Today I went with USAC to Ivrea for the famous orange battle. It was a free trip for all of the USAC students. The bus picked us up at school and dropped us off there. Ivrea is luckily only an hour away so we were there quickly.
The battle didn't start until 2pm and we got there around 12 so we had time to kill. Daniele walked us to the main piazza and on our way there we walked through all of the different territories of the teams. I took tons of pictures which I uploaded onto Facebook. In the piazzas there were stacks of crates filled with oranges. Sooo many oranges, probably 18 crates high. Unbelievable, I don't know where all of these oranges came from. Apparently, years ago they use to use apples. Good thing they changed to oranges or everyone would have black eyes and bruises.
We walked down to the street where they had trucks with food (kind of like taco trucks but they had panini and desserts, man I love Italy). I got this delicious pork sandwich and Hannah & I got some french fries to share. Constantly stuffing our face with food, nothing new there!
Around 1:30pm was when the horses and carts started to make their ways up to the various piazzas. The cart holds 10 people it looked like and had 2-4 horses pulling them. There are 9 teams that all have their own colors with special uniforms and sections through out the town. Their names: Chessmen, Arduini, Ace of Spades, Death, Tuchini, Devils, Mercenaries, Panthers and Credendari. I am not sure how they pick a winner or if there even is a winner.
Before we knew it the battle had begon! We some how ended up right in the action in one of the piazzas. Oranges were being thrown from every which direction. I had worn this sweater, which I thought was red but people were telling me it was brown/burgundy/maroon...but it didn't even matter if you were wearing a true red dress; you had to have a red hat one!! So many people were yelling at us in Italian saying we needed to leave since we didn't have a red hat on and that we were going to get hit. Hannah and Liz were throwing oranges at everyone. Then they would get upset when the boys would throw them at them haha
We left that one piazza and moved on to another one which was a bad idea..the guys there had NO mercy on us girls. They would rip open the oranges and just squeeze them into our hair. Actually, I shouldn't say "our" because when they would come to me, I would grab both of their hands and tell them I'd kick them in nuts if they did that. But Monique, Kaitlin, Hannah and Liz were getting orange juice EVERYWHERE. Down their shirts, in the hair, on their jeans..Hannah actually slipped down the stairs so her butt got covered in orange.
The battle came to pause but we first thought it was over. They had been throwing oranges for over an hour and half so we figured they were tired and it ended. Oh no, they came back 20 minutes later. At this point, we were standing in the middle of the piazza where they come walking around. The oranges on the floor are indescribable. It was really disgusting and hard to walk around in plus the horses were pooping everywhere so it was mixed with that. Pretty picture, huh? I got a few pictures of it all.
Once the battle started again, we ditched the piazza and went down the river which was in the direction of the bus. There we saw some more of the parade and was throwing confetti around. The bus left at 5:30pm and we were home at 7pm.
Overall the day was amazing and I am so glad I went. Today was a memory that I will never forget. Crazy how these littles towns can have such huge festivals that are famous! I am one lucky girl to be in Italy :]
Miss you guys so much!!
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