'Twas about this time last year that I went with friends to the zoo, celebrating their new Italian citizenship.  The family is Polish by origin.  But now they have lived longer in Italy than in Poland.

 It was a lovely day in November, just as this week.

Rome's Zoo, or Biopark, has tried hard to improve its image, to that of a world-class, animal-friendly place.  They really do have lots of animals, of which I had not seen all before in other zoos.  And they show photographs of what it used to look like when the cages looked like cages, and when they let people near bears on leashes without cages.

Now, as I sit in on a class discussing the power of photography as a means of communication, I feel like finally posting at least a couple of old photos.