As an anthropology major, I am constantly aware of how my interpretation of my surroundings is relative to my own personal experiences. I knew that in traveling to Italy, I would be immersed into a very different culture and I would need to keep an open mind about the events I witnessed and the people I met. I was in Italy for five weeks this summer participating in an archaeological dig about thirty minutes south of the city of Siena and while we worked hard from the crack of dawn through the hot hours of the afternoon, we did have weekends off to travel as we liked. We had gathered up a large group of students from the excavation project who wanted to go and together we caught the 6:50 am bus from Vescovado di Murlo into Siena to watch the Palio race. The race itself started an hour and half later than planned due to the time spent gathering the horses and trying to line them up to start the race. They were on so many drugs they struggled to walk in a straight line or even to stand still. As someone who goes through extra care to only buy cruelty free products, this was a heartbreaking scene. I wanted to scream at someone. I wanted to stomp out and leave and demand that this practice be stopped because it was so obvious the horses were hurting and scared but I couldn’t. The Palio has historically been viewed as a key aspect of the Sienese culture and the people of the various competing contratas take the race event extremely seriously. I had to remind myself that this is not my own culture and no matter how unethical I found the scene, I had no right to criticize the people of Siena on such an integral part of their identity.