8/9/15
Florence, Italy → Siena, Italy

I slept absolutely great. It felt amazing to get a good night’s rest. I’m kidding; it was another night in Airbnb hell, a miserable experience I won’t get into. Thankfully, Airbnb issued us a 150-dollar voucher for our catastrophe in Florence.

There were no BlaBlaCars to take us from Florence to Siena. I guess we had to do what travelers did in past decades—we started the mile-long walk to the train station. The route from our Airbnb to the station took us past the Duomo. As we walked by the giant one last time, I realized I was in the backdrop of at least five selfies.

Two tickets to Siena cost thirty euros total. This was painful for us to pay after so many BlaBlaCar trips in the single digits, but I had to admit, the ease of walking up to a kiosk and printing tickets to the next train was extremely relaxing. No waiting in the blazing heat for lost drivers or trying to communicate via stolen restaurant Wi-Fi. We knew exactly where the train would be and when. We couldn’t say that about many BlaBlaCar drivers.

We arrived in Siena an hour and a half later, and to be quite honest, neither of us knew a damn thing about this city. We’d never even planned on coming here until we got to New York City and Orrie and Rebekah had told us that Siena was a city we had to visit. We fully trusted their opinions, so when we got around to planning Italy, we penciled in a few days.

The station was small, and we immediately noticed Siena was very different from Florence. It was more of a Tuscan village than a city. Rolling countryside and lush vineyards surrounded us. As we scanned the hillside, we spotted a small white car in the visitors’ lot. Alessandra, our next Airbnb host, hugged us immediately and welcomed us to Siena.

The roads in Siena were insanely tight and hugged beige and tan buildings with what seemed like only a foot of space between car and building. We continued to climb the mountainside and passed under the large gate in the city walls. “Only resident cars allowed in town,” Alessandra told us as a guard checked her windshield.

She took us to our place in the very heart of town and parked on the side of the road. “This way!” she told us excitedly, and skipped onto a side road that was so steep, there was no way a car could get up it. I was basically falling forward and throwing one leg up at a time in front of me to gain enough momentum to keep from tipping backward with my backpack on. I turned around to see Ash on all fours, climbing and laughing with joy. She was already obsessed with Siena.

Alessandra gave us the quick run of our awesome apartment before heading out. We followed her out the door to go downtown, and she pointed up the street and yelled, “That way!” before speeding off down the hill. A few blocks down an empty steep hill and we arrived at the main attraction of Siena, the famous Piazza del Campo.

The Piazza del Campo is a huge flat area made up of hard dirt and surrounded by restaurants and shops. My only question was why there was so much unoccupied room in the middle. I thought it might have been some sort of sports field, but there were no goals or lines. We found a café along the outskirts of the field and started talking to the owner, who was sitting outside. I asked him about the Piazza del Campo, and he looked at me, confused, and then said something about Palio horses and laughed at me. Holy shit … this is where the Palio race is?

I’d learned about this as a kid, and now when I looked it up (borrowing the same man’s Wi-Fi code off his menu), it all looked familiar. The Palio race is held twice a year in this city square and around a windy course lined with people. It is a famous race like no other in the world, closely resembling rally car races … but for horses. We’d missed the last race by a couple of weeks, and that explained the lack of people in the village.

After seeing the largest attraction in Siena and walking through the tiny alleys for a few hours, we grabbed two nice bottles of five-euro Chianti from a local market and found a view of the Basilica of San Domenico. We sat on a stone wall and drank the Chianti right out of the bottle. Actually, I was the one drinking it straight from the bottle; Ash had purchased a small one-euro measuring cup from the market because she is a classy gal.

We headed home to get ready for the evening, and as I showered, I heard Ash’s stomach growl from the other room. Uh-oh, she is about to be hangry. I heard her come running, and I braced for impact in case she had already transformed into the Hangry Hulkess.

“Kyle, did you hear that thunder?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, yeah, I heard it,” I said, getting up out of the fetal position.

We hadn’t seen a drop of rain since Budapest, let alone a storm. It had been in the midnineties for weeks now. We ran to the window, and I immediately felt a cool, pre-rain gust, releasing mountain ranges of goose bumps on my body. We felt like kids at Camp Green Lake from the movie Holes, and ran outside to dance euphorically down the street in the first drops of rain.

Not sure how we didn’t pick up on this piece of the puzzle, but the light drizzle and distant rumbles of thunder turned into a torrential downpour. We had our phones, wallets, and Ash’s camera all in prime condition to be ruined so we ducked into the closest café and ordered a bottle of wine to watch the rain. The ten-euro bottle of quality wine was a steal, but this was our third bottle of wine today, and Ash was clearly feeling it. She sported the googly eyes you stick on arts and crafts.

Halfway through our pasta, she let out a hiccup that would have woken up Sleeping Beauty. I almost dropped my fork. I looked at her as her face turned red with embarrassment. It was a mix between a hiccup, a burp, and a slight scream. We both knew what was coming next, but there was nothing either of us could do, and moments later another hiccup blurted out. I couldn’t help but laugh, and the couple next to us chuckled too. Ash tried holding her breath and drinking upside down, neither of which could prevent the onslaught of hiccups barraging our table.

The hiccups continued until we arrived home, and then Ash began throwing up red wine. I felt bad for not being sick with her, but red wine doesn’t affect me like it does most people. I come from a grape-loving family, but Ash comes from a family of light drinkers.

I tried to console her and rub her back, but she gets really mad at me—and everyone else around her—when she is sick. I also tried to make her feel better by reminding her that at least she didn’t have the hiccups anymore, but she was far from amused. I sat on the bed and listened to make sure she was okay, and once it seemed like she had finally stopped throwing up, I walked to the bathroom to take care of her. At the precise moment I reached the door, I heard another loud hiccup. I turned right around and went back to the bedroom, an abundance of cuss words at my heels.