Forgotten Shot

I was going to include this shot in my last blog post and since it was taken at Pompeii I don't want to mix it up with my Greece pictures. This is a friend of ours named James. (Some people know him as Dr. Walters). He is posing just like an ancient person might. He is standing in a tavern. There are a lot of them in Pompeii. I think that we saw more of them than we did mills!

Overview of Rome

Rome has been an important city for thousands of years. For the next few days I am planning to give you an overview of Rome with stories. Maybe some of you know some stories about Roman Gods that you could share. Send them to me at janicef@jfriesen.net and I will try to use them! Since many of the things that I am seeing are from different centuries, I am working on a timeline that I can include to give you an idea of all of the different times.

Today I am just going to tell you about the founding of Rome. Rome was founded about 750 BC. That is a LONG time ago. The story of the founding is well known, but no one knows how true it is, but it is a great story. There is a story that Romulus and Remus were brothers. The god Mars and a human woman gave birth to twins. She did not want to have children, so she tried to eliminate them by abandoning them on the Tiber River. The river was in a flood and the twins came to rest at the bottom of a hill called the Palatine where they were nursed by a wolf and brought up by a couple of shepherds. When they grew up they established a city on the Palatine, which became Rome (named after Romulus who killed his brother in an dispute over boundaries. The Palatine was one of seven surrounding hills: the Palatine, the Coelian, the Esquiline, the Velia, the Viminal, the Quirinal and the Capatoline. Rome is known as the city on seven hills. So, if you remember Romulus and Remus; a wolf; and seven hills you know the origins of Rome!

Dill took a bus trip with me yesterday to see an overview of Rome. On the bus we met these two nice Bulgarian Women and Dill wanted his picture taken with them (the guy holding the umbrella is a street umbrella salesman hoping for a sale). We looked all over and decided that today we should go to the Vatican and see the Sistine chapel where Michelangelo painted.

I am closing with a picture of Dill helping James with his research. James is here along with The Professor and a few others presenting at the International Society of Biblical Literature Conference.

Oh…. and speaking of The Professor…. for the 32 years I have been married to him he has been boasting that Italian Gelato is the best ice cream in the world. Finally I have a chance to test it out and see. WOW, he is right! I have now tasted pistacio, peach, melon, cream, After Five (like mint chip), chocolate, and coffee. I am putting up a short poll about which ice cream flavor I should try next. Let me know what you think!