They Were Framed!

It's almost like having brand new art hanging on the walls of my room! There were three photos and a small watercolor that I had lost track of, which have just been re-discovered and finally framed (Wood frames, glass and hangers cost all of LE 160, or about $20!) So I marked where I wanted them to go and staff put in hooks and... Voilà! At the same time, I had them put in a hook for a painting I had just propped on a table. And I'm very proud of my collection of caleche hardware, so you get to see some of those too!

Here's how the bulletin board wall looks now:

First Balloon Fly-Over of the Season!

I heard that easily identifiable sound early this morning. And it was an astonishing hot air balloon fly-over! Six balloons encircled Chicago House at various distances. What fun! And good news for Luxor tourism too!

Life on the Perimeter--Part One

A new exercise regime has me walking the perimeter of CH twice a day, once clockwise and once counter-clockwise. I also wander around the grounds with my camera every now and then. It's truly amazing how much "life" one finds in the space of 2.5 acres! I'm not even going to try to caption each of these photos. Just look and enjoy!

Check out the bumble bee!

My Rome with a View...

I have just completed work on my 2014 calendar, "My Rome with a View". The photos therein are just a small sampling of the hundreds I took during the two weeks in April 2013 that I had the good fortune to spend in Rome, the Eternal City.

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Testing...Testing...

I am the proud owner of a new Canon PowerShot S100 (Thanks to KV and CG for their help in making the decision to purchase this particular camera and thanks to ES for transporting the camera and SL for bringing the great retro camera case to Luxor!). What follows are some of the first shots I have taken with this lovely camera. These are all "Automatic" or "Scene Selection". I haven't had a chance yet to explore the semi- and fully manual options available to me. I'm going to have to "re-learn" manual photography as I haven't had to use those skills in years!

Flora:

Poinsettia

Red Flame (Clerodendron splendens)

Persian Acacia (Albizia julibrissin)

Fauna:

Look closely for the kite in the palm tree!

Kite near their nest

Kite again

Bee-eater just before take-off!

Buttons blending in

Beau doing his third favorite thing (after eating and playing)

Landscape, Waterscape, Moon:

Gurn with clouds

Felucca at sunset

Handheld moon

 Sunsets:

Sunset and felucca from the roof

Sunset and felucca from the Winter Palace

Sunset from MY roof 

End of that same sunset

Architecture--"Old":

Luxor Temple - Colonnade Hall

Luxor Temple - Layers of history

Architecture--"New":

Winter Palace with a golden glow at sunset

Luxor door