Back... for a bit.

Once again, I'm running around. My mother left Tunis yesterday, and tomorrow I am going down to Monastir with Lee to run a workshop on "Bridging the gap between America and the Arab World" at the AIESEC MENALDS conference (sorry for the acronyms!). After that I am helping out again on the SIT program's excursion. This time, we are spending the 22nd-29th in North and Western Tunisia. Every single site except Dougga I have been to before, so it will be a different experience this time around.

I had a great time here with my mom. We had a few little hiccups, including her friend's camera being stolen on the metro and one especially mean-spirited cop, but overall I was happy with how it turned out.

I had her stay at the Tunisia Palace downtown. It's run by one of the best chains in Tunisia, Golden Yasmin, and opened up about 5-6 months ago right by the porte de France at the Medina entrance. I chose it because it's a very convenient location and it's a nice building with good service and also nice dining facilities (which helped out when we went back to recharge for lunch). On Friday, when she came in, we went off to the medina and walked around a bit before having dinner at Dar Bel Hadj, which is one of several traditional houses turned into restaurants in the medina - there's also Dar El Jeld and Dar El Kheirat. We had great starters, average main plates and some very good Zgougou, along with a nice bottle of St. Augustin - one of the better labels in Tunisia along with Selian, Vieux Magon and Lansarine.

On Saturday we did the Bardo in the morning, had some good chawarma in Manar and then headed off to Bizerte and some beaches around the area. We had a great dinner at one of the best restaurants in Tunisia - especially for fish - Le Sport Nautique. Sunday we started a bit later, went to the Roman baths at Carthage, the American WWII Cemetary and then walked up to Sidi Bou Said for a late lunch at Tam Tam before Bambalounis (Tunisian doughnuts) and tea at Cafe des Delices. Monday was a lot of shopping, especially at Ed Dar. I got myself a killer Chechia (one of the red caps) and a great Barnous - which is a a big Tunisian wool cape/hood thing that will remind you quite a bit of Jedi robes (upon spending enough time in Tunisia, especially in the South, one will realize how much George Lucas "borrowed" for the look and feel of Star Wars - and let's not even get in to the Hidden Fortress).

On Monday night we had a fantastic dinner at one of my new favorite places - Le Carre Blanc in La Marsa. It's a beautiful restaurant that is literally on the water - sited in a Turkish bey's old bath house for his wives so that they could swim in the Mediterranean without being seen. The place has fantastic food - we had amazing calamari, and they do about ten different types of steak, all of which are incredible, from black truffle to 3-cheese.

Tuesday was massage/sauna at the hotel, and then back to Rome, where my mom had come in from.

I'll post some photos of Carthage and Bizerte when I get back from my trip in early April.

Photos from the South

A crazy camel in Douz

I posted 4 albums of my trip down South. I'll admit, I went a little overboard, but I had to go through over 700 photos and I got a little zealous clicking on the ones I wanted (especially the Star Wars set ones). There are also still captions missing/some details. I've been insanely busy lately - spent all of Wednesday at the Embassy and the Foreign Service Institute in Sidi Bou Said with a visiting AMIDEAST VP, and all of Thursday catching up on things. Plus, my mom is coming in today at 4:30 from Rome for a few days.

Album 1

Album 2

Album 3

Album 4

The Ribat in Monastir

Sidelined...

By a very nasty stomach flu.

I went out last Thursday to a very nice dinner at Chez Slah with Lee and two Rims. Had some great swordfish what is, in my opinion, the best place in Central Tunis for seafood, especially fish. If you want to go, make sure you make a reservation, otherwise you are not getting in.

It was when I got home when I realized that something I had eaten earlier or somehow gotten in my system earlier in the day didn't agree with me... That was followed by four days of absolute hell - the most sick I've ever been here, including a nonstop fever/chills cycle for the first 30 hours. Now, I'm back at work, but I still have a bit of trouble standing up straight - my stomach is still pretty worn out.

Anyways, I am still planning on uploading photos of the South very soon. The one on top is from just outside of an abandoned Berber village in the mountains by Tozeur. The one on bottom is a shot of our group exploring the Star Wars set in the desert outside of Nefta just before the sunset.

Sunday in Mateur

On Sunday I went out with Mehdi to visit his cousin Nizar's farm in Mateur, which is North of Tunis. It was a gorgeous day, and great to get away from Tunis for a bit (actually, something I've been doing a lot of lately). After, we went to the dam just outside of Mateur. It was built with Soviet help and finished up in 1983.

Me at the farm chilling with the puppy

Looking out over the dam

Also, sorry about the lack of posting for the last, er... month. I was stateside in Minneapolis, and then got a nasty bug while I was over there that I just got over a few days ago. After heading back to Tunis, I was still in sick-mode and going to the doctor, dealing with antibiotics and work and everything, and it just put me in no place to be reflective and write. (In retrospect, that might have helped me deal with all of it). After a week in Tunis, I chaperoned the SIT Program for a week in the South. We went to Sbeitla, Gafsa, Metlaoui, Tozeur, Nefta, Douz, Tataouine, Djerba, Monastir, Kairouan, Sousse, and Hammamet. Quite the trip. I'll write more about being back in the states and going to the South pretty soon. Also, I took roughly 700 photos down there, so I'll have to go through them and make a few albums. In the meantime, I figured Mateur was a good place to start, because it was an amazing day and just happened.