> One time in the 90s before iPhones & internets, I accidentally ended up in Siena Italy, on the day of Il Palio, not knowing anything about either one

Those were the days of total innocence & stumbling upon one of Italy’s best events. It was hot, so so hot, I guess we walked from the train station into a frenzy of excitement in the streets. Figured it out from posters around town, just kept walking along with the crowd down winding streets until finally reaching the huge piazza.

It was like being an hayseed from Oklahoma stumbling upon Times Square on New Year’s Eve with no idea what was going on.

The only previous knowledge I had of ‘Siena’ was a crayola crayon in the Big Box called ‘Burnt Sienna’, and yeah everything was hot & orangey brown, jack shyt vegetation anywhere in the city. Didn’t really know what Il Palio was until years later, reading about it on the internet.

We didn’t spend the night in Siena, didn’t try to find a hotel in the crowd. Eventually during that trip we ended up in Lucca, Pisa, and Florence the same way, just getting on & off hot Italian trains when we felt like it. The only one I had heard of before was Florence and of course Pisa. There was a World Cup going on (we had no clue) and apparently Italy had won a match, and it turned into New Years Eve all over again.

Italy was still using the lira and everything cost thousands & thousands, it was hard to figure out the Big Numbers when we only really knew 1-10 and the talking happened too fast, so just fake it and get by. No Google Translate. No credit cards etc. The person I was with turned out to be a quiet natural genius, polyglot knew many languages and had a sixth sense for direction & travel & could make conversation with anyone (in the early 90s there were far far fewer English speakers).