Research Randomness

Jenny over at jenny/' target=_blank>http://jennyswritething.blogspot.com">Jenny Does the Write Thing (testing link-writing here) has a nice idea - creating a political/historical timeline for the length of time that one's character is in the past. So far all the research I've been doing has been merely to try and understand the "flavour" of life in Ephesus in the middle of the first century, especially day-to-day tools, habits and surroundings that are completely new (old?) to me: pottery bowls and lamps; open gutters in the streets; animals everywhere; smells of bread, fruit and unwashed bodies instead of cars, tar and air conditioner vents (yes, those are the kinds of gross smells I encounter each day on the way to work); travelling as a slow time-consuming process involving many people and animals and much packing of supplies, rather than airport security delays and flight delays (and whining about the length of a seven hour flight to Europe; how easily we forget that this has only been possible for a mere 50 years or so, and that before that, it took at least a couple of weeks to get across the ocean, and before that a month or more, and before that months and months - and there was no guarantee you'd make it...); and so on.
I apologise for the confusing order of the above sentence. Instead, then, of concentrating on the above, I think I will try to create a timeline with all the major "outside" events going on in Ephesus and the Roman Empire, before the start of Round 2 of the 70 Day Challenge.
Two other things I may mention in other posts: Jo Bourne's hilarious comment about Tolkien, and My Stolen Book. Yes, that's right, someone Stole My Book. More importantly, I had plotlines and even a whole scene written on looseleaf paper and stuck between the pages of the book. Jen, if you're reading this, what's the opposite of a class-action lawsuit? I want to collectively sue everyone on the 11th floor of my office for potential copyright infringement :-)