Siena: City of Surprises, Part 2

Back to Siena! Talking about that little town will seem so peaceful after a busy weekend.

Here's what happened:

Friday. My brothers and sister and I went out for our quarterly Nick's-home-from-college lunch at Pei Wei. Then we stopped at a Halloween Warehouse (yessssss) where we tried on just about every hat they had. The boys dragged us to some video game store next door, but fortunately Claire and I found this.

It kept us very entertained.

It really felt like a September day, with cloudy skies and cool temperatures. I wasn't really able to enjoy it driving around town, though, because there were wrecks everywhere. I think we had to pull over for about five ambulances throughout the afternoon. You would expect that in a big city, but here? It's unusual.

On top of that, the protests in the Middle East are pretty worrisome. I'm praying that there will be peace soon!

That evening Colin's family had a party for his two new baby cousins, Cole and Nora. They're so small, and it was pretty hilarious trying to get pictures of them next to each other.

Saturday wasn't as busy, but there was a lasagna dinner and a pretty rowdy game of Apples to Apples.

Sunday was the challenge. After 7:30 am Mass I helped translate letters from our sister parish in Peru until about 1...then I was back again from 6-8 pm! Although I was exhausted that evening, it was great to meet the social workers from Peru, and get to hear all about these amazing families our parish helps.

Okay, now to the task at hand: Siena, day 2.

It rained. It was cool. But rain in a Medieval town is so much more awesome!
Our morning adventure was the church of San Domenico, where several relics of St. Catherine of Siena are housed. Her brown skull, clothed in a habit, sits on a shelf, along with her finger.
Remember how I said that Italians are not shy about love? Well, death doesn't make them uncomfortable either. More on that later. If you'd like to see a picture, check out this article on relics.

After looking at the many beautiful side chambers, we peeked into the gift shop. I attempted to buy some post cards with my credit card, trying to save my dwindling cash supply. The shopkeeper warned me that there would be a lot of extra charges, so Claire spotted me for a few cents. We also visited the house where St. Catherine had lived, a villa with a large courtyard.

Bracing ourselves against the wind and rain, we headed to the Duomo. We bought tickets that would allow entry into the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the walkways leading to the Duomo's roof, and a museum with treasures from the Cathedral.

We started with the towers and walkways. The rain blew onto us, soaking our hair, but we got a great view of the city.

Lights reflecting on the rain-soaked Piazza del Campo.

On a sunny day you'd have an incredible view of the countryside!

I love the colors of the rooftops: red tiles, but add the green moss and the wet sheen of the rain, and they're almost iridescent, with blues and pinks.

I like seeing the striped back of the facade!

Unfortunately, my pictures of the interior of the Duomo are not worth seeing. My poor camera never could handle the dim light of a church. However, the cathedral's inside is really beautiful. The floor has marble sketches of women: sibyls, saints, and even a goddess pointing to the moon. The columns retain the green stripes of the exterior. At the main altar, wooden chairs have delicate paintings in bright red and green. I was surprised to find a whole wall of padlocks--used as prayers to the Virgin. In retrospect, it's a lot like the bridge in Paris. You might have seen it:

Lovers attach a lock to the railing, then throw the key in the river.

The chapels are filled with artwork: sculptures by Donatello, paintings by Duccio...

A pleasant surprise: in the Baptistery we met a group of kids from Benedictine, who were studying abroad in Florence. Not sure if us speaking English or my bright red T-shirt was the dead giveaway. They were very nice, and we actually kept in touch for most of the semester. The farther away from home you go, the smaller the world gets!

That afternoon, we went back to the courtyard I mentioned from the day before, and went to Mass. I actually just found the Mass program for the Esaltazione della Santa Croce--Exaltation of the Holy Cross (I saved every pamphlet, ticket stub, and map I got on that trip).

Directly to the right of where we sat was a glass coffin under a side altar. Bones and a skull turned brown lay mere feet from my arm. It was a culture shock for American Catholics. Yes, each of our altars in the United States have relics of a saint set in them--but never in plain view. St. Peter's was my first experience of being surrounded by earthly remains, but none of those coffins had visible bones. Being comfortable with death is a strange idea for us...we try to shut it away as quickly as possible, buried or burned, and the flesh forgotten. But Mediterranean cultures have it right, I think. We should celebrate the body, for one day all decay and death will be over, and bodies will be wonderful again. It's the same idea as the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. An instrument of torture and the fear inspired by death becomes life and love itself.

I can't honestly say that I felt all that then. I was probably a bit creeped out, while trying to remain reverent. But the seed was planted for just one of the many things that Europe helps you to understand.

As the evening light grew softer, the rain let up for a bit, and we went to a concert in the courtyard of the Civic Hall. I'm so glad that Debbie saw a poster advertising it and insisting we go, because it was so much fun! Elderly men and women, dressed in embroidered vests, sang beautiful choruses. It didn't matter that we had next to no knowledge of Italian, because the duo singing a cheeky love song made such ridiculously dramatic expressions. The man pleading for her love was exasperatingly rejected by the woman's rolling eyes.

Pizza (a whole one, of course) and vino at a cute little restaurant near Il Campo for dinner. Then we walked through the dark streets, rain pouring on us. We huddled under brick archways and hurried by dim alleyways. Waiting under a streetlight, we took turns going to the corner and searching the scenery for the bus, as if we could make it come faster. Finally it arrived, and we wound up back at our cabins. Claire, Deborah and I actually hung out at the "lobby" and read our homework for a while! I'm sure it was either part of the Oresteia or some Thucydides.

While waiting for the bus to take us back to Rome on Sunday morning, the sun was shining cheerily. However, it was incredibly cold! Using up the last of my money, I bought some coffee in a shop and sipped it at the bar. Jamie had only brought T-shirts, so a fellow bus passenger insisted she borrow his jacket.

Anyway, if I haven't convinced you that Siena is the best, I haven't done my job. So what if our shoes didn't dry out until we got to Rome! This quiet little town was one adventure after another. We learned surprising truths about death and life, the beauty of art and song and love, the fun of having deep conversations even when you're soaking wet, and of friendship with complete strangers.

I'll leave you with what Rick Steves claims everyone who has been to Siena ends up saying:

I know I do.