Street Sightings Of the Week

My apartment window is right on one of the main streets that leads to the gates of the city. Naturally this means all kinds of Italians are coming and going and sometimes I get to see cool things like these --->

There was an antique car show in Siena one day and it started right on our street. My host mom came running into our room saying "Ragazze!!" (girls) and got all excited, opening our windows. We watched it with her while she had her arm around me and a huge smile on her face. This is one of my favorite Italy moments so far. And if you yell "Ciao" sometimes the people driving the cars would honk

One night I started to hear a ton of voices outside of my window and that whole week there were a lot of people just chilling on my street. Saturday night I walked past the field behind one of the buildings and saw this. We decided to join because.. perché no?! Apparently each contrada has 10 days of partying before the Palio event. This is the chiocciola party and oh my freaking goodness was it fun!! We danced all night and got to experience a festa Italiana. One of my favorite nights in Italy.

Another time I heard American music blasting from the apartment across from mine. These Italians love American music and it's nice to have a little taste of home.

And more than once I have seen the cutest little kids waving chiocciola flags and marching down the street, proud of their contrada.

My street is never boring, let's put it that way.