Absolutely nothing to do with Luxor...

OK everybody, pay attention now! You simply must, yes MUST, watch this video. A "delicious" interlude for pastry lovers and Paris lovers!

And as an added treat, here are some taste-bud-teasing dessert shots from my recent visit to France. The first two are the pastries Bette and I reveled in at Patisserie Buret in Blois on the last day of my visit to the Loire Valley. The third is a pastry called "Rosy" (for obvious reasons) which comes from the patisserie/viennoiserie/boulangerie/confiserie Stéphane Vandermeersch across avenue Daumesnil from the Hôtel de la Porte Dorée (where I always stay when I'm in Paris). Christina, Jodie and I had a lovely tea with this delicious treat brought fresh from across the street on the afternoon I got back to Paris before leaving for Luxor. Are we salivating yet?

One More Time Around...

Hard to believe I've now been in Luxor for more than a week--my 6th season working at Chicago House! We've opened the library and I just made a tour of the heart of town: from CH along the Corniche to Nefertiti Street where I made a congenial first visit to "my jeweler", Ramy and then a big loop around Luxor Temple, returning via the Corniche. But I'll report on that trip in a subsequent post.

On Wednesday afternoon, our driver Omar drove three of us around to take care of various errands: Samir had to go the bank, I had to get cat food at Arkwrights Gourmet Food Shop, and Jay needed to arrange for mobile phone service at the Vodafone store on Television Street. I waited in the van during the last stop and managed to shoot several local color shots over the course of about ten minutes.





























Can you find the trash collector, the school girls, the men selling lemons, the sexy lingerie shop, the super market, the phone booth?
















































I particularly like the juxtaposition of old and new, traditional and modern: the donkey-drawn cart and the ice cream delivery truck, the school girls in their white hijabs and the lingerie shop, the super market and the men selling lemons. It's good to be "home" again...