Send out your ray of sunshine.

Today is Saturday.  It's a holiday weekend.  And most are out enjoying the weather and the time off by playing at the lake, down by the pool, or somewhere outside.

I'm inside.

Things have been going wrong lately. Why isn't life easy?  Why is it so hard to have things go our way every day? Is it wrong to want life to be perfect?

I had a conversation the other night at dinner with friends about this.  Seems like kids these days have this idea that life is going to be perfect and they demand for things to go their way. A positive and determined outlook on life, I'd say. But it gets dangerous when things go wrong. They don't know how to handle it. They give up.

How do we as young adults be a good example to the kids then in this day in age?

Damn good question.  I don't know.

As much as I'd like to be a "real" grown-up, I just can't get away from the childlike outlook of wanting everything to be right.  And what exactly qualifies as a "real" grown-up...probably anything over 5'4". Shout out.

A good friend of mine from Lubbock - who I've grown up with since we were in kindergarten together - has it worse than me for sure.  His mom - one of my mom's best friends and kind of like a second mother to me - has been battling cancer for a few years now, and it recently has gotten so much worse that the doctors have given her only a few weeks to live.

A few weeks.  How the hell can that be!?  She was just fine all those years she spent at the baseball field watching Brandon and me play baseball. But things go wrong and we don't get to control them.  And it sucks.

I wish I knew how to have some kind of positive perspective from this, so I could be a better example to my kids at church.  One of their classmates, and a brother of one of our youth at church, took his own life the other day. I want to be able to provide words of wisdom and comfort for the youth, but I don't know how to comfort myself when things go wrong in my own world.

I don't like giving up... and I don't like losing... and I really don't like it when I disappoint others.  And as weird as it is, I think those are the characteristics that drive me to be positive right now.  And I guess that's good.

Life isn't easy. God didn't promise us a comfortable, worry-free, stress-free, pain-free, confusion-free life.  Which seemingly puts God in a terribly annoying category with the likes of Spencer Pratt and oil spills. Gross.

But what I do know God promised me is love. And thankfully my mind and heart can understand that intensely and rest easy knowing that His love is plenty for me.  And when things go wrong, His love doesn't.  And I do know that I can love on my friends, love on my kids, love on my family as God loves on me during the hard times, and that that love gives off enough HOPE to carry me forward to a time when things will go right again.

Onelove,
Regs

"Well sometimes the sun shines on 

Other people's houses and not mine. 

Some days the clouds paint the sky all gray 

And it takes away my summertime. 

Somehow the sun keeps shining upon you, 

While I struggle to get mine. 

If there's a light in everybody, 

Send out your ray of sunshine."

What about taking this empty cup and filling it up...

So it certainly has been a while. Over a year to be exact. Enough of that.

I recently (randomly) checked out a friend's blog for no apparent reason. Perhaps it was because I was surfing the net with no purpose (read: Facebook). Perhaps it was because I have 3 drinks in me and am feeling emotional. Sue me. Either way, my life at this point in time lead me to this blog about change.

Change scares me.

A lot.

I live very much in a black and white world....yet I call myself Grey. Go figure.

I like things in order. I like tradition. I like other people and things to stay the way they're put since it's convenient and proper to me. Only if I change them myself or I "allow" them to change do I accept it without qualms. Selfish much?

I think I'm this way because I grew up as a Momma's Boy where my Mom just so happened to be extremely "black and white." Clearly, I was destined to be like her. Interestingly enough, my Dad is very much a Grey Dweller. So judging by my innate "decision" to shadow Ma, I grew up putting things in my life in order...either This, or That. Always in a place.

And never removed from that place. Unless I was the one to remove it.

So, to say the least, this latest round of Change in my life came as a huge blow to my foundation, to my mind, and to my heart. (To keep it un-vague: My Mom is moving. Far away. Sad day.)

But when I read my friend's blog, I could tell that it was by the hand of my Creator, letting me know that I'm no longer a Boy (much less one belonging to his "Momma") and that life inevitably will change again. So I better damn well get used to it and learn how to deal with it.

Here's my friend's perspective:

I'm realizing slowly that life is always a transition--especially when you're a single twenty-something. Nothing is certain. It makes me really appreciate when things are as great as they are right now, but man does it scare the shit out of me that tomorrow, everything could change. Friends separate. Jobs come and go like the wind. New cities, relationships, adventures, all calling us to places far away from here and now. Then you're left with yourself. All. Alone.

My conclusion:

I need to appreciate myself, on my own, without any extras, as much as I do my circumstances. Buddha says, "You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

When the day comes that I love and appreciate myself as much as the people around me, it won't matter what happens, I will be content.

Man, if I could just put on those glasses before the change hits...I'd be set! I become so hurt and so offended when change comes - friends betray, parents betray, loved ones leave - that all I focus on is Me. How do I feel? Why does this happen to Me? How will My life change?

Instead of focusing on the good in my life. The constants. The ones who make me who I am. Not the ones who made me who I am. What I've done and where I've been is part of the past. While I certainly acknowledge that, appreciate it, and learn from it, I must focus on where I'm going and what is shaping me now.

And that starts with...conveniently enough...Me.

Loving Me. Appreciating Me.

Shit's gonna happen. Life ain't gonna be pretty. And that's OKAAAAAAAAAAY. Turns out, I become closer with Christ than ever before in my darkest times (if only I could recognize that in said darkest times!) When change comes, I need to use it as an opportunity to realize the Love I have in my life. The great and wonderful people around me. The blessings He has given me. That's important and that's what will keep me growing into a Man.

So instead of an empty cup of life, I'll take a full one. Keep the change, please.

Home is NOT a place. Home is the people. And I'm reminded of that daily.

Grace and Peace,

Regs

Budapest / Vienna : God Rests in Reason.

We made it to Budapest….after our extremely long train ride! We eached watched a movie on our iPods (I watched Austin Powers – so funny) then decided to go ahead and go to bed since it was about midnight at that point. We actually got called out for being too loud by the train flight attendant (?) because the wall between our cabin and the one next to us was tiny apparently and we were being too loud watching movies…with our headphones in. Please. Anyway, I got the top bunk because I was the smallest. Of course. And I slept on the "sheets" the whole time – kinda nasty. Then we were rudely wakened by not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR polizia coming around to check our passports everytime. You'd think we were in WW2 or something the way they knocked and checked our passports. Seriously. We were porbably the 3 least threatening people on the train and yet we practically had a line-up everytime we entered a new country on the train. So my TylenolPM-aided sleep was not so pleasant.

We finally made it at 11am in Budapest and cabbed from the train station to our hostel that Ben had found. The cab had to ask a few people for directions (bad sign #1) then when we finally got there, the sign on the door that was for the hostel was on duck tape (bad sign #2). After a call to the company, they tell us to wait for 10 minutes until they got there. The building we were in was SKETCH. Thankfully, when they finally got there, we went to a different building a couple of blocks away. Turns out that the 5 person room we booked was actually an apartment that they rented out which could've been cool…but it wasn't. It was hot, dirty, sketchy, and car alarms were going off all night (bad sign #3). We put our stuff down and went to the authentic Hungarian restaurant of … Subway! So good. Haven't had it all trip and it was fantastic. Then we did a little walking around down to the Danube river, over to the Buda side (Sidenote: it's actually pronounced Boo-duh-paysht) and saw the Buda palace. We got to watch a human chess match which was hilarious and acutally really entertaining. Then we walked the Chain Bridge where they were having the Summer on the Bridge festival which was basically like a fair on a bridge – tons of little kiosks of knick-knacks and lots of food. We got some Hungarian BBQ like meal for dinner then went to this super cool café/bar and watched the Euro2008 finals. After the game we went back to the "apartment" and attempted to sleep. Clay and Kylie couldn’t sleep through the night while the rest of us TPM'ed it through the blazing hot night.

So in the morning, we peaced out and went to the Best Western Budapest. AMAZING. That day we got ready and went to Heroes Square and ate at this great little place on this lake and had some legit Hungarian food that was PERF. We had heard about these Turkish baths that were all over Budapest so we went to this one nearby that was suggested by the guy at the hotel – probably the wrong guy to ask – and got into our swimsuits. These baths are basically just huge country club / YMCA-type places with pools and hot tubs and saunas and stuff. It was pretty cool even though we were probably the youngest people there. Tons of old and wrinkly foreign people. So we ended up leaving after an hour and getting cleaned up for the night. We went on this beautiful night boat tour down the Danube and saw the towns and all the monuments lit up at night – it was one of my favorite things we've done on the trip so far. So much fun. Then we went to dinner at this place right under the Chain bridge and just had a good time out that night. Getting a cab back to the "West Bestern" hotel was an experience. As always. Good times.

This morning we got up and ate our delicious breakfast (EGGS! FINALLY!) at the hotel then headed to the train station for Vienna. We got here at around 4 and came to our hostel which is MUCH better than our last attempt at a hostel. It's a school dorm that they turn into a hostel during the summer. Everyone speaks English and they're super nice and they have a bar/lounge downstairs so there's an attempt at making it enjoyable. We walked around the center of the shopping center area while we waited for our room to be ready. Then we went to eat at this local Vienna place and then came back and just chilled here because we were pretty exhausted. Tomorrow we plan to travel all over Vienna in a day then head to Prague tomorrow night!

KEEP UP SON!

Regs

Venice / Budapest: Who Am I to Say This Situation Isn't Great When It's My Time to Make the Most of It.

Today was our last day in Venice and our last day in Italy. I can't wait to get on to new and different cultures. But Italy has been FANTASTIC to us. We stayed in the glorious Westin Europa in Venice (Thanks Mom!) and had a great few relaxing days after the program and before our backpacking extravaganza. We went to this super cool and trendy restaurant called Centrale the first night we got here. It had this awesome bar that was all lit up and changed colors every few minutes. I had some great fish - Finally! On the way back I literally ran into Audra Deaton on some narrow sidewalk -- SMALL WORLD. I think i completed the feat if everyone running into someone they knew unexpectedly. So weird. Then we went back to the hotel and passed out for the night.

A good 13 hours later, we woke up and went wandering around Venice to the markets and shops all around the canals. We went to St. Mark's Square which is the huge touristy section of the city, and it literally is a breeding ground for pigeons I think. They were EVERYWHERE. And they don't even care when you walk by, they'll just kind of mosey out of the way so you don't step on them. They'll even come sit on you if you feed them -- which we did. Craaazy experience! We took a gondola ride of course and it was pretty cool. The guys that steer them look exactly like you'd think - black and white striped shirts, black pants, little straw hats with ribbons...it was HILARIOUS (Jenna, remember that picture from the Venetian!?). But they BAAANK. Ben and I decided that if we don't get jobs after school, we'll just come to Venice to operate a gondola. He can drive and I'll serenade. Holla. That night clay and kylie ditched us for date night so the 3 of us went to eat at this great place off the side streets called Rosa Rossa. It was SUPER LEGIT - so good that everyone else there were locals. You know you've found a good place when their own people eat it haha.

We met up with them after dinner and went on our search for a cool bar. We asked the concierge at the hotel but, sadly, we were not in the mood for €34 beers. Oh well. So we found bright shiny colored lights coming from the windows across the street so naturally we went towards them. Turns out it was the bar of the hotel next to ours - Hotel Bauer. The bar had the Big Black logo from "Rob & Big" (TV show, for the parentals) so of course we settled there. We had some good dranks and enjoyed the DJ, but not near as much as we enjoyed watching the 56 year old man dancing to the Rave going on in his cracked out head. So funny. Def got videos so get ready. Then some 16 yo came in and ordered a beer and was being obnoxious so we left. Another great night of sleep too. Yessss.

Today, we got up and did a little more wandering and shopping - and eating these amazing fresh fruit cups that this sweet old lady was selling with her husband for only €1.50 - then lunched and headed back to the hotel before we got on our water taxi to take us to the train station.
Now we're on our train for our 13 hour trip to Budapest! Don't worry- we got the sleeper cars so ben nicole and I are in this little 3 bunk car ... So funny. I'll have to post pics because you can't really describe it in words. So I'll be back to fill you in on how the train ride went...if I'm still alive! Haha just kidding. I'll blog even if I die. Legendary.

Buone note,
Regs

Final Days: Listen to the Music of the Moment, Dance and Sing...It's Our God-Intended Right to Be Loved

Well the trip is coming to a close way too fast. Today is our "study day" before our finals tomorrow and our departure tomorrow night. It's so crazy to think that I've been here for 5 weeks now, it feels like we just got here yesterday and still have so much to do and see and experience before we head back!

On Saturday, we went to Rome for a day trip to visit the Borghese gallery and go up to the Villa d'Este in Tivoli. The Borghese is an extremely famous collection of Bernini statues and various Carvaggio paintings. It was really cool too because most of it was still in the place where the owner of the Borghese estate (the gallery now) originally had them. Then we had a lunch break and headed over to the Villa d'Este for some relaxation times. This place has this HUGE backyard with tons of fountains and gardens all over the place. It was like a huge Roman water park! They even had this water organ that is played by the pressure of the water every half hour -- how cool is that!? I'm gonna get one for my house when I actually have a house. House first. Then water organ. Check. It was nice because we just got to run around and enjoy the sun and water on our own with no specific plan or anything. Then that night we came back to Orvieto and had some dinner and more gelato. Our gelato days are number now...Worst News Ever.

Sunday was a long day in class. Boring.

Monday we went back to Rome to see a few churches, stopped off at the Trevi fountain and Spanish steps, then headed over to Vatican City. Trevi fountain was BEAUTIFUL - with the sun out in full effect (it had to be like 100 degrees in Rome), the water was beautiful and we definitely partook in the tradition of throwing coins over your left shoulder which is supposed to ensure that you will return to Rome someday. So that was neat. Then we stopped for some lunch, took some Spanish steps pictures (which, by the looks of the postcards, are much more beautiful at night), then got on the bus to go over to the Vatican City. This place is AMAZING. It's its own country and has its own postal system and everything. We started by seeing St. Peter's Basilica which is really beautiful and HUGE and definitely is worth every penny that went into it! Lots of tourists in the Vatican but it wasn't that bad on Monday. We got to go underneath into the tombs of the popes and saw Pope John Paul II's tomb which was a really neat experience. They have guards around it and a little spot for people to stop and pray in front of it. Then up in the basilica there was this prayer chapel off to the side that you can go in and pray as well so I went in there and had a really peaceful and moving experience praying in there. You know that feeling you get when you know that the Holy Spirit is in the room - the chills over your arms and the feeling that you're rising above the ground almost - you can definitely feel it in this room. Such a great experience. I'll never forget that, and it made the prayer I prayed all the more meaningful for me. I don't know if I'm even explaining this very well - I guess it's one of those things you have to experience on your own. Then we took our PRIVATE tour of the Vatican museum! This is a super big deal - usually when people go through here, it's with a million other people and you're basically herded through there like cattle, but we shelled out the big bucks to take our own private tour. We were supposed to have this super cool and intelligent tour guide but she is actually part of some History Channel documentary series and she's the historian for the entire series so they were filming inside the Vatican so we couldn't get her . Instead we got this guy, John, who was still pretty good and he had given Tom Hanks' family and Ron Howard's family a tour last week - I guess they're filming Angels & Demons here ... SWEET. I'm definitely reading that again when I get back. Love me some Dan Brown. haha Anyway, we got to see the museum and then go into the Sistine chapel all by ourselves and just soak in the ceiling and wall murals as well -- such a neat thing.

Got back to Orvieto that night really late, had review sessions today, and now we're all just studying and writing papers trying to cram everything we have to do before we leave into a few hours! I still have to pack, do some shopping, and ship home some stuff! Crap. Running out of time. We go straight from Orvieto to Venice tomorrow night to begin our backpacking trip which is gonna be A BLAST. I cannot wait to just be free and have a good time with friends without having a schedule. So nice. Then it's back to Dallas for a day to say hi to everyone - and to REEEEST - then back home to LUBBOCK. I CAN'T WAIT TO GET HOME! So excited. Hope everyone is having a great summer making some great memories having experiences of a lifetime -- I can't wait to hear all about everything. Get pumped.

Talk to yall soon.

Peace,
Regan

Capri: Justifying Reasons Why Is An Absolutely Insane Resolution to Live By.

On Monday night, Ben, Clay, Kylie, Abby, Arleen, Hillary, Nicole and I were supposed to leave Orvieto for Capri which is an island off the Bay of Naples on the Amalfi Coast. Naturally, we missed our train. Because we missed the first bus. Because the funicular was closed. Great. So we stayed in Orvieto on Monday night and then left bright and early at 5:05am the next morning...meaning we got up at 3:30am in order to make our train. Yes. But it wasn't as bad as it sounds. We got on the train which was a direct shot all the way to Naples, so that meant that it had the little sleeper cars instead of the bus-like seating. Only problem is that at 3:30 in the morning, everyone is already on the train and asleep and angry and scary looking. Abby got on, took one look at the cracked-out (not really) guys sitting in the walk ways, and turned to Clay and said "Nuh uh." We eventually made our way down to some emptier cars, and rode for an hour to Rome in darkness - and fear - until everyone got off and we had cars to ourselves. So Ben and I sprawled out and slept all the way to Naples. Nice. Then we took the ferry from Naples to Capri and got to our hotel in Anacapri (the other town, think Highland Park - University Park, really close).

We then got some lunch, then went and found this great little beach. But they don't have sand, just cliffs and rocks. So we laid out on some rocks, and did some cliff diving from this little cliff that had been cemented to make it more legit (read: safe, no worries.) Then that night we went out for some dinner and then came back to pass out after our extremely long traveling day. Our hotel was super great - Hotel Bussola de Hermes - except for the no A/C part. LES MIS. I was up for a while just killing bugs that were flying through our balcony because we had it open to keep the (lack of) airflow going.

Next morning we got up and had breakfast (read: A croissant. Substantial.) Then headed over to Capri town to check out some famous sandal shop that the girls had heard/read about where they hand make sandals to your foot and lots of celebs have been there and made it all known and stuff. It was super cool though - this old man name Costanzo (name of the store) who is still there sits behind a bench and makes all the sandals right there after they fit your foot and you pick out a design. They're for girls obviously but they had some hand made loafers that they make in the winter and sell in the summer (because they take longer to make with the dye and such) so I snagged a pair! The old man was so awesome and took a picture with us and was hilarious the whole time without even speaking. So cool. Then we met up with Evan and Katelyn and ate some lunch before heading over to the boat to go see the Blue Grotto. Once we got on the water and made it around to the spot where we were supposed to get onto these smaller little paddle boat-looking things, the captain told us that the Grotto was closed because the water was too rough -- we looked at the entrance and the waves were literally filling up the entire opening so we definitely wouldn't have made it.

So after the boat got back, we headed to the beach spot from the day before and rented chairs and towels from this little club thing and just had a great beach day all day. We stayed for dinner and the sunset out there (AMAZING) and then went to this little cafe to try Limencello which originated from Capri. Limoncello = Gross. Everyone made it out to be better than it was. It's like lemon flavored whiskey. But not the good whiskey...the strong, unleaded premium plus at the Shell station kind. So we toasted, ("Cheers" in Italian is "Chin Chin!") then attempted to drink it. I managed to get most of it down in tiny sips, but not without those awesome this-stuff-is-terrible-but-I'm-gonna-try-and-fake-it faces...yall know the ones. Then we went back to the hotel for some rest. Great, relaxing, beach-filled trip to round off our last free days!

We got back to Orvieto last night and just had dinner and a relaxing, Gelato-filled night in Orvieto. 2 classes today, now I'm just hanging out fixin to do some readings for Rome tomorrow. Scary to think that we only have 6 days left of the program! This trip goes by soooo fast. Too fast. Like a blur. But then Ben, Clay, Kylie, Nicole and I are headed for our backpacking trip which is gonna be AWESOME simply because we have no schedule or class or anything.

I'm super excited to get back and see everyone though - I can't wait to be in America again and eat American food! See all previous entries for crazy food stories. More to come, I'm sure.

Can't wait for camp either -- I seriously think about it everyday and can't put into words the excitement I have to be back in Ceta and with all the campers. Such a great time.

Miss yall -- Eat a burger for me.

Peace,
R

On the ferry over to Capri.


My sweet jump off the cliff.

Ben's leap.

Costanzo and crew.

Boat ride for the Grotta Azura (Blue Grotto).

Boat ride for the Grotta Azura (Blue Grotto).

Boat ride for the Grotta Azura (Blue Grotto).

Limoncello shots. Death.

Sunset from the deck we were laying out on at the beach.

Hold Your Own. Know Your Name. And Go Your Own Way : Pisa / Cinque Terre / Florence

DISCLAIMER: This is long because I wrote during my travels so as not to forget anything, so there's basically 2 posts in this one. Be patient - It's my favorite!

June 12, 2008.
We left this morning for Pisa. This town was full of …. NOTHING. Except for the famous leaning tower of course. Pisa is a one-stop shop otherwise … just a normal town. It's as if they said, "Ok, that's enough. That'll bring 'em here." And stopped with the tower. We started by seeing the basilica, which was probably my favorite one we've seen so far. The ceiling was made of wood and it had tons of gold leafing so it was just really amazing to look at. And the paintings on the wall were added later so the colors are really vibrant and bright, and then there's a HUGE mural of Jesus on the rounded ceiling of the altar which was cool. Then we had some free time to take the STANDARD picture of holding up the leaning tower. Seriously. Like they should have little "stand here" footprints at all the various angled points where you can take it because there had to have been at least 300 Americans and 9934 Asians taking this picture. But alas, I took mine. When in Rome, right? After our sweet pics, we went up the tower with our group. It's about 7 stories high and is actually a bell tower so there's a huge bell at the top. Such a cool experience though. When you're at the top, you can feel the difference in the height. It's only about 3 ½ feet difference, it's still kinda creepy. And they only have this one rail to keep you from falling over. Safe. But we took some GREAT pics up there! Then we went to the baptistery out front and nothing too special about this one. Except the guards did a demonstration when we were all in there where they exhibit the acoustics of the building and this was AMAZING. Just this little lady got up in the middle and started singing some triads and different tones and it was just a really unique and exciting. (Haley, remember that song yall sang at All State with the overtones? This is kinda what it sounded like with just this one chick!)

After Pisa, everyone was leaving for their free days so they just dropped us all off at the train station in Pisa and Hillary, Nicole, and I left for the Cinque Terre along with Charlotte, Stephen, Jeff, and Thane who were going there too. The Cinque Terre is just Italian for "Five Towns" because it’s a group of 5 small towns on the Italian Riviera and they are PHENOMENAL.I got the swordfish and it was LEGIT – yall know I'm not a fish guy, but this was greaaaaat. Afterwards, the 3 of us went to get some sunset action by the cliff, and we walked down the rocks and had a great little experience on the rocks in the ocean. It was so peaceful and exhilarating at the same time. We got a million pictures – thanks to our new found Canadian friends – and then just chilled and watched the sun set. Such a God time right there – you can just feel it. Here we were, these tiny people, on these huge rocks, next to this ginormous cliff, in Italy…so amazing. Then later we met back up with the others and tried to watch the Lakers/Celtics game, but the bars here take down the TVs after the soccer games! It's crazy. So we just called it a night because of our big (little did we know just HOW big) day ahead of us.

So we had heard about the hiking. Rick Steves, friends, professors…everyone recommends doing it. WORD. IF YOU EVER GO TO ITALY, MAKE A DAY TRIP HERE AND DO THE HIKE. It's a 7-mile journey from our town (on the low end) to the 5th town on the other end. It started off pretty easy, lots of old people on their day trips from wherever walk this part of it. Beautiful scenery right on the coastline with a view of all the pastel builidings in the town. The whole hike is practically along the coastline which made for such a great view. I'll just post a bunch of pictures of this day because words don't do it justice. It took us about 4 hours with lunch in there and I've never had more fun on a better experience in my life! This was so crazy and great and exhausting and scary and YOU HAVE TO DO IT. At the end, we got in the water on the beach to relax a bit, and then the 4 of us guys really wanted to do some cliff jumping that we had heard was great, but we didn't have enough time to really search it out, so we found this one spot on the end of the trail and we went back to it and Jeff ended up jumping off of it. Good. Lord. It was about a 4 story drop into a SMALL clearance in the water away from the rocks, but he had climbed around there before and swam down there to see if it was deep enough, then climbed back up to us and jumped off. I really wish I did it too – but they kept talking about technical ways in which to jump and all this stuff that filled up my mind with a big NO so the rest of us didn't do it. But super cool picture of him doing it. Next time though.

Then we caught the train out and headed to Florence where we are now and we go on our bike tour tomorrow then meet up with the group on Saturday. Long day again tomorrow so we're off to bed. Stay tuned for the rest of the adventures…

Three years and I'm still breathing,
Regan.




June 15, 2008

Ok, sad news. It rained in Florence the day we were supposed to do our bike tour. Good news: they did the Wine tour instead! (that's also offered by this same company) Since we did our amazing hike the day before, we figured that was good enough exercise for the week. The tour was a blast, too! We showed up at the spot at 10 in the morning, and they drove us about 45 minutes up the Tuscan hills of Florence to this castle where the first winery was, and where we would've gotten our bikes. We took our tour with our guide, then did some wine and oil tasting…What a great way to start the morning, right? The craziest thing about this tour was that it was almost all Texas people or people with some Texas connection. One girl was from Tech and she is actually Kelsey Abbe's roommate – small world right? Her name was Helen and she's a tri-delt (She knows Ashleigh and Allie and everyone). And she was from Highland Park so we knew some of the same SMU students too. Then there were a couple of Houston guys, and another girl who went to UT. Our tour guides were AWESOME too – this one chick Mary from San Diego knew KP and some other SMU people! Anyway, the whole day was so much fun and not a let down at all even though we didn't get to cycle. (The sun came out after lunch just to rub it in our faces. Punk.) I guess that's what we get on Friday the 13th. We went to another vineyard after lunch and sampled some more wine. And don't worry, I bought TONS of wine to bring back for everyone so don't think you're missing out at all. It was all so good too. And I learned a ton (Italy isn't a TOTAL waste, ha) about wine that I never knew before. I'll make sure to enlighten you all.

After the tour, we all passed out and napped for a while, then got ready for dinner. We started off at JJ's (thanks Hatsie!) and then worked our way over to this place Nicole heard was "neat" from some people…UNDERSTATEMENT. First getting lost, we went into this really nice hotel to ask directions and the concierge thought we were guests at the hotel so he called and made us a reservation and gave us his hotel business card so we could verify…LE-GIT. We found the place, Il Latini, and we sit down and then this crazy cool old waiter comes by and asks if we like Prociutto e Melon … a common appetizer here. We said, "Yeah," and confused, asked for a menu since there were none originally. While looking at the menu, he then brings a bottle of red wine, some water, and about 409 appetizer plates of all different stuff. (Including pâté, which I loved!) Then about 30 minutes later, the 3 of us stuffed already, he brings 3 plates of pasta. Of course we demolish them. So good. I had to unbutton the pants a bit at this point…Ryan, think of us on Thanksgiving. That's how I felt. Then after the pasta, thinking we would get dessert now, he brings a HUGE plate of meats – lamb, veal, pork, chicken, and "beef" (there was none. Thank Jesus.) Hillary literally skipped this one (weak sauce) so Nicole and I killed it. Contemplating vomiting or just rolling out of the restaurant, he then brings us a plate of desserts. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! (Typing this right now makes me sick just thinking about it). These were really good – so we finish them. Naturally. Fat kids. Then we get some biscotti and some "dunking" liquid which smelled like and resembled whiskey…so I steered clear. I seriously would've died. And to finish it all off, he brings some supmante, a dessert champagne, for us. Whew. Ok. That's it. We were exhausted, baffled, stuffed, excited, and so much more as we left. Such a great meal and an unforgettable experience that our wallets – excuse me, we – will never forget! Turns out Ben, Clay, Kylie, Arleen, Abby, and Liz had the same meal the night before and failed to warn us about it. Thanks.

The next morning we met up with our whole group at 7 to tour Florence. The Uffizi, Academia, and Duomo were all we saw, but it was still really neat. The Uffizi houses some of the most amazing and famous works of art – Michelangelo, Boticelli, Rafael, etc. We saw Michelangelo's David at the Academia and I loved this. So cool – and it's pretty big so it's crazy to think he carved it. Ended the day with a much needed quiet bus ride back to Orvieto and then studied for our cinema midterm that we had today. Now I'm off to write my THIRD paper for Art History before we leave for Capri tomorrow night – the beach! Can't wait.

I miss yall so much! Meeting and talking with Helen made me miss Lubbock a lot, so I can't wait to see yall. And after our huge dinner, I'll be skipping meals for the duration of the trip so please have backyard BBQs planned for me when I return. Alright? Sweet.

Happy Fathers Day Dad!

Talk to yall soon – call me, text me, email me, facebook me.
Regan Hands down. The best part of my trip so far. When we got there, we went to eat at this little restaurant and had some great white wine (the best in this region), amazing pesto (what this region is known for!) and some fish…finally!