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.