International Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! I you are all enjoying a wonderful holiday season with family and friends : ) Celebrating Christmas in another country is always difficult for me as I would rather be home surrounded by loved ones and yes, even snow, but Drew and I did our best to make the most of the holiday in Luxor.

Drew was very nice and had kept the small Christmas tree that we had bought in Cairo a few years ago, which we were able to find some new decorations for, in addition to our awesome Egyptian snowman! He comes complete with a desert color scheme and sparkly galabeya (a traditional outfit for most of the men in Luxor… minus the sparkles).

In addition to our decorations, we were even able to find snow in a grocery store. Yes, you read correctly. You never know what you're going to come across in grocery stores in Luxor… it's sort of like a treasure hunt to see what goodies you can find hidden on the shelves. A jar of peanut butter here, a container of cream cheese there, OR a can of Funny Snow! Drew and I decided that we had to have two cans of Funny Snow and after buying it we promptly rushed home to try it out on our roommate's doors : ) Now we assumed that this snow in a can would be just like the stuff you can get in the US. You shake it, spray on windows until it looks suitably snow covered, repeat. So we set about spraying snow to our hearts content until…. sniff, sniff, sniff…. sniff, sniff, sniff…. why does this snow smell like roses?? Turns out that Funny Snow is in fact nothing more than aerated soap and sadly it dissolves into a rose-scented film in about 30 seconds. But we had a great time playing with it none the less.

As for the Christmas celebration itself, we had quite the international holiday. Christmas Eve was spent at the Marsam Hotel, which is owned by Klaus and Claudia… the same lovely people form the camel trek. They invited us to celebrate a German Christmas with them, which was absolutely lovely! Claudia completely out did herself with decorating thanks to LOTS of imported decorations that had been transported from Germany by their son. The food was absolutely phenomenal as well! The entire staff at the hotel went all out in preparing dishes and even made fruit and vegetable sculptures! The highlight of the dinner though was Klaus' sheep, which had come from his own flock and was soaked in three bottles of red wine before being slow-cooked in the over for 6 hours. Melt-in-your-mouth does not even begin to describe how delicious it was. And in case 3 bottles of wine in the cooking process wasn't enough, there was a delicious red wine sauce to pour over the meat. Needless to say we left there very well fed and very thankful to have had the opportunity to share Christmas with them.

The dinner table had this awesome veggie sculpture

And the dessert table had so many different kinds of carved fruit I lost count

Abd-allah and Drew getting in to the Christmas spirit!

Our Christmas Day dinner was spent with our roommate, Abd-allah, at a British tea room on the east bank of Luxor. It was his first Christmas celebration and he was a very good sport about getting into the spirit of things. Chris, the owner of the restaurant, prepared a full roast turkey dinner which was super yummy, but I have to say I think the highlight of the evening was the traditional Egyptian band that was brought in as entertainment. In addition to being an excellent cook, Chris is also an excellent belly dancer…. I am not.

So there you go, for those of you wondering how you celebrate Christmas in a non-Christian country, now you know : ) In the end the important things about Christmas can be found regardless of what country you're in: good friends, good food and good memories… and that's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.

Merry Christmas!!

Camels and Campari

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving Everyone!! I hope yours was full of family, friends and wonderful food… and maybe some football : ) Never fear I did get to celebrate Thanksgiving in Luxor and even had a turkey dinner that I think you will agree looks very similar to what we would eat back in the US of A… OK maybe minus the kebab. Our Egyptian colleagues were very upset however that this was not like a typical Egyptian feast/major party, i.e. there was no music and belly dancers after dinner. Maybe this could be a new tradition??

The great part about this Thanksgiving is that I got to celebrate it with Drew and our colleagues at Chicago House. What is a Chicago House you ask? It's the mission dig house for the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute. They've had a continual presence here in Luxor recording the sites since the 1920s. I'm sure Howard Carter had lunch at Chicago House at some point in his career, as did MANY other famous Egyptologists. It really is like stepping back into colonial Egypt. There's a beautiful open courtyard where we had appetizers and cocktails, then dinner in an enormous dining room… wing would be a better way to describe it…. and then pie and coffee in front of their massive fireplace. I understand it hasn't been lit in quite some time, but I did manage to snag it as the backdrop for an ARCE staff photo. (This is only a few of us btw.)

From L to R: Drew, me, our boss, John; our lead conservator, Khadiga; 3 of our archaeologists: Saad, Sayed and Mohamed Hatem; and the ARCE office manager, Adel

There is no such thing as Black Friday shopping in Egypt, so Drew and I opted to have a very lazy day recovering from the week and preparing for a big Saturday adventure… my first camel trek!! Before I bombard you with pictures, I have to admit prior to coming to Luxor and meeting the lovely people who took us on the camel trek, I did not like camels… I did not like them at all… I did not like them Sam I Am. The only camels I had experience with were at the pyramids and they were the dirtiest, smelliest, meanest looking things you'd ever want to come across. I am now proud to say that I have been reformed and am no longer a member of the camel haters club. This is all in thanks to Klaus and Claudia, our lovely hosts on our adventure. Klaus has loved camels since he was a little boy and living in Egypt on and off for the past 30 years has afforded him the opportunity to collect his own gaggle of camels. He is really something like a 'camel whisperer' and you can tell that the camels wouldn't have any other owner.

In any event, my camel for the day's expedition was Krum, while Drew got to ride the gigantic, stallion who Klaus refers to as "Big White". 

Krum is very good at posing for pictures I found out

Big White getting ready for the journey

After loading up the camels with snacks, drinks and blankets, we headed out into the desert for a nice walk. It was only about half an hour out but that was more than enough for someone was not used to sitting on a camel! We rode out to one of Klaus and Claudia's favorite spots to watch the sunset and started setting up camp. Now for those of you who are not familiar with camels (and Drew and I certainly are not) we were in for quite a surprise once we unloaded everything off our four-legged friends backs. Turns out that camels LOVE to roll around in the sand of the desert… at times it looked like they were trying to make sand angels. There's no way I could very well describe what it looks like to watch a camel kicking its spindly legs all over the place as it plays in the desert, but hopefully the pictures will give you a better visual…

Camel play time!

When they're all done rolling around to their heart's content, they end up looking like this…

Since the camels were enjoying themselves so much, it seemed only fair that the adults should have some fun. So we set out a picnic of chips and Campari and then discovered that Klaus had brought along a boule (bocce) set! For the record, playing bocce in the desert is exactly what you would expect it to be… insane! 

The small dark brown blob in the middle of all the silver balls is what we were supposed to aiming for…riiiiight

It was a great end to a Thanksgiving weekend with wonderful new friends… both of the human and camel variety. 

Me, Claudia and Claus

Date Night!

I apologize that my idea of writing a couple posts over the Eid failed miserably! It was great to have the time off and Drew and I spent just about all of it getting our apartment situated, including getting everything moved out of his old house, stocking up on groceries, etc. Of course there was ample pool time :-)

This post will be fairly short but I wanted to share some photos with you all of what it's like to do an Egyptian date night. This is something that Drew has been planning on for a while now and it was absolutely wonderful! The past Thursday evening (the equivalent of Friday night in Egypt), Drew hired his boat guy.... yes, we have a boat guy. His name is Sayed and he's awesome! He never fails to have a boat meet us at the drop of a hat to take us across the Nile to the east bank of Luxor where all the fancy restaurants, grocery stores, etc. are located. Anyway, where was I... ah, yes! Drew had hired Sayed to take us out on a dinner time cruise on his boat. We stopped to pick up an awesome Egyptian feast on our way out and we then cruised down the Nile a good ways before Sayed cut the motor and we just coasted on the current all the way back to the Luxor ferry. It was truly perfect timing since just as we finished dinner the sun was setting over the palm trees. As we gently sailed downstream, Sayed made tea and coffee for us and we were able to stretch out on the top deck of the boat and watch the stars come out. It was a perfect evening.

I'm on de'Nile! 

The banana fields of Luxor... they're everywhere on the west bank

An Egyptian feast fit for a king! Roasted chicken, rice, potato chips... yes potato chips, bread to dip in tahina, three different kinds of stewed veggies and a fresh salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and what Drew discovered where eggplants stuffed with SUPER hot peppers... thankfully he spared me having to eat one : )

I will never get tired of this view...

Sunset on the Nile

We like boat cruises!

Life is good...

The Villa with a Pool

Hello friends!
The first official week of work at ARCE is done and I'm happy to say that I made it through fairly unscathed. Everyone that I met was extremely kind and welcoming and I think this job has the potential to really evolve into some interesting things.

But, I promised you all some info and photos of where Drew and I are living, which we have been referring to all summer as "The Villa with a Pool"... we need to come up with a shorter name, I know. The villa is really beautiful and is located on a small street that runs along one of the irrigation canals for the village. The whole house is three levels, and we have the second level apartment, which is complete with a guest bedroom (hint, hint!), guest bathroom (2nd hint, hint!) and then a master. There's a large open room that you immediately enter into that serves as a living room, dining room, and then a rather decent sized kitchen at the far end of the apartment. Truly one of the best parts though is the balcony that runs the entire length of the apartment. I'll just let the picture from it do the talking...

Not a bad view to wake up to in the morning if I say so myself :-) Thankfully the house is situated so that the majority of the hot afternoon sun falls on the other side of the building, which keeps things mostly nice and cool. Of course if all else fails and you need to cool off after a long, hot day then there is this in the backyard...

Yes, so as you all can see life is terribly difficult here in Luxor... haha. In all seriousness, the apartment truly is amazing and Drew and I are very lucky to have an awesome roommate who we know on the first floor. He's the staff photographer from ARCE and has been really great in helping us settle in, meet with the landlord, etc. The house is a great example of one of the benefits of living in the third world. Clearly, this is something that probably most of us could never afford, and yet Drew and I are renting the apartment and pool for a fraction of the cost of our apartment in Cleveland. In saying that, there are certainly many challenges to living in a rural Egyptian village, but there are a lot of wonderful things about it too.

I'm hoping to write a couple posts throughout this week as it is the Eid al-Adha, and we have this week pretty much off of work. What is Eid al-Adha you might ask?? It's basically the Muslim equivalent of Christmas and the largest celebration of the year in Islam. This is also the week that Muslims travel to Mecca to perform the hajj. Drew and I saw a whole bunch of people traveling for the hajj while we were in Paris... they have to wear traditional white garments, so they're pretty easy to spot. Eid al-Adha is what I refer to as the Goat Eid, because it commemorates Abraham sacrificing a ram to God. For those of you interested in religion... in Christian teaching, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to ensure that he is a loyal servant. At the last second, God stops Abraham and praises him for being so loyal that he would sacrifice his son. To commemorate the occasion, Abraham finds a ram and sacrifices it in place of Isaac.... which I'm sure Isaac was very thankful for! In Islam, the difference in the story, is that Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son Ishmael, instead of Isaac. In either case, there's still the sacrificing of a goat... hence my nickname of Goat Eid. This tradition of sacrificing an animal continues in the modern festival,... in fact Eid al-Adha translates into "the festival of sacrifice"... and most families do their best to secure a ram, goat, cow, water buffalo, etc. for the occasion. After the slaughter, families gather together and have a big feast (sorry no football) and are encouraged to share a portion of their meal with the poor. I try to avoid the slaughtering aspect of the feast, which as you can imagine is a little gory, but the feasting and sharing with the poor I think is a really wonderful celebration.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Drew and I will have a much more leisurely work week and are planning on doing some site-seeing in the area for fun. I'll be sure to post pictures and stories of these excursions for you all. For those of you in the US... enjoy some fall weather and activities for me! I would kill for some apple cider about now, haha. 

Oh Champs Elysees...

Greetings everyone! Welcome to the second edition of Turn Left at the Camel! Hard to believe that I first started this blog nearly 3 years ago. In any event, this new and improved version of the blog should be much more frequently updated as I will not have as hectic of a work schedule AND it will be focusing on a new location in Egypt... Luxor!

As a quick update for those of you who haven't heard the full story on my new job, here's a quick synopsis... Drew and I are now working on the same ARCE (American Research Center in Egypt) project in Luxor. This project has been running for about 2 years now and has just started it's 3rd and final season. While Drew works mostly overseeing the archaeologists and activities in the field, I will spend most of my time working on writing, writing and more writing. I haven't completely determined yet what all I will be working on exactly, but my understanding is that there's quite a backlog in reporting, signage and other assorted projects that will keep me plenty busy. To read up on more of the project you should visit ARCE's website. If nothing else, you should read it because this project is largely funded by USAID, aka US tax dollars! This project in particular has kept hundreds of Egyptians employed in Luxor, whose main source of income, tourism, has all but completely vanished with the recent protests. These people are so thankful to be able to improve their job skills and at the same time continue to feed their families.

OK, so that's what all be doing for the next 10 months. Now on to where I'm living and the trip over here. Drew and I were fortunate enough to spend a couple of days in Paris en route to Luxor so that we didn't arrive as completely jet-lagged zombies. So for those of you who are interested, here's some photos of things that we saw while we were there:

Ah Paris...

One of Notre Dame's three rose windows

That's the Louvre in the background, which Drew and I spent an entire day wandering around...and still saw only a smidgen of all the art they have.

Um... there was a goat in the Tuilleries Gardens... so I had to take a picture of it : )

And I wouldn't be a very good Egyptologist if I had gone all the way to France and didn't take a picture of Ramesses II's obelisk

This is the Musee d'Orsay. An amazing museum focusing mostly on Impressionist/Post-Impressionist artwork. I had never been but I was so glad that Drew brought me here. I certainly didn't argue with staring at Renoir, Monet, Pissaro and Van Gogh!

OK I am now sleepy and will be heading off to bed. I'll continue the post tomorrow with pictures and an introduction to our beautiful villa in Luxor!