First on the list was the Cinta Senese farm. This is a special kind of Pig only found in Tuscany and specifically around Siena. These pigs are large with the distinct black and white coloring, where the black is on the front and back part of the pig with a white stripe down the middle (See photo below). You may be asking yourself, "Why is this pig important?" And my answer to you is "That is a great question. Thanks for bringing it up." These pigs are completely natural. They are given large amounts of space to run around and forage in the woods. They are only given a little bit of not foraged food and the ingredients completely regulated by the organization who over see these types of pigs. They are vey well taken care of and are well protected. These animals were almost completely wiped out, but they have been careful taken care of and watched over. They are important to the economy and the farmers really love what they do. These are the most natural meat products you can buy. They are very expensive and there is a limited amount meat to go around so if you want to make sure that you are getting actually Cinta Senese meat, there is a tracking number that comes with every piece and every pig is given a number as a piglet. There is a site you can take the number and punch it in and you can find whole histories and genetic trees for the meat you are buying. This is a very special business and they are very serious about making sure that these pigs stay natural. Fun Fact: These pigs have been around for hundreds of years. There is a painting in the Museo Civico called "Bouon Governo" (Good Government) where there is a small cinta senese pig painted in the landscape. Very cool!!!
The next activity SIS had planned for us was to take a guided tour of the underground aqueducts. If you didn't already know, Siena has a very elaborate and well built aqueduct system that catches the pockets of water that settle on top of the thick rock layer underneath the city. These systems have been working for hundreds and hundreds of years and continue to work today without any mechanical intervention at all. The system runs completely on its own. It was actually pretty amazing to see such an amazing structure that has lasted through the years. These aqueducts used to lead to wells and water gardens of the rich as well as fill the many fountains around the city. The water is clean, but not filtered to our standards today. The main fountain in Piazza del Campo is filled with the water from the aqueducts. There are even two places on the outside of the fountain where you can fill up a water bottle or wash off your hands. Fontebranda is another fountain and it also happens to be right across from where my school is! I like this fountain a lot because it is cute and quaint and there are lots of places to sit out in the sun and enjoy the sound of the running water. I don't have any pictures of this because it was too dark. Many of the wells today are closed, but the tunnels still send water to gardens. Fun fact: While we were walking in the aqueducts, at the points where water would be diverted to peoples houses, there were hand written plaques with the name of the person and some information about their water. They even had had drawn maps f how the tunnel goes.
On Friday, a member of the teaching staff who is a high up member in a contrada took us to their museum. Most of the time you can't just go into a contrada museum. Usually you have to know someone or be apart of the contrada. The museums store the history of the contrada's winnings and usually holds different uniforms and old equipment from past years. When a contrada wins, they receive a piece of artwork created by an artist either local or foreign. They have even had famous artists create art for them. They have museums to show off this art. Usually it is a piece of long silk/fabric painted and decorated. The museum we visited was in the Turtle contrada. Their museum is very new and very modern. They had just redone it a few years ago. The silks were amazing and very beautiful and some of them were very old. They even had artifacts, equipment and uniforms from past years. They had pictures of all the different flags they had throughout the years. The nice thing about their museum is that it also has their workshop where they repair their flags and uniforms and they store all their equipment. The flags are all hand painted with their symbol which can be extremely expensive if you have it done by outside people. Many times they try to train artistic people within the contrada and have them paint it. Either way, it was a simply amazing museum. The contradas are very important social aspects of being sienese as well as being a long running local tradition.
Lastly, to finish of the month of March, we went to the Opera. It was actually a dress rehearsal because the tickets were cheaper. The name of the opera was La Traviata. Everyone got all dressed up and we looked fabulous! It was nice to be able to put on makeup and feel all classy going to the opera. This was actually my first opera and it was in Italian, so I didn't really know what to expect. The singing was amazing and very beautiful. The set was really cool and the costumes were amazing. They had the words in both Italian and English which was pretty helpful so I could see and compare both languages. The only down side was that it was a dress rehearsal so they kept stopping and redoing parts of the scenes. It did take away from the show I think plus they skipped over part of the second act. According to the SIS staff, it has never been that bad before since they've been going to it. Overall it was a cool night and I think everyone had a lot of fun.
My Friend Jenny and I
My friend Rahel and I
My friend May and I
My roommate Melissa and I
The stage of the opera
May at the opera
My friend Karsen and I
Rahel at the opera
