazza del campo (google image this please) reminds me of disneyland at night in the best of ways. I had a melony drink there with some friends last night and almost lost myself looking at the huge fortress like buildings from the 1400s all illuminated at night, and the huge tower and again with the cobblestones.

My italian is coming along quite nicely. It is almost as good as it has ever been! I can finally talk with a degree of fluidity that i have never had before, and i feel like my personality is finally well understood when I talk.

success.