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
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