THE PALIO: whatitwas and whatitisnow

Okay, so here's the deal: there are these things in Siena called contrade (this word in American language is "contradas"). They are basically neighborhoods but with badass animal mascots and cool flags and shit. Sometimes certain contrade hate other contrade for some reason that is probably like 50000 years old. (I have a guess for why la torre has two enemies and is the only contrada to have two enemies. The answer is JEWS. Catholics hate Jews and, weirdly enough, Italy is Catholic.) Every year, the contrade all get together and race horses around the Campo, which is way too small to race horses around. Sometimes horses fall down and people get trampled and stuff. It's pretty exciting. BUT IT WASN'T ALWAYS THIS WAY.

Once upon a time, in Siena, there was a big battle between Florence and Siena and SIENA FUCKING WON THAT SHIT even though there were way more Florentines fighting. It is because they asked Mary for help and promised to worship her forever if she helped out. Which she did, because I guess she is also badass. (Even though she got Jesus without sex.) Mary's way of helping was to be all, "Hey guys, just totally go kill all the Florentines in their sleep, it's totally cool." And Siena responded, "K." And so it was.

To remember this awesome feat and how super Mary's advice was, Siena has the Palio. Also one time when Italy was all depressed the Medici family was all, "I'm sorry you guys are sad and the country sucks. How about you just have another Palio in August. Drown your sorrows in contrada dinners." And Siena responded, "K." And so it was.

BUT BEFORE THE FOR REAL PALIO, there were lots of fake Palios. INCLUDING ONE IN WHICH PEOPLE RODE BUFFALO. COOLEST SHIT EVER. Seriously. They raced buffalo around the campo. How super would it be to see that. "Oh hey, what's up?" "Oh, not too much, just gonna race around some buffalo or some shit." "Yeah man, that's cool. I'm pickin up what you're puttin down." "Word."

Then for whatever reason Siena was like, fuck buffalos. Let's race DONKEYS FOREVER. And so they did. But it went more like this: "Oh hey, what's up?" "Oh, not too much, just gonna race around some donkeys or some shit." "Oh that sounds ok." And then it wasn't because donkeys don't race. Assholes. (ASSholes. Get it??????) So then finally it occurred to people that maybe they should race racehorses. So they did. There are 17 contrade and only 10 get to race, though, because like we said the campo just can't fit all those motherfuckers. There's some method to how they pick who races, but we didn't really get it, it sounded like bullshit. Anyway, winning the Palio(z) is a real big deal and everybody gets all excited and has like 170000 parades every day until someone else wins another Palio and then THEY have parades and basically it's parades all the time up in here. Hell, even the teams that don't win have parades, because they can. They all have kickass parading outfits (can you say MANTIGHTS????) and flags and drums and it's beautiful always.

After the Palio they have a million other things like big parties and dinners and all sorts of shit we don't even know about because we aren't in a contrada. (You have to be baptized in, FYI.)

SPEAKING OF BAPTISMS, fun fact: The horses are all baptized in the churches of their represented contrada before they race. Also if they poop in the church, that's good luck. Obviously. Other strange things: A horse can win without a rider, but a horse cannot win without its contrada headband. Both of these things have happened in the past. (How pissed would you be if your motherfucking horse won but the asshole wasn't wearing its hairpiece? Fucking shit.)

Siena also used to play other games back in the day besides racing the most random animals they could get their hands on. Lots of these games involved roleplaying, but not in a sexy way. Half the people would pretend to be Florence and the other half would play Siena, and then they would beat the shit out of each other until people died. (For real. We exaggerate a lot, but this is not one of those times.) Eventually these games were stopped because people died.

Another splendid and classy game they played was "Release a bull in the campo and you can't leave until you eat a really big lunch." Literally.

They played some shit where they just punched and kicked and bit each other to avoid killing each other, also, but I bet some people still kicked it sometimes. A good punch to the nose can do a bitch in.

The moral of this story, basically, is that Siena is the best place ever.

XOXO,
Gossip Buffalo

PS: If you want to be in a contrada, here are your animal options: elephant (best), ram (ok sometimes), snail, caterpiller (worst), dolphin, dragon, owl, rhino, leocorn (whatever the fuck that is), two headed eagle, panther, turtle, shell (not even fucking alive), porcupine, giraffe (shut up, Taylor), DINOSAUR (we wish), she-wolf (complete with teats yessssss), OR goose (suxorz).

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO,
Gossip DINORHINOS