In 1995, I had the opportunity to travel to Sydney, Australia to work on a project. I always say it was the best project I ever worked on . . . not because the project was great, but because I got to go to Australia. I have stacks of old photos, which were taken with my old Pentax 110 camera. The format on them is smaller than the 35mm, which you might notice from looking at the scanned results. Also, the light in Sydney was so strong that I think a lot of them turned out very washed out looking.

I guess I am waxing a bit nostalgic over this holiday week. I started to look for photos of Turkey to start scanning them. Then I started to flip through the Australia photos. When I have time (haha), I'll be doing something interesting with those photos . . . because even with the 110 format, I've got some very nice photos: beautiful beaches, Tasmania, Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road, Cairns . . . and many places around Sydney where I went walkabout.

After Australia, I got a new camera . . . the Advantage film camera, which I took a lot of great photos with. It did go to Turkey with me in 1999. But this year I graduated to the digital camera, so I'm very dangerous now . . . so many photos to shoot!

The Opera House and a partial shot of the CBD (Central Business District) of Sydney, Australia. 

View from the apartment that I had in North Sydney . . . it was great for watching the New Years Eve fireworks shot off the bridge. Yes, that is the Sydney Harbor Bridge and I walked across it several times! 

Tall ships promenade in Sydney Harbor.

Two feathered visitors that used to regularly sit on my balcony. 

Here I am with Melissa, a co-worker that I got to know on the way to Sydney. We actually flew down together and shared an apartment for 6 weeks. Funny thing . . . the flight attendant thought we were sisters! I guess because we are both so short. Note that I'm in all black and she is all white! Oh, we are in the Sydney Botanic Gardens which were so lush and green. I think Sydney is semi-tropical. The mixture of plants is truly amazing with some species, that I've seen in Dallas growing in small pots, growing to tree size.

Here I am with Melissa and her model friend, Rhonda . . . what a contrast we all make! We were visiting Old Sydneytown, which is one of those parks that you visit to see how people used to live in Sydney back in the 1800's. Trying to stay in character, one of the male village dwellers was trying to order me about and I got mad at him. He whispered an aside comment to me "I don't act this way after 5:00pm". I never did quite know whether he was apologizing or trying to pick me up. But it certainly made me laugh.

I must have scanned in over 50 photos of my trip to Cairo in Feb. 2004. With a bit of judicious editing and some concentrated time, I'll be creating some new photo galleries in my photoblog. Of course, I'll always be blogging because this starts to get addictive after awhile. I'm really working on my writing skills and with the addition of the digital camera and the ability to scan anything into the computer, I'm about to become a very dangerous woman, ah hahahaha. Ok, some of you have always known I was a bit crazy . . . but that is crazy in a good way . . . because I'd like to emphasize that I'm not "dead" yet and I hope that I don't succumb to the middle-age "couch potato" syndrome. Also, I promise not to bombard this blog with thousands of photos of my 4 (that's FOUR) Maine Coons. As much as I love them (even with the advanced state of breakage while I've been travelling for work), there are only so many pictures of cats people want to look at. Besides, I have so many more interests as you might have noticed in my intro and profile . . . Egypt, Egyptian Music, Egyptian style dancing - Raks Sharki (or Raqs Sharqi), reading, gardening, . . . hey, I like Turkey too . . . wait till I start going through that big stack of photographs from my two-week trip there in 1999! I have some wonderful photographs from Istanbul, Cappadocia, Aphrodisias, Epheseus . . . Oops, I must not get sidetracked before I finish Egypt! OK, I better get back to it, er, or maybe I better go run some errands before this day is completely over. LOL. Catherine Barros

Here's another "accordion" cartoon to laugh about . . . I know Natasha (my accordion teacher) liked this one a lot when she read it in the newspaper. 

What's Egypt without a camel? 

There are at least 5 pyramids in this shot . ..  

Nice closeup of a Pyramid at Giza 

A Pyramid . . . what else? 

Pyramids in the distance 

Cool snakes . . . . 

Camels to ride at the Pyramids . . . 

Step Pyramid 

I have some big plans over the week of Thanksgiving. I plan to upload a bunch of photos, which I've been furiously working on scanning in when I've been in town. Some will go to my photo blog, some to my website . . . is there enough time for all?? I don't know, but I can sure try my best. Meanwhile, here is one of the photos from my first trip to Egypt in February 2004. 

And for all the accordion lovers (or haters) out there . . . found it in the Sunday Comics . . . remember one of my current projects is learning how to play the accordion? I'm sending this to my accordion teacher, Natasha . . . so she can laugh about this too! I hope that being an accordion player doesn't lead to divorce! Oh wait . . . I'm not married . . . yet! I'm only offending my four cats right now . . . LOL. 

From my garden . . . the cooler months bring out the best in the Toad Lily . . it is now blooming and so pretty! 

The framed poster from a Dallas Opera production of Aida . . . very Egyptian looking of course!  

My living room with a better look at my prevailing themes of cats and Egypt . . . maybe I need more pictures of "Cats in Egypt" . . .