Color inside of the Lines: Juliet, Pictures, Pisa and More

This place is magihal. I say magihal behause that is how everyone pronounces their “c” sounds in Tushany. They are such a beautiful, intelligent, warm people.

I learned more about these 17 contrade this week: this rivalry is serious business. At times two different neighborhoods will line up across from one another, with the police and the ambulance on hand, and when someone yells “go” they run at each other, fistfight for a minute or less, and then dissipate quickly. To join a contrada, you pay a fee and then you are (literally) baptized into the contrada. The only rules during the horse race are that you can't hit another player's horse. It's the horse that wins, even if the fantino (rider) falls off. This has been going on for centuries. There is always some nasty politics, with riders getting paid by both their own contrada as well as receiving an under the table sum of cash from a rival so that they will lose. But if you are caught betraying your contrada, you are publicly shamed and someone will likely beat you up if they catch you on the street.

Romeo and Juliet? They really lived! We were told yesterday that they were originally from Siena. Someone wrote down the story, and Shakespeare read it and embellished it, with the city of Verona as the main stage because he knew that city better. But Romeo and Juliet were from different contrade, and that is why their families hated each other so much.

We went to see the leaning tower of Pisa yesterday. It REALLY leans! It is hard to walk up the stairs because you lean one way and then the other, but it is so beautiful up top. We talked to a Napolitana couple who had been married for 25 years on the train ride home. We asked them what the secret to their successful marriage was. They answered, “Litigare sempre. Poi chiedere scusa.” “Fight all the time. Then make up afterwards.” They said as long as you are fighting, you are communicating sincerely. They said make war during the daytime, then make peace during the nighttime. :) I love Italians.

We learned about Galileo, who grew up in Pisa and allegedly dropped metal balls from the top of the tower to prove that two metal balls of different masses will fall with the same acceleration. Pretty neat to think that everyone wearing a wristwatch can thank him for his studies.