il mio letto di rose: just a week in Italy...

This last week (Sept 24-29) has been a wonderful week.
I have experienced just about every different "flavor" that Siena has to offer. I would call it a very entertaining and well-rounded week! (and also call myself an expert on Sienese Culture)

Tuesday night took us to the land of the Tower. Or in outside-of-siena language, the neighborhood called Torre. Here in Siena, the city is divided into 17 neighborhoods, each claiming their own church, museum, fountain, flag, and mascot. Each summer, the neighborhoods compete in a horse race held in the Piazza del Campo called il Palio, of which winning is considered the greatest honor in the world. This is a Sienese tradition that has been carried out since early medieval times, in the exact same way. The citizens here take it VERY seriously and support their neighborhood, or contrada, with boisterous pride. To illustrate this pride, take provo vs. timpview rivalry, or byu vs. utah, the passion, the smack-talking, the team spirit, the unsportsmanslike behavior, EVERYTHING, and times it by 10... or 20...Welcome to the Palio!
Anyway...Tuesday night the director of our school took us on a tour of his own contrada, Torre. We visited their fountain, church, and museum, which was a rare treat because very few people are allowed to see the museum who are not members of the contrada. The museum has memorabilia from the history of the contrada, uniforms, drums, old flag designs, etc. They also have a sacred room called the "Hall of Victories" where each victory banner from past victories is displayed proudly.

Hall of Victories

After the tour, we sat down to a meal with other contrada members. Torre does a contrada dinner every tuesday night. Long tables are set, men running around in aprons are cooking up a storm, and the soccer game is projected on the wall. Sounds perfect to me! Members of the contrada meandered in, greeting each other with kisses and hugs, laughing together as they waited for the meal. It was so fun to see their interactions and experience the homey atmosphere, just like that of a large family gathering.

yes...we both happened to be sporting our Cinque Terre headscarves!

It was a fun firsthand look at the contrada-life that I have heard so much about!

Wednesday as you know from Buon Appetito #3 was the day of Pizza and Tiramisu. Could you get anymore Italian?

So that brings me to Thursday, where I checked another item on my Italy bucket list: attend a pro soccer game. How you can experience true Italian culture without attending a soccer game? You can't.
It was so fun to be surrounded by the atmosphere! Everyone was SO into the game and had opinions on everything. The fans waved huge flags and banners and majority of the crowd wore A.C. Siena scarves...yes I felt like I was in Harry Potter at a Quiditch game! It was fabulous.

we even bought shirts to show our pride!

and lets be honest...looking at THEM for two hours was REALLY why we wanted to go ;)

GOAL!!!!!!!!!! Siena won :) i mean...how could they not with 24 crazy american girls to cheer them on that night?

We were happy fans with the win!

The REAL highlight of the game however came around half time.

Sitting right next to our group in the stands was about 30 or 40 little league soccer boys, probably about 10 years old. At one point my friend caught them sneaking a picture of me on their phones. AWKWARD. Then the real game began. For the whole second half of the game I was giggled at, pointed at, attempted english phrases at (hello, excuse me, what is your name?), and blown kisses at. This Italians sure do learn young! It was probably one of the funniest things I have ever experienced! So what do a group of American girls do that are twice their age? Giggle, point, and talk right back! (we did eliminate the blowing kisses part...thank goodness) As the game ended and we were leaving, I received a very dear "I love you!" yelled at my back. Priceless :) So if I can't get any other Italian man while I'm here...at least I got the 10 year olds! And then again...they will be the pro soccer players of Europe...score! ;)

This is me with my boyfriends in the background...can you catch the photo bomb? bless him... ;)

Then to finish off this fabulous week we trekked out to the countryside to visit a quaint little farm and have a cheese tasting. Is that not so perfect?!

It is sheep farm that specializes in pecorino and ricotta cheese. It is a little family run farm that is only run by six people! Everything they produce comes directly from their land and they are certified 100% organic. They treated us to a lunch with the cheese.

Here is the first course:

Gnocchi with a cheese cream sauce

The dining room. It was all bright and cheery with classical music playing in the background. So perfect!

We were excited about the cheese.


This is a piece of pecorino aged for only 2 weeks, served with spicy apple marmelade.

We were given 4 different types of pecorino to try, aged for 2 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months. The more aged they were the stronger the taste and harder the texture. Each one of them was so delicious! We felt very classy trying pieces of cheese with fancy forks and talking about texture, flavor, color etc. Just call us foodies :)