A Weekend in Nabeul

This past Friday, I headed out to Nabeul with Kristian, Feriel, Lee, and an AIESECer, Ali, who just started her internship here with a Tunisian company. We went out to check out the English Language Village - which is a university campus converted into a summer camp during late July and early August. Three of the Amideast interns are actually out there working, along with ten students from the Learn and Serve Program. Since I teach an English class as well this month Monday-Friday, I can't make it out for a full session, but Kristian and I figured it was worth checking out.

The Language Village is for Tunisian students who are going to be the future English teachers of the country. The goal is to go out to the village, spend two weeks speaking in English with native speakers, and taking classes on English and English-language culture - on Friday I witnessed a group of about 25 people listening to a selection of songs by the Beatles.

I'll say that I was pleasantly surprised. The village is a lot of fun, and there's a lot of great people out there. At Amideast I meet a lot of younger and older Tunisians, but not many my age. This was a great opportunity to hang out with literally hundreds (there were about 200+ around for the weekend) of Tunisians around my age. A nice bonus was that most of them were female. No complaints. Actually, Kristian and I had such a good time there on Friday that while we made commitments to be back in Tunis with Lee on Friday night, to pack up and take a louage (a shared-ride van) out to Nabeul on Saturday.

Nabeul itself is situated on Cap Bon, a gorgeous part of Tunisia that is home to a lot of wine vineyards, beautiful rolling countryside, and also the country's most popular tourist destination - Hammamet. After we got back out to Nabeul on Saturday afternoon, we went to Hammamet at night. It was quite the experience - it's a "zone touristique" and often feels like Disneyland.

No complaints on the bus to Hammamet.

Carthage Land

More from Hammamet...

The rest of weekend was equally low-key. I got back into Tunis on Sunday night, and lazed away Monday (which was a holiday - "Women's Day") at a Lebanese restaurant called Fairouz, and then a french-themed cafe called "Le Montmartre" in Menzah Six.

Also, for photos. I am going to try something new here. I use the social networking site Facebook for posting photos every now and then, and it's much easier to upload an album's worth of photos there than here. Facebook also allows people who are not members to go through links and see all the photos without joining the site - so, if you click on this LINK here, it should take you right to the twenty-something photos I posted from the weekend. If there's any problems, or it doesn't seem to work, let me know.

Once again - more Photos here.