(5/29/2010) Day 7: The Excursion!!

Forgive me for not putting anything up recently y’all, I couldn’t access the internet in the Hotel Kaiser (supposedly I could from the lobby, but those sunuvguns lied to me… :D ) I however wrote some things down while I was there. So here ya go. Study Abroad in Tunisia’s first excursion, Sousse.

So today began our two day excursion to Sousse. It started with the earliest wake-up yet at 0630 and it definitely made me realize how quickly you get used to “sleeping in” and how hard it is to go back! It simply isn’t fair how that works… hahaha!! Anyways, I took the usual walk to the school, this time it was even shorter than the usual time (yes, I have been timing myself… It’s a good way to entertain oneself on the way there…) and wound up being around 15 minutes… Not bad… We showed up at the school early and waited for everyone else to show up, and when they did, we boarded the bus on our way to the first stop, Takrouna, a Berber village on the way to Sousse.

I managed somehow to board the bus last and got stuck with a seat up at the very front of the bus. What this means is that I wasn’t going to be spending a lot of time turning around and shouting to the other students on the bus…

My rowdy classmates

So I just popped in my headphones and started listening to the only play list working on my zune right now due to the fact I haven’t connected my computer to my external hard drive for forever, the “God is Great” playlist…. Y’all are wondering why I’m telling you this. Well, this would all be irrelevant except for something amazing happened on the way out of the city that kinda set the tone for the rest of this excursion. After a few minutes of driving out of Tunis, we reached the outskirts of the city. I dunno what it was at the time, but Aaron Ivey’s “The Name” came on and I was completely overcome by what I was seeing. Our tour guide Rasheed was mentioning these twin peaks you can see from where we’re living in Sidi Bousaid and was pointing out how much closer we are to them and their size. Now this wouldn’t be that big of a deal but you have to remember you’re talking to a Texan guy… These hills (probably mountains really) were really something… :D Anyways, the day was kind of overcast and just slightly menacing.

As my attention was suddenly turned to this incredible mountain, I noticed how small Tunis looked in comparison. It got me thinking…. It’s so easy for us to be proud of our works and our achievements, (which was the sprawling city of Tunis in this case) but I tell you what… at that moment, I saw what was supposed to be the biggest city in all of Tunisia contrasted against this huge mountain and menacing sky and I just realized how awesome nature can still be. But above all this, what I noticed was how incredible the Lord who created it all is. All this being said, I want to get to the top of at least ONE of those mountains before I leave here. This “coup d’oeil”prompted me to make sure to take the time and to meditate on the subject, so I pulled out David Nasser’s “A Call To Die”, which by the way I HIGHLY recommend, and I finished another day’s entry. About an hour after all of this happened, Rasheed pointed out a small but somewhat tall hill that had small buildings all over the top of it. We had arrived at Takrouna, what was going to be the highlight of my trip so far.

Takrouna, The Berber Village

We climbed up the hill in our bus through these incredibly narrow roads (so narrow I figured that one of them went up and then just continued down on the other side… I was wrong. It was a miracle there wasn’t another vehicle trying to go up / down the hill.) After some deft driving by out driver (who might I add has been incredible) we stopped at the end of the road. Everybody started getting off the bus and when it came my turn to get off… Well.. Y’ all should have been there… No doubt, out of all of the awesome and neat places I’ve been blessed to have been to, very few of them have had a view like the one there on that hillside… And we hadn’t even had gotten to the top of the hill yet.

The view from lower Takrouna

We spent some time admiring the view before heading up the hill. It seemed like at the top of each staircase, the view would only get better. That was before we made it to the top. After some walking and visiting deserted homes, we reached the "summit" of this little mountain village. Lets just say that... The view... it was........ AMAZING!!! The place I plan on getting when I retire will be on a ranch with horses and a beautiful sunset, but it may not be in Texas ladies and gents. My place will have to be built on some type of hill or small plateau because as I stood there at the edge of the top of this hill, with the wind rustling by me, and the most gorgeous view of God's creation, I came to the conclusion I was close to paradise.

The view from upper Takrouna

I could have simply of stood there for hours thinking, meditating, looking, or just enjoying the wind. As it was, I stood there for about 30 minutes, the entire time we were there before heading down the hill with the rest of the group.

We all got on the bus and started back down the windy, narrow hill and drove until we reached this out in the middle of nowhere restaurant that was popular with truckers (the Tunisian equivalent) and random travelers. The food, here at this little roadside shack, was epic!!

The Restaurant Zitouna

The Tunisian Truckers

The Soup

And the Main Course

Now y'all at this point are probably thinking I'm just saying this to make today seem amazing, but no. I myself was wondering how today wound up being so great!!! And it was only half way done... Hahaha!! After impressing our guide Rasheed again by successfully realizing Nancy Ajaram (An Arabic Singer) on a Coca Cola poster (and then admiring how pretty she is with all of the other men on the trip) we once again loaded up the bus and left for Sousse.

The city of Sousse

After arriving, we check into the Hotel Kaiser. Now Sousse is your typical touristy city and the Kaiser (surprise surprise) was the typical touristy hotel. Nevertheless, our room was big, and our tour group had an entire half of the 1st floor to ourselves. (It was good that was how it turned out... We made a lot of noise...) After giving us a little while to get situated, we went out for our next challenge. We were dropped off at the big local souk (سوق) to do some shopping (not much of a challenge, until you try to do it all in a language you're not 100% proficient in).

The typical looking souk

It rained off and on and I decided to pick up two shemaghs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keffiyeh) for 1.9 dinars (about 1.1 dollars) each to help me stay dry/warm. Now shemaghs are probably my favorite Arabic clothing item. You can use them as a cover, towel and blanket, the're pretty cool!!! I decided that would be it though, followed my buddies around and provided emotional support in difficult bargaining situations. While they were in their shops I found my time was best spent practicing my Arabic and French with the store keepers. At one point I spoke some Arabic with a storekeeper until we started talking about things outside of my vocabulary. So I asked him if we could switch to French. After a few sentences he asked me where I was from and guessed French at first. When I replied no he went through almost every European country I knew and then Canada at which point I just told him I was American. "American?!" he replied, "Nooo, Americans don't speak any other languages but English!" Hahaha!!!

Good deals were made in that Souk, but hearts were broken as well... (It's alright Luis You'll get 'em next time!!) before we left for the hotel to eat dinner and sleep. After dinner, one of the members of our group found out the bar downstairs actually sold alcohol... Uh oh... Laissez les bon temps rouler!! Following this mindset I got my party on with.... A beer... But a few of the others had enough to make it an interesting night!!! haha!! We had fun! Happy Birthday Travis! I can't wait to see how the second day of the excursion goes!!

(5/28/2010) Day 6: Brains vs. Brawn.

Okay.. So... Yes, I skipped a few days... I'm sorry... I didn't journal at all that day and with each passing day (I didn't have internet over the past few days...) I forget a bit from each day, so instead of worrying myself going back and recalling something... I'm starting with Day five (Friday 5/28/2010). There will be a journal entry for each day from now on... Whether on the day or not... That'll be determined by the internet situation.... Inshallah we'll be good from now on!! :D

Today, I re-learned a time old lesson regarding dealing with the Arab people through an interesting occurance today... But we'll go into that more later. Today started off at 0730 just like it has in the past, and I got up and got ready, eating my typical Tunisian breakfast of bread with jam (the awesome AWESOME French kind) with cereal, and by 0830 I was out the door walking to school.

The walk I take to get to class.

To say that today was a beautiful day would be doing it a great GREAT injustice...

Another fine Tunisian day...

If it was possible to take the weather from one day and make everyday then on like it, I would seriously make every day like it was today. It was only a very slightly overcast, so the sun was still shining and there was, (for the lack of a word that expresses how awesome it truly was) a glorious breeze that cooled everything down. In short, today's weather was nothing short of perfect. God provided us with a perfect day to walk around outside and we took advantage of it. This morning's activity was a trip via the train (which I would be seeing a lot of today) to La Marsda, one of Tunisia's many suburbs... Or so I believe. We had to find a fruit market and buy one or two kilos of a certain fruit of our choice. To get there, we had to take the TGM, (pronounced in a French manner as Tey-Jey-Em).

My first impressions of the train were pretty good!! First of all, it wasn't all that crowded like I thought it would be, and the trip (3-4 stops) went by rather quickly. They all are furnished with the typical train map of stops, but ironically, just about none of the stations have signs saying what they are. What this means is that unless you've been keeping track of how many stops you've been through, you're outta luck!! Nevertheless, the stop for La Marsda was the last one and so we all just got off at the final station. My group of seven was actually pretty successful in finding the store using our Arabic. After asking a man in front of a newspaper stand who didn't understand us, we approached a pair of police men who were strolling around the beach area. They were about as ethusiastic as ethusiastic comes, and (in English) started explain to us where it was while walking in the general direction. We made sure to let them know we were okay on our own and we thanked them with a quick شكراً before heading out again. On our way to the fruit market, one of the people in my group brought up a great point to my earlier wondering of why there are so many policemen and women just chilling around across Tunisia. Tourism... BAM! For Tunisia, a good portion of any kind of profit it makes comes from the tourism (mostly European, but a few Americans here and there) that visits it. I thought it was an interesting point, and one that made a lot of sense. After following the Police's instructions, we made it to the "fruit market" and proceeded to buy two cantalopes.

Now, these weren't just cantalopes. To take a quick jump across a few hours, before our Arabic class in the afternoon, we cracked these babies open (cut them up I suppose) and tried some of our fruit. They were INCREDIBLE!!! The one we ate was probably the best cantalope I have ever had, if not at least the best I've had in a VERY long while, because I tell you what, it was good... VERY good. Anyways, after retrieving our fruit, we wandered around La Marsda before boarding the train to get back in time for the rest of our classes. We returned in time to beat the other team (whoop!!) and chilled until class started. For our lunch break, we took another trip up the notorious Sidi Bous ied SP?? hill to one of my favorite places to get food and got got a couple of chicken kebab's.

I tell you what, no matter how many times, whether they be Gulf Arab, or Tunisian, kebab's are absolutely amazing, and I enjoyed the one I ate. After debating on whether to climb to the top of the hill or returning to the school to get ready for class, a few of us decided it would be best to come back early. So get ready for some awesome pics from on top of Sidi Bousaid next week... It'll be good!! Anyways, after another successful Arabic class, (I'm not sure what it is about them, but I feel my Arabic getting better with each class...) in which we got out a bit early, about six of us decided to go into Tunisia via the train again to visit for a bit! Unfortunately for us it was kinda rush hour and the train was pretty packed by the time we made it into the "innercity" outskirts. However, I was informed that it was nothing like riding the bus at rush hour, and for a veteran of the Shanghai and Hong Kong subway systems, it really wasn't all that bad. You just need to sacrifice that American personal bubble space and get all nice and cozy with those around you... haha!! Unfortunately for us, the train ride took a little longer than expected, and we were only able to spend about 45 minutes downtown, which just for future reference, is NOT AT ALL enough time. We're planning on making a day trip down there sometime in the future.

The Theater

It's almost like you're in Paris in some parts.

Regardless, we just walked these streets for our 45 minute stint there before heading back to the trains where the ride back was slightly less crowded than before... Other than the fact there was a sort of creepy Tunisian guy hitting on the two ladies traveling with us on the train, (which caused Luis to quickly claim both of them as his sisters. When asked for his name he said Reberto... Oh yeah...) the trip was pretty neat and a great deal of fun!! Especially the... dodging... of.. cars when crossing intersections... I probably almost got flattened multiple times. I love how traffic works here where it is ALWAYS an adventure crossing the street.

It's an adventure crossing one of these suckers

My technique you ask?? Well... I believe you need to just step out there, DON'T hesitate, or the drivers will smell the fear coming off of you and drive around you. No... You need to confidently stroll across the road, and I prefer to stare the driver down hard when I cross. That way they see me as a fellow human being, and one that isn't afraid to put his leg through the windshield should they choose to try and run me over... :D Nevertheless, I've successfully made it across every street I've crossed. The day ended with a celebration of a few of our classmate's birthdays. We took a few taxis back to La Marsda where we went to a nice restaurant to eat dinner. This place supposedly was a part of a hotel, although I never really did see the hotel portion of it... hmm... Anyways, to say the least, this is where the adventure started, and I re-learnt the lesson that when dealing with many Arabs, who can be some of the most emotional people I have ever met, (which is not necessarily all that bad) it is smart in a conflict situation to play everything with a cool head. For example, slow down, talk it out, and don't DON'T raise your voice. We managed to avoid a HUGE bill due to an understanding with our waiter, (who mistook lasanga for lobster... conveniently I suppose...) and strode out there the victors. My only complaint was that it was a pretty hectic situation, and I am just glad to be back home laying here on my bed writing this... Speaking of which... It's 0000 in the morning, and I'm getting up in six and a half hours to get ready to board a bus to Sousse with my class... I'm looking forward to our first excursion... I'll take pictures!!! Y'all take care in the meantime!!

العبور الآمن

TUNISIA!!!!

Bonjour et أهلاً!!

I am in Tunis, Tunisia as I write this with a month-long study abroad program for Arabic. So far... I've been here for four days and in the words of a great friend of mine... The experience so far has been... NUMBAA OOONNNEE!!!! haha... I've been meaning to write one of these for each of the days we've been here, but unfortunately, due to my never leaving for a trip without forgetting SOMETHING.... I forgot to bring my card reader for my camera's SD chip/card/memory device thingy. Oooooohhh miter saw... as my cousins and I say. Anyways, it took me two days to figure out how to get them from my camera to my computer, and it involves my plugging my card into a friend's computer, and then my putting them on a jumpdrive, and then from there on here... *Sigh* it isn't the fastest way, but until I find a card reader... It'll do. :D And then the day before yesterday I was without internet for a long enough time period to write something here, and finally, yesterday, I was lazy / having too much fun outside... Sorry y'all... :D

Anyways, here I am, and I'm making a promise, I will have a blog entry at LEAST 4 times a week starting next week. The reason I say 4 days? The next 2-3 weekends will be spent somewhere without internet (to the best of my knowledge, who knows, there may be internet....) ie. away from my host family and in the northern and southern parts of Tunisia. So we'll and it gives me a miss on a weekday, because things can get pretty hectic here. Anyways... Y'all ain't here to hear me rambling on about this stuff.. You want to see / hear about Tunisia... Well, okay then... Sit back and enjoy, get comfortable because this one covers 5 days....

Day 0: The trip to Paris

I'm finishing my packing back in Houston. The entire time I'm packing I'm getting pre-trip-itus, or the "I really don't want to be going on this trip when I can be staying here enjoying lounging around doing nothing" that comes before every adventure I take. Why you ask?? I have no idea... Especially since I've been complaining to my friends around the world that I've been wanting an adventure... Well, luckily for me, I get to Hobby Airport, see some of the Corps people going on the ROTC trip to Egypt and Morocco, and the pre-trip-itus melts away. Good deal! So after chilling waiting for our flight for about an hour or so, we board Air France flight 693 to ma favori ville... Paris, France!!!

Oh Air France.... Je t'aime!!

I had an aisle seat, and thank heavens I did, because I have forgotten how cramped those AF (Air France from now on) seats can be back in coach. But hey, no biggie. My wealth of traveling experience reminded me that you can put all of your bags overhead (yeah, I had two, one big and another small... But regardless, I was THAT guy who takes up about half of an overhead bin... I know, forgive me... :D ) which then allows me to stretch my legs out under the seat in front of me... It worked for the most part, but I still walked off that plane cramped... Ugh... BUT!! I managed to watch Avatar which up to this point, I thought it was kinda sad people were depressed "their worlds" weren't as cool. Well, I won't say I'm unhappy with how my life is going right now, but boy, that movie WAS something else!! Very good!! But I hope they don't try to make a sequel off of it. The ending provided you a perfect opening to imagine what happened to Jake and all of the rest of the "Na'vi" as they are called... I enjoyed it greatly!!! After that, I was brought back to good ol' Earth by the movie Invictus. I also thought it was an amazing movie, and I found myself wondering what this world would be like if all of our leaders were like President Mandela... What an exceptional character he is. Throughout the movie there were clips of rugby, and that made it that much better.... Not to mention it made me wish I could play rugby again... Dawggone Corps of Cadets... It just keeps me too busy. Well, after that I feel asleep for the last four hours of my flight... Day 0 ends here.

Day 1: Paris and beyond.

I'm not gonna lie y'all, I really wish I had more to say about the beautiful city of Paris, but unfortunately I don't... I feel like there is something in my heart that calls me to return and explore Paris a little more on my own.... I have no idea what or why, but I think it has to do with relearning / re-enjoying speaking it in Haiti. I WANT to go back for a few days...... Maybe during that crazy world-spanning trip I plan to do sometime after college with the "A-team" of friends I've made during all of my travels... We'll see... But anyways, back to the trip. I wake up and there are only a few minutes before we land in Paris. I struggle to wake myself up and step off the plane into what is one of my favorite airports (largely due to the sheer amount of time I've spent in it), Charles de Gaulle Aéroport. Much MUCH to my disappointment, instead of being greeted by the huge terminals with all the cool restaurants and shops, the flight to Tunisia was in what I remember to be the "F" terminal... It was tiny with very little variety of restaurants and shops, etc. and I didn't get a good chance to practice any of my French... MAJOR bummer. But I catch up with Travis and Brett, two guys who flew over from Houston to Paris on the same flight, and I chill with them for about half an hour before their flight left for Tunis. I was on the next flight, and just sat around reading a book until I got to board. AF flight 2584 takes off from Paris, and I'm dead asleep. Unfortunately for me, I found a kiosk in the airport that allows you to change your seat. So immediately I try my hardest to get an exit row, and miss my guess by one row... So I'm stuck with a similar situation as the one mentioned earlier with the flight over but no biggie, I sleep through the entire flight and wake-up just before landing. I have arrived in Tunisia and c'est super chouette!!! I get off the flight, get my bags, get some of the money I have changed. Around $60 worth, and the funny thing is that after four days of being here (buying everything I need / lunch x 4), I haven't used more than 35 dinars. (1.48 dinars to a dollar... Do the math... It's insanely cheap here!!) Anyways... Before I jump all over the place chronologically, I meet up with Brett and Travis after passing immigration. We chill around for a bit waiting for Luis, one of the guys on our trip who supposedly was on my flight... Minutes pass, he doesn't show. Our guide shows up, he's still not past immigration. The next flight of European tourists arrives, no Luis. So Travis and I go looking for him around the airport and finally, I use French to convince one of the immigration guards to let me go BACK inside to look for him... Now I'm really excited... My first French speaking experience and I do something anyone in a Western European airport should NEVER be able to do... Anyways I beeline straight for the lost baggage counter and BAM! there he is... So we leave Luis to wait for the next flight (which DID have his bag on it...) and the three of us take off for our hotel. Now, my family and I have been to Tunisia before, but it was a very very long time ago, and I'm much older now. So I'm excited about being here. Not to mention that instead of being here for tourism purposes (unlike what my immigration paper said, as there was no place to put "Student" on it), I was here to help learn a new language... Arabic. On the way to the hotel I made a pact with myself. I was only allowed to speak French in emergencies, when talking to cute French ladies, and when I simply just didn't know how to say something in Arabic. So far, it's been going pretty good... I've been using probably a little too much French, but my Arabic has been improving noticeably since I'm forced to use it more!! Nothing special happens during the drive over, both Brett and Travis fall asleep and I successfully I.D. a singer on the radio as Cheb Mami, much to our guide's amazement. My initial assessment of Tunisia was that it was very modernized in comparison to many of the "Arab" / "Middle Eastern" countries I have been to the past couple of years. It was a lot alike Egypt (Cairo at least) where there are police almost every 300 or so meters, but unlike in Egypt where instead of police it was troops lining the roads every so often, I felt like these guys were doing the typical police job, much alike that back in the States, and before I knew it, I didn't even notice them here. Other than that, the only other two things I noticed on the way to the Phebus Hotel was that the American Embassy was HUGE (Oorah!) and that traffic conforms to the EXACT same norms here as they do in Doha, especially so in certain places... Traffic lights are a suggestion, stop signs slow drivers down... barely, and that driving usually involves very close calls VERY frequently. So we arrive at the four star hotel Phebus...

Our humble abode for the first night....

Now, there isn't much to this hotel. There is a pretty nice pool and access to the beach, but forgot to mention earlier that it had rained, and pretty hard, earlier and therefore both were not really all that attractive at the time... not to mention it was getting late and was actually pretty chilly. So Travis, Brett and I made our way downstairs where we had our first experience with Tunisian food. For me it wasn't the best experience, but the reason behind that is completely my fault. Ladies and gentlemen, I like to think I'm the ultimate world traveler after doing so for the vast majority of my life, but unfortunately, I'm very VERY scared to try out new foods. This unfortunately, is because of my allergy to tree nuts... otherwise I could go absolutely crazy and try everything... But as it stood, I ate bread, and something that was almost a curry in it's consistency and taste with a bunch of rice. Nevertheless, it didn't fill me up all that much, and I was yearning for breakfast the next morning. Afterwards, we said howdy to a few fellow study abroad-ers who were just arriving from the airport and took the elevator back up to our room where we just chilled until we fell asleep.

To be continued...

العبور الآمن