I know the four of you who read this on occassion are probably breathlessly awaiting my next post, since it's been almost a week. And I know you're saying to yourself, "man, he must have been busy this week. That means he must have some really good stuff to post." Which is correct, but I'm only going to talk about yesterday. Yesterday, of course, being Veterans' Day. So, what better way to celebrate the sacrifices of those who have made our country free, than to drink wine? Lots and lots of wine.

One of the guys in the office arranged for a tour of a winery about an hour or so from here--Feudi di San Gregorio. So nine of us piled into three cars (I got one of the other guys and his Italian girlfriend in my car, so I got a free 45-minute Italian lesson, which was pretty useful) and drove into the mountains. And we had a nice tour of the winery; it's a pretty good-sized one, and they have a very modern production facility. And of course we had a nice tasting session at the end. And then we asked if we could buy some wine--two of the guys who came are leaving in the next couple of months, so they wanted to get some for their collection. And those of us who just got there wanted to get a good start on our collection. Unfortunately, the cash register had just closed for lunch, but the lady who gave us the tour agreed to open it back up for us. And I think she's glad she did, because the six of us who bought wine dropped a collective total of about 2,000 euro at the shop (yours truly being the big spender at e470, or about $550). I'm sure they didn't expect that when we showed up, since we probably looked like a bunch of 20-somethings looking to score a free wine tasting or something. And since your average tourist who swings by the winery probably buys, at most, a case. Since most tourists don't actually live in Naples where they can just bring cases and cases of wine home and then have the Navy ship them back to the States.

We also got the bright idea to get together at one of the couples' houses (friends of mine from nuclear power school and submarine school, actually) that night for a little wine-drinking party (although it was by no means limited to wine). We managed to put down a fair amount as we stayed up until 6 a.m. engaged in what I'm sure was very intelligent conversation. The guy's wife came out of her room at about that time and pointed out to us that the sun was coming up, so we figured it was time for bed. Fortunately they had two guestrooms (they had already invited us to stay over), so we crashed for a couple hours. It's been a long, long time since I've stayed up that long. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I can still do it.