Beechers Abroad

We're a little behind.  A week ago (March 23rd) we hopped on a commuter train in the morning and traveled to the ancient ruins of the Roman city of Ostia Antica.  Wikipedia has the following description of the site: Ostia Antica is a large archeological site, close to the modern suburb of Ostia, that is the location of the harbour city of ancient Rome, 15 miles (25 kilometers) southwest of Rome. "Ostia" (plur. of "ostium") is a derivation of "os", the Latin word for "mouth". At the mouth of the River Tiber, Ostia was Rome's seaport, but due to silting the site now lies 3 kilometres (2 miles) from the sea.[2] The site is noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics. They believe the city was originally settled between the 7th and 4th centuries B.C.  It was abandoned in the 9th century A.D. because of changes in the Tiber River's path and disease. We really enjoyed Osti...

We want to share more about our experience in Italy than just beautiful art, history, and scenery. We would like to post some of the every day details of our life here, and some of the things we are learning from it. We have been attending LDS church meetings in the Rome 2nd Ward. The church building used to be a bank, but works out pretty well for a church. Here is what it looks like on the outside. We went to the Ward Easter Party yesterday (Saturday morning). We have more pictures of that later. Church meetings are usually quite full and diverse. They have an interpreter and headsets for those who do not speak Italian. There are lots of Americans who attend, as most of those working on the LDS temple being built here are in this ward. Everyone has been very nice to us and social, but it seems to be quite a transient community, with lots of visitors as well.  So, we don't stand out too much. Today, for sacrament meeting, the chapel was full so we went into t...