The day starts with a coffee at *Torrefattore Fiorella*. An opening at the counter, lots of locals, everybody knows everybody else, or so it seems. We are in Italy after all. *Il capucho* is way too milky but the atmosphere is irreproachable. A is handling the order today because I'm out of money and she's the one wielding the wallet on this trip. Italy is the best cure for introverts: you don't even get coffee if you don't speak up. And when you do, anybody will hold a conversation with you. For now we have only seen the curiously water-tight streets around the Campo by night but as we move a little bit outwards, Siena opens itself on this sunny morning to the context of the tuscan hills which are vaulting out of waves of fog like mystical fish. *pesci primordiali di pietra*, I'm inclined to compose with an imagined lyra in hand, walking from the Basilica di San Clemente in *Valdimontone* through *Leocorno* to *Tartuca* and eventually *Chiocciola*. Siena is divided into contrade, districts distinct in color, coat of arms and sense of belonging which supposedly becomes apparent during the Palio, a quite viscious horse race that is present everywhere: in espresso bars you have the jockey's masks, elsewhere trophies, books are sold on the topic and colorful postcards. Even the christmas trees follow the local color scheme, some street lamps are shaped like the namesake animals, they have their own fountains and churches. I've long gotten used to the fact that for the average person you are a stranger if you come from a place as distant as 30 minutes by car, let alone another country or ethnicity. But while I usually see this as a weakness in the human design, when it is elevated to entire sensorial concepts like here, I cannot help but wonder: maybe the instinctive friction we feel to others can be disarmed if it is directed through culture and institutions into a commonly accepted set of rules under which to express it. Some weeks back I read a book about how to design gatherings, written by a professional event organizer whose tasks include the ideation of informal places of problem solving and overcoming entrenched interests between heads of states or officers of large companies. What she says sounds similar: you don't block friction, you let it play out step by step, in games, in relaxed atmospheres, in prepared environment in which nobody is in any real danger. What is more is that such societal games play two roles. First you can freely belong to one tribe while healthily live your desire for having opponents and outsiders. On the other hand, you and your adversaries encode each other as elements of the same larger clan. You might come from the contrada with the fish or the unicorn, but you are all Sienese. New buildings like the remains said to date from etruscan times are all following the dominant red-brick color coding. Even the cemetary looks like a mirror held to the city of the living. It's green trees and marble mausolea, the terraces and fortification-like walls feel the same even though it's inhabitants live mostly underground, while the Sienese palazzi are surprisingly tall and, looking in any direction, some tower allows you to immediately orient yourself, most importantly the palazzo pubblico. Nowadays I wonder what we gain by letting everything proliferate without any sense of common vision. Cities are ugly, minds are scattered, life inharmonious. Of course we need room for experimentation, but let's build places for that and take pride in what already exists, no? Siena inside the walls is one of the few cities, where very little interferes with building a mental image of a distinct identity. Granted I am here outside of the tourist season and there is at least one path near San Domenico littered with those obnoxious shops that peddle one brand of cheapness and absent-mindedness across the globe but compared to Florence for instance, it's volume is so low that it is easily blended out by a well-meaning mind who came here to enjoy the expression of another culture. That was our main reason to swap out the city of the Medici in favor of the Palombini and it was the right choice. On the way from Valdimontone to the hill on the other side of the green valley we quickly realize that Siena is the city of vistas. Where you stop, you get a view of rolling hills and a spiking city scape several layers of perspective deep that invites the mind to jump off the ground and fly into the distance. I think "Kafka" or "Piranesi" while zigzagging up and down the stairs amidst clotheslines and cars parked closely together like the ubiquitous bricks, only that the palce is too friendly for what we associate with either of those names. Yesterday we had a great chat at the organic food store as soon as the lady realized we speak italian. Today at the espresso bar a sparkling young lady with a lion mane of untamable black locks guided us to the delight of *Ricciarelli* and pan forte with the most welcoming smile and at the restaurant right in front of the Pinacotheca after only a short chit-chat, the waiter and I are in perfect synchronization, he dressing the table while I pour the drinks for my gf and empty the bottle just in time so he can take it away. It's small moments like these that make life memorable and for some reason they happen outside of normal life and especially in italy. "Quelli due sono simpatici", I heard him say to his colleague, who didn't warm up to us. Then there was the calm, older gentleman at the ice cream parlor. He didn't say much but offered my gf a second *pallina* with a gesture warm like a wool blanket, and that lady at another coffee shop who remembered what 7 clients had ordered in 30 seconds, cheerfully relaying it to the guy manning the machine, who might have been her son. A month later I asked an LLM what makes traveling so special and it said: travels are moments of becoming, not being. I wasn't ready for that. Only a week earlier I had met an older gentleman at my favorite coffee shop at home, who told me about the first German philosopher, Jakob Boehme, who constructed a whole mystical philosophy on the fact that God, or creation, is becoming and not static. Mysticism is attractive to many people today, I think, because it gives agency to the individual. And allowing for change, as opposed to assuming that things have to be maintained as they are, is probably the most liberating thought there is. It makes room and necessitates agency and makes it exciting. Mysticism aside, travels are a similar experience because you have to assume a position of uncertainty. You don't know the language, the customs, the places. You don't know but have to ask for help, you don't judge because you don't have the context, you don't have routines because you associate no past to any of your surroundings. You are nobody and the world fills you like an empty vase, quickly and spontaneously as you make a place your own by learning it's ways and live through the childlike or mystical experience of finding your place again. 入乡随俗 or "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" is not about blending in to avoid awkwardness, it's about embracing the fact that you too are allowed to have no idea what's going on and become someone who does again. On that other hill, we arrive just in time to listen to the city's bells. They ring one after the other, sometimes overlapping; the bell from the palazzo pubblico sounds like someone hitting a bunch of metal sheets, chromatic and off-tune, some seconds after the churches have finished. The most beautiful sound, with a gentle double-tap rhythm, where the bell gets hit on both sides of it's swing, comes from San Clemente in Valdemontone. Maybe I already identify with my contrada? Just underneath the wall on which I'm sitting is a parking lot. It is covered by a wide green lawn, well maintained and the concrete structure is almost imperceptible from afar. It could be better integrated into the park, but it could also be much worse. There are no AC units, smoke pipes, gravel and concrete wasteland, even the graffiti here are somewhat cute. At first, I think that the huge building here is abandoned, but after a group of students sit down in the park and I hear avant-garde violin and piano practice from the windows I realize it's the city's conservatory and several high schools. The building makes me think of when I visited the University of Pavia with a friend: run down, narrow corridors, students who adopt the grunge and rough look out of conviction socializing outside in the courtyards and espresso bar. My friend sat down in an empty auditorium, she's the prima della classe, I took the podium looking for a place where I could draw a penis-graffiti. "Straight or curved", she asked; "Curved" - "To which side?" Okay the building would need some maintenance but they have a killer view! "If I had a kid I'd send them here to learn about Italy as soon as possible", I catch myself thinking. The cemetery is a bit farther than anticipated but an obligatory visit with my gf. This one is particularly beautiful. The most remarkable thing is the warning at the entrance: "leave all hope behind!" - well, not exactly but apparently recent weather conditions have hollowed out the *tombe in sterro*, digged graves, which is a problem because the main avenues are actually the marble plates on graves which have become a lose and porose hazard to walk on. So I tried very carefully not to step on anybody's toes and had a great walk with views on the surrounding hills, while A was taking the bigger part of 800 pictures here. That's how much she likes the place. The only other one which could compete being Venice. I'm having a moment of reflexion, thinking about my current feelings, the fear of committing to the woman who loves me, my recent happiness that came from introducing change, newness and uncertainty somewhat selfishly into our lives and why I have this constant impression of not having lived to the fullest. It felt right to shake things up some years ago and I am a better person for it - we are. But to continue now seems unreasonable and unfair. Yet I fear that if I a give up everything that is new and exciting, I will fall back into my old life, which was a slow-motion closeup of a mechanism grinding to a halt. As I walk on the *tombe in sterro*, I start practicing my Italian "r", which is the bane of my existence and will make me sound like a tourist for the rest of my days, even in cultures that I fit in quite naturally otherwise. What's worse, people whose native languages don't even have an "r" can do it easily. Rolling my "r" as if gurgling mouthwash, I realize that I am not alone. Two or three old ladies care for tombs or sit in front of tombstones with pictures of loved ones pasted on.