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!