Medieval Parade & Donkey Race

So today, as part of the Alba Truffle Festival (no, not chocolate truffles unfortunately, but the earthy mushroomy type that apparently are rare and crazy expensive), all 21 of us in the program (22 including DanBear, our RA) got to participate in the parade, dressed in medieval costumes, and watch the Palio dei Asini, or Donkey Race. It was definitely a pretty neat experience. :)

Dan told us that we could start arriving at the Campus Center to start getting into costume and getting our hair done around 830am. I have a habit now of getting up earlier than everyone else so that I'm not rushed when getting ready and I don't have to fight for the one bathroom that we share between six girls, so I was there by 840. I was early by Italian standards; they hadn't even started setting up costumes or hair stuff yet when I got there, haha. Needless to say, I was the first one ready, although the other girls started showing up soon after they were done with me, so I guess it was good timing. By 11 or 1130am all of us were looking snazzy and ready to go, but we still had a couple of hours to chill before the parade actually started, so of course we took this opportunity to get a bunch of pictures in our medieval garb. :P

All 22 of us in our colorful Renaissance wear!

This is me in my bar maid outfit with our marching donkey friend, Pantichio (or something like that?)

Me with Daniel Blair, RA :P

Me, Sarah, Ally, Chelsea & Lilian looking legit in the courtyard :]

The boys (Dan, Craig, Andrew S., Nick, Andrew L., & James) showing some leg.. Scandalous! (Too funny :P)

Me, Lilian, & Elizabeth as lowly bar wenches showing some respect for noblewoman Nikki :P

I may have weirded this little boy out. I just thought he was soo cute, so I asked if I could take a picture with him (Posso avere un foto?) & he looked at me with this kind of "Why is this strange American talking to me?" look on his face, but I did get a picture. :P

I don't know what time it was when they finally rounded us up to get the parade going (We weren't allowed to wear watches or jewelry, plus my watch unfortunately stopped working out of the blue earlier this week even though I had just replaced the battery before coming to Alba. So sad.), but we eventually did file away from the Campus Center in two lines with our various props. Dan said there are about 7 districts/neighborhoods in Alba (called Borgos), and we were representing the Borgo di la Rane (rane = frogs... yeah, I don't really know). We got held up for a little while waiting for some of the other districts to show up, but after maybe another half hour of waiting, the parade was finally under way.

Our banner for the Borgo di la Rane

Waiting for the parade to start

I wish that I could've been in the parade and seen it all at the same time, because it would've been really neat to see the other towns in their costumes - there were also bands of some sort, at least with drummers and buglers, and some dancing that I saw from a distance. Once the parade got going, anything modern on us had to be hidden, so the camera got put away (I used the money bag I got from Mom as a mini-purse, cinched it around my waist, and hid it under the black part of my costume, hidden from sight but still easily accessible for later.. smart, right? :] ). Walking in the parade through a ways of crowded streets was definitely something - it was like being in the parade at Disneyland! It was interesting being on the other side of things, since usually I'm the one on the sidelines taking pictures of everything, but this time I was part of the show and I had a (small) part to play. Regardless, it was just really cool to be able to be a part of the festivities. :)

After probably 15-20 minutes of walking, we approached Piazza Cagnasso, which had been turned into a type of arena for the major festivities. Each town district got about 10 minutes in the spotlight to put on a little show; we hadn't really gotten much details on this part aside from just mingling like common townsfolk, so it was all a little hectic and felt really uncoordinated. After our ten minutes of fame, we got to sit on the sidelines and just enjoy the show, so of course the camera came back out :P

This district had a really cool, dramatic performance that involved a dragon that this woman somehow magically and miraculously slayed.

After all of the different district performances finally wrapped up, they started setting up for the donkey races :) This part I was definitely looking forward to, because come on, how could watching donkeys race not be a good show? They're stubborn as heck, so you know that hilarity is bound to ensue. I asked Dan the other day what the story behind the donkey races was, and this is basically my paraphrased version of what he told me (although he also said that the story seems to change every time he hears it..): 

Once upon a time, the nearby city of Asti used to hold horse races, and Alba and Asti were rivals. One year, Alba beat Asti, and so out of bitterness, Alba wasn't invited the following year. So Alba said "Fine, you know what? We'll have our own race! But even better, we're going to use donkeys!" just to serve as an outright mockery of Asti's horse races. After that though, they ended up being like, "You know what? This is actually kind of fun!" And so a tradition was born.

 Good story, yeah? Haha. The donkey races proved to be just as good a show as I had hoped. Each race consisted of five laps. There were two donkeys to each district, so each donkey participated in one of the two preliminary rounds; all donkeys that placed were then included in the final championship round. Some donkeys were calm, others were feisty and boisterous, many stopped whenever the heck they felt like it, leaving their jockeys to coax, pull, and shove to get them moving in any way they could. A couple (like our second one) moved at a steady pace, thinking that slow and steady wins the race (not exactly the case here), but not really accomplishing anything, while others ran so fast that their jockeys fell off and were left behind to run after that and try to jump back on, haha.

 

This was our district's first donkey & jockey, #16. Moments after this photo was taken, our jockey got down on his knees and begged the donkey to budge. All of the jockeys were good sports and had good senses of humor :P

 

All in all, today was a really neat experience and I'm really glad that we all got to be a part of it. It's just another tally to my list of awesome Italian adventures :)