Buongiorno from Siena, Italy

I've spent the past 4 weeks in London and Italy and it has been a new experience. From learning the currency, to getting around a place where you don't know the language at all, to going to church with only 8 members, I have definitely been put out of my place. I live with my friend Christina who is also a student from BYU and Adriana Tani a tour guide who was born and raised in Siena. So Siena is a Medeival town and it is divided into 17 neighborhoods or what they call contradas. It is famous for what is called the Palio. There, the 17 contradas compete in a horse race to be the best contrada in Siena. Now... the Palio is a big deal. Almost every contrada has an enemy and just wants to beat them, take it that this has been going on for hundreds of years. So our first day here we were walking through the town and we heard drumming. We walked around the corner and there were a ton of men dressed up in medeival uniforms marching for their contrada. It was pretty interesting and cool to see. Thousands of people come to watch the Palio and I wish we could watch but we barely missed the second one. It was in the beginning of August. Well, here is the view from my balcony.