Keep Calm and Keep Moving

During my stay in Siena, my roommate and I only saw each other on weekdays since we would always end up traveling over the weekends.  

Except of course during the Palio di Siena, weekend. This was a special weekend where the whole town and visitors from all over the world would gather to watch a horse race. The riders would dress in traditional medieval costumes and compete with a particular contrada or team. We purposely planned to stay this particular weekend to watch this event together. 

Since this was our first time experiencing an event like this, we did not know what to expect. We improvised on breakfast by eating some left-over bread from the previous day and left early in the morning to go to Piazza Del Campo where the event was to take place. 

As we were trekking through the streets, we began to see the endless line of crowds going up and down the steep, hilly streets of Siena. People were drinking, singing, parading and shouting. The chaos was so incredible that we got separated from each other. 

We had no cell phones or channels to communicate unless we were next to each other. As I kept getting shuffled through the crowds, I finally did find her and our group of friends. We all watched this race together. It was unlike anything I had ever seen or experienced before and I felt like I was on a set for a medieval times movie. 

  

 

As soon as this race finished, we followed the crowd to the “Nicchio” or party spot where they were serving free wine for the whole city that night. The celebration was a mix of madness with fun spirit.

Once we finished with the wine celebrations, we were parading around town when one of the girls, who drank too much wine, began having a severe asthma attack on the street. While everyone went into panic mode, I knew she needed her inhaler immediately. I took a friend with me and ran for a half hour back to our residence. We grabbed her inhaler and started running back. 

Once we got back, she told us we had the wrong ones and immediately, we began to panic again. We ultimately had to call for medical help and she was taken to the hospital. The next day she was back in school and everything was back to normal. The only thing we could do at the time was to keep trying to improve the situation.

I learned that the best way to improve a bad situation is to keep calm and keep moving towards finding a solution, physically or metaphorically at any stage in life. This incident really tested my ability to think fast in a stressful situation but I ultimately had to keep on moving. I currently follow this principle in all aspects of my life. 

I know there may be some of you who disagree, but feel free to share your perspectives with me! 
 
If you would like to check out the Palio in Siena, you can watch this short clip below from the movie, Quantum of Solace which shows the horse race!