(6/7/10) Day 16: Back to Tunis!!

Just like yesterday's blog entry... There really wasn't all that much that went today. We just hopped on the bus and headed back for Tunis. Along the way we stopped at another beach. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take pictures, but it was nice (slightly overcast... only slightly) and we had fun chilling for another two or so hours. Luis, Travis, Mark and I headed up (barefoot) across a bunch of somewhat uncomfortable stones (it hurt... :D ) to get to a shrine... After making it all the way up there, we encountered Patrick who promptly told us that it was closed to non-Muslims...

Mytersaw...

We walked back down the hill to beach and enjoyed it for a few more minutes before hopping back on the bus. We ate lunch at this SKETCHY BBQ place on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere...

Where we ate lunch!!!

The sketchy roadside restaurant...

Oh man it was good!!!

It was amazing... I enjoyed the food there so much. From a BBQ standpoint, it was the grilled meat, minus all the marinaras and sauces. It was good... After finishing here, we rode the bus all the way back Tunis where we all headed home. Excursion two is a success!!! :D

(6/6/10) Day 15: 2nd Excursion, Relaxation Day!!

Boy! Today sure has been swell!! From a blog standpoint however, there isn't much to write about... This is mostly because today we just chilled for a while... It was a nice break!!

The adventure starts when I woke up this morning with a lip that was half swollen and a mind that was scared witless as to why.... As I attempted (Because anyone who has lived with me knows my weakest time is right after I wake up... My mind just isn't working at that time.... (My mom would always ask me if I did my homework right after she woke me up.... dawggone it!! :D )) to comprehend why my lip was so puffy, I noticed it was on the same side of my face that had been window side the 4-5 hours we were in the buss yesterday... Mytersaw as my cousins, Bryan, and I would say... It was sunburned!! That being the highlight of my morning, we boarded the bus for Sejnane village, a small place out in the middle of nowhere known for it's pottery works. After an hour or two of mountain roads, we were our amongst a bunch of hills and grass... Suddenly a tiny village showed up... Now, this would be a good time to give y'all some background on the North of Tunisia in comparison to the area around the capital, Tunis. While Tunis and the Eastern coast of Tunisia are relatively well industrialized, the north definitely is not! Take this for example...

It's almost that scene straight out of Gladiator... Or the Elysian Fields...

Known by the Romans as "Campi Magni" or a rough translation of "The land of large fields", Northwestern Tunisia was the "bread basket" of the Roman Empire. Very little outside of a big port we drove by was industrialized in any sort of way. Fields like the one in the picture above were commonplace every where you went.There were many instances of us passing men riding donkeys and large John Deere tractors.

Case and point.... This man was haulin' on El Senõr!!

Fewer cars and all of the heavy loading (most of the loads were of hay) was done by pickup trucks rather than the big 18-wheelers you saw every so often on the highways near Tunis. It was pretty neat, and the rolling fields of wheat were absolutely beautiful. From a people standpoint, the ones who lived in the North were completely different, more... old-school... for the lack of a better term.

This was especially evident in the village where we followed Proffessor Mounir to a collection of buildings that housed a few women who brought us over to a well with a bunch of supplies sitting around. The oldest lady there proceeded to show us how she made the pottery the village was so famous for. It was pretty neat, she even sang for us a little bit! It was cool to see the more traditional side of Tunisia. After the presentation, we went to an area where they had all their pottery laid out and I made sure to buy something for mom before we headed back to our bus to go to Bizerta

The lady who showed us how they do their pottery... She made that sucker pretty quick!!

Here's where the relaxation starts...After finishing our quick little lunch (a picnic out in a forest that could have been in the middle of Idaho... It just amazes me how much different parts of Tunisia look like other places I've been!!! haha!!) we headed off to Bizerta and the Hotel Residence Ain Meriam, the nicest hotel we have stayed in to date!! Situated right along the beach, we were given five hours to just sit and chill. A few of us went out to the beach and hung out in the sea for a bit. Luis and I decided to hop in a beach soccer game in celebration of the upcoming World Cup! We both kicked some Tunisian butt on our respective teams proving that the US & Mexico are both forces to be reckoned with.. Haha!!! After that, we went back in, spent some time at the pool before heading back in for dinner and chilling around until we fell asleep... Not a whole lot happened to day, but I don't mind... It was nice to just have a day to chill!!!

It's Idaho... In Tunisia...

(6/5/10) Day 14 : Excursion to the North...

Day one of our second excursion begins today bright and early, 5:30 early. Thank heavens it wasn't for PT (the run yesterday still hurts... haha!!). I woke up, finished my packing, trying my dawggone hardest not to wake up my host family in the process. Breakfast?? Meh, I'll grab something along the way... Brushing my teeth and contacts??? I'll do that at the school.... hahaha!! So after a few nerve racking minutes of trying to learn / unlock the gate on the outside of my host family's door without waking anyone up, I'm off!!! The morning was slightly overcast, much like that of the previous excursion. On the way to the school I make my traditional stop at Achmad's (I finally learned the shopkeeper's name) "500 millime watershop"as I like to call it... This place is awesome. He sells 1.5 liter bottles of water for less than 50 cents... Funny that, even the stuff that is supposed to be expensive here is cheaper than it is in the States.

(I'll put the picture up when I get to it back at my house...)

My favorite store in Tunisia....

Anyways, we boarded the bus when it got here and took off for our first stop. An Roman archeological site named Dougga. The bus ride this time was characterized not by the mountains like before, but by characteristics very similar to our Midwest. Rolling hills covered in that golden color that is broken up every so often by an old colonial farmhouse that is now inhabited by modern Tunisians. The buildings are kind of a neat pictures into what life was like here "back in the day"... After a little while we arrived in a little village and the words of our trip leader Dr. Ayari came to mind. He mentioned how this part (the North) of Tunisia never was industrialized all that much. It was obvious. Wheat fields were everywhere and we passed tractor after tractor trudging along the side of the road (yes you John Deere fans out there... There were a few...) In some of the villages, some of the buildings were similar to those you'd find in old westerns (the ones found in the Mexican towns). It's like you're rolling across the Wild West in parts!! Haha!!

How they transport their hay in the south... That's a smaller pickup truck hauling all that.

An example of the wheat fields...

Shortly after writing that... I fell asleep... haha!! The 5 o'clock wake up got to me I guess!! Anyways, when I woke up we were pulling into the Dougga Archeological Park. Now I've been to my share of Roman archeological sites, and while this one showed the usual sites... The temple, bathhouses, etc., this one was neat because the basic structure from pretty much the entire town was still intact to some degree!!! There were tunnels to walk in, columns to climb, ruins to explore, all that sort of good stuff! We started at the amphitheater and moved throughout the site, initially I was kind of bummed because they had us moving as a "tour group", but a few of us kinda managed to sneak off and do some exploring of our own. It really was pretty neat!!. It was just fun wandering around picturing the Roman town alive and wondering what it would look like should all the buildings still be standing as they did two millennium ago. Just like Takrouna had (except maybe not as awe-inspiring)a good view, Dougga had a pretty neat view as well... There was a mausoleum that jutted out over a few trees that seemed to remind me of Ankor Wat a little bit... Not to be forgotten either was the ever constant cool breeze that is present here in Tunisia... Honestly, if there was one thing I could take back to the States from here it would be the breeze... haha!!

Roman roads

Old Roman writing

An old mausoleum

The temple

An example of how extensive the ruins were...

Tunisia really has some pretty neat ruins, whether they be Roman or Arab, and for history buffs like myself, it's been a real great pleasure checking them out!! After grabbing a Nestle Crunch bar (and dawggone did it taste good after all that time in the sun) we boarded the bus for our next stop... Lunch somewhere in a city named "Le Kef". This place is situated on top of a pretty neat hill that offers it a nice view of the valley. We stopped to eat at a little place called Bon Maklouf a nice little restaurant that offered food that was pretty good!! (Along with some pretty thug rap music coming from behind the kitchen.)

Bon Maklouf... A delightful little place with...

Thuggish ruggish music yo!!

On the subject of food... Prince Cookies... The food that keeps me sane on long bus rides...

I decided to get this fish dish that was EXTREMELY good, (even though Le Kef is nowhere even close to the ocean... funny that...) but I WILL say that their French Fries need a little bit of work. Mostly in the crispiness department... But in their defense, it IS hard to beat American french fries. Après eating lunch, we rolled into Tabarka and checked into the hotel Mimosas...

The view from the pool area...

It was a nice little place overlooking the city, with rooms that were pretty good! From my family's standpoint, we could have stayed there no problem!! :D After dropping off all of our luggage and gear, we decided to make a quick stop at the city's fort, also on a hill and overlooking both the city and the small harbor. We were told the fort was going to be closed, so a few of us (in what seems to happen anytime there are somewhat perilous rocks laying about) climbed around on the rocks situated around the fort itself. Luis and I climbed down to an outcropping that was not shaded by the castle and got a few pictures taken of us before almost everyone started yelling at us... The guy who watched over the castle wanted to let us in!!! Luis and I immediately started sprinting up the hill. Supposedly, the building was slated to be a military base sometime in the near future, and tourists were not allowed to be in there, but he decided we needed to see it anyways... We were the first visitors to the fort in a VERY long time!!! The caretaker unlocked the huge doors and while we were a bit rushed to go through it, it was such a privilege to be able to see the inside of the fort, and some of the rooms looked straight out of a pirate movie (I could definitely see Captain Jack Sparrow in the room we took pictures out of... haha!!).

The rock we climbed to...

The fort overlooking the bay...

The sunset from the "Pirate Room"

After allowing the caretaker to close and lock the doors to the fort once more, we headed back downhill to the harbor area where we enjoyed the sunset hitting the side of the hill and rock outcroppings. As the sun went down, we all glanced back at the fort and were surprised to find it doubled as a lighthouse... Ingenious!! We headed back to the hotel and spent the rest of the night drinking a few beers and talking politics, all the while enjoying the good view and the perfect Tunisian weather... What an awesome trip it has been!!!

(5/31/2010 - 6/4/2010) Week 2

Well ladies and gents... It has happened finally... Life here in Tunisia has slowed down a bit. Those of y'all on facebook have noticed I'm not posting 40+ pictures each day of the week anymore right?? Haha!! Well, turns out we've actually managed to explore the vast majority of Sidi Bousaid. (The only place I "haven't" been is the very top of the mountain, and I'll make sure that changes this next week.)

Monday morning was really neat. We had a professional calligraphist come in and teach us how to make "pens" قلم out of bamboo reeds. The process supposedly (from cutting the bamboo to using the pen) about four to five months. Pretty crazy stuff!! And he showed us how the different styles are drawn. It's so neat! There are something around five or six different styles, each used from different time periods or for different writing situations. It was a real blast simply writing Arabic with a bamboo reed pen too!! It's fun!!! Anyways, later that day we decided to check out Carrefour, France's version of Walmart. It was nice and all, but it lacked that certain je ne sais pas.... What was it... Oh yeah!! The 'Murican awesomeness! Jokes aside it wasn't too bad... They did make me "bag" my own groceries though... Those sunvaguns...

Carrefour!!!! J'aime beaucoup!!!

What gall!!!

After we returned to the school, I decided it would be good to start running again!! The beautiful thing (amongst many other great things) about Sidi Bousaid is that it provides some pretty awesome places to run. One of these blogs, I'll start a "vlog" of my run, five minutes at a time... It'll be good!! But yeah, it stinks running up 200-something steps and down the Sidi Bousaid hill...

On Tuesday we had professor Redissi come and talk to us about the Arab world and the different mindsets the Arab leadership have had in the past and now. There were a lot of good points made... If I have to write a major thesis paper for political science... I think my future topic will come from our discussions in that lecture. During our lunch break we headed down to Sidi Bousaid's beach to chill out for a little while... I didn't have my swimming shorts so I just stood in the water... Next time I'll bring 'em though! But the beach here is ridiculously nice!! Another reason to become ambassador here in Tunisia, his house is on top of a hill / cliff that is right along the beach / sea and looks out over it... Bam... It's so beautiful here!!

Tuesday was beautiful!!

Beaches here are.... AMAZING!!

My little buddy next to the pizza place I got lunch at...

Wednesday was special though. School went along no big deal, but then Brett approached everybody with the offer to play soccer with his host brother... Before I go further, a little bit of background. The previous night, I stumbled across K'naan's "Wavin' Flag" music video with Nancy Ajram. It's the Middle Eastern version of the semi-official World Cup theme song and I will not lie to y'all... (I was lucky enough to find the video seeing as youtube is blocked here... *sigh*) I was completely hooked! (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTczMTc2Mjg0.html , it's a Chinese site... But that's all I could get... haha!!) It shows fans from the various Middle Eastern countries getting excited about what I suppose is probably their respective teams scoring... I got so excited for the World Cup. I cannot wait to watch a few games overseas in a country that loves it so much. Inshallah... a few of us will head out to a bar and watch a game or too with the locals... I'll just make sure to avoid the US - Algeria game as that's the team the majority of Tunisians are supporting... haha!! While I may label myself an "international citizen", I still root for my United States of America!! Go Red, White, and Blue!! B.T.H.O. the rest of the world!! Anyways, back to the present, Brett proposed going to play... BAM! I snapped up the chance right away, and after class was done, we all headed our various ways to get ready and met back at "La Marsa" soccer stadium to play. With the World Cup anthem playing in the back of my head, the entire time we ran around playing the sport that will bring the world together in a few days...

The best part of the experience is that these 15 or so year olds were absolutely schooling us most of the time in one on one situations. Brett's host brother for example would probably be lucky to weigh that much more over a hundred pounds... but all I have on this kid was just that... My weight. His finesse with the soccer ball made any of my attempts to steal the ball from him come up empty. But it was so much fun nevertheless!! After about one and a half to two hours straight of playing, we decided to call it quits with the promise that something like this would happen again... VERY soon!

Thursday was a day where not very much happened as well... The only interesting visit was by a drum expert who taught (or in some cases TRIED to teach us... haha!!!) how to play the Arabic drums. It was neat and totally reminded me a lot of Nasrallah trying to teach me before I graduated from high school.... haha!! It was a ton of fun!! Other than that, I just went home and studied for the Arabic test we had the next day and fell asleep while reading... Not a whole lot of interesting eh??

An example of the excitement on Thursday.. Oh my mischevious classmates...

Friday was a bit more interesting. We agreed early on in the day that we would be going out to play soccer after the exam. We took our exam, and stuck around a little longer to hear our plan for the weekend excursion before taking off for some more futbol!!! Same deal, we split up and met back that La Marsa stadium. We got there and got an hour or so of four v four done before tragedy struck! A man approached us and told us the fields were off-limits. As it stands right now, we're still working on finding an alternative... Standby for details!

I got to pose with the Tunisian soccer championship trophy...

Take note of the envy on the guy's face to the right of me... Yeaaahhh boii!!!

I returned back to the school to chill and cool down before doing the downhill / uphill backpack run. there had been a lot of talk all week long about a new group coming in and I finally got to meet a few of 'em. They seemed pretty cool!! Supposedly we'll be seeing a lot of them coming up... They're with the State Department Critical Language program. Anyways, I'm looking forward to this excursion!! It should be a lot of fun!! I'll probably be posting this Monday / Tuesday night, but I'll write this anyways... Y'all have a good weekend!!

(5/30/2010) Day 8: The Second Day

مساء الكخير ladies and gentlemen!!! Today I come to y'all with day 8 of my Tunisian trip, (a few days behind... But I seem to be having a lot of trouble keeping on track when I've been having so much fun here... ahaha!!) and my goodness, it's been a full week since we've arrived here. Looking back, it's so funny how I, at this time last week, was worried / not entirely happy to be leaving the fun back in the States behind. Well ladies and gentlemen, it's safe to say that is completely behind me. With the exception of a few classes that have felt like they have lasted far too long, (which is funny, I have a good time in most of them still...) I've experienced a whole lotta fun and and excitement here in Tunisia. We've still got four or so weeks left too... It's gonna be good!! But anyways, onwards... Day 8!! Huzzah!!

So today started with my rooster alarm on my phone blaring right next to my head. (Reminds me of Haiti each time I wake up... haha!!) I got up and got ready, and headed upstairs to eat a quick continental-ish breakfast that consisted of many many banana yogurts (so good by the way...) and a few pieces of bread. After that we finalized the room, met downstairs and got ready to head out to Mahdia, where we'd be seeing the Fortress. It was a bit of a drive to the city and when we got there, I was impressed (yet again...) by our driver's ability to negotiate the thin roads in a bus with traffic rolling everywhere. He's pretty much a pro!!

The streets I'm talking about... I dunno how our bus driver did it...

Before making it to the Fortress we decided to stop off at a cafe for a break. The thing that made this cafe special was that it was right on the rocks and the Mediterranean Sea. While a few people chilled and had coffee or a tea, a few more adventurous members of our group and myself headed down some steps that led to a groups of rocks that jutted out of the "bay". I spent the next few minutes with Mark and Travis exploring the areas underneath the cafe and climbing around on the rocks.

A perfect example of the rock climbing involved...

The view from under the cafe.

After all that climbing and jumping etc. we walked from the cafe to the fortress. Unfortunately, at this time it began to rain a little bit. This wasn't a big deal, and actually was kind of nice, the cool rain does wonders on a hot day. Anyways... The fort was pretty neat... It was built on the end of this peninsula which would have been a nasty sunvagun to assault should someone had needed to... While it was pretty cool, it was nothing near as neat as the rabat (Arabic fortress) that we would visit later... So I won't expand much further... What was something else was the graveyard that was set-up right next to the fort. Built along the coastline and along the little peninsula that the fort was set up on, all of the graves face east, where Mecca is... On a good day (as it would be later on in the evening) with the sun out and the beautiful breeze that seems to be ever present here in Tunisia... It would be an amazing little place to be buried!! Honestly, from a cultural standpoint, it's pretty neat how the Arabic culture deals with cemeteries. As I asked our tour guide Rasheed a few questions about them and he laid out a few rules that a family must follow. The graves are modest by nature, because their religion doesn't allow big, ornate tombstones, and they all are built... Get this... To crumble after time... They're expected to, and that's okay, because it symbolizes their movement into the afterlife... And they must always face Mecca. In all my time living overseas, I have never seen a Muslim graveyard built somewhere that isn't at least halfway pretty. It's pretty cool.

The graveyard

After leaving the fort, we headed to a small town (possibly even a suburb) of Mahdia where we were to eat a Tunisian lunch with a family. Yes, you got that right... A family. A "super mom" who cooked all of the food required to feed 14 hungry college students and three grown-ups... Oh, and some for her family too, and a "super dad" who would not allow us to go more than a minute or two wanting something. We needed water? Without even asking he'd get up and run back inside and present us with a new bottle. What a neat experience it was to sit down with this family and see yet again how awesome the "Arab hospitality" can be. Just another example of how neat this aspect of their culture is.... I've always had a fasination with the Bedouin, the people of the desert, who somehow manage to live their entire lives.... (Not just a week, or a month, or maybe a year... I'm talking... ALL THEIR LIVES!!!) out in the middle of the world's biggest desert. These guys will and are obligated to by their honor to, and I read somewhere a quote from one of the Bedouin themselves, take even the "devil's son" in for three days should they stumble in from the desert and feed and care for them before setting them loose again. It's incredible how different hospitality is viewed here.

The mound of Kous Kous we were served along with other courses.... Soooo good!!

After being shown the awesome garden the husband keeps and saying our goodbyes to the awesome family , we took off for the Rabat. Now I've been in my share of forts and the such, but my goodness... This one takes the cake, with a sheer combination of awesome Indiana Jones treasure hunter rooms, a flippin' tall tower, and awesome ramparts!!! I kid you not, this place was incredible... (Seeing as my internet will be going out here pretty soon... In the sake of time I have narrowed the description of this huge castle-like structure down a few sentences) The highlight of the Rabat was the little room that we proooobably shouldn't have been in that had this hole in the side of the wall with a long 2x4 running into the darkness....

Indiana Jones anyone???

Well.... Patrick and I weren't to be deterred... We both climbed into the darkness and crawled across the dark chasm into another chamber where the longer 2x4 just ended... Deeming it smart to stop there... We stopped there.... Anyways... I got my adventure for the day and just enjoyed scrambling all over the rest of the rabat.

The Rabat...

The view of the city from the Tower

The rabat's tower

We ended our excursion with a trip to Habib Borgiba's tomb. He was the first president of Tunisia and was credited with ending polygamy and giving Tunisian women the right to divorce, things that were unheard of in the Arab world during his time. The tomb was pretty neat as was the massive graveyard (again, next to the sea) just next to his tomb.

One of the Spires next to the tomb complex

After visiting Borgiba's tomb we left for Tunis, the trip was similar, as I wrote this blog

entry I fell asleep... Fortunately for y'all, while I can copy these words onto the internet, I can't copy the huge mark left on my page made by my drooling all over the place... (I was tired.... geeze... :D ) But I need to add this one last thing... You remember the mountain I mentioned in the last entry??? You remember how I mentioned it had "a brother"??? Well....

The other mountain....

I'm ticked I didn't get it earlier... It was incredible... I end this blog entry with praise for how awesome the Lord can be... He hasn't allowed me to forget it over the course of this trip!

I'm posting this at 10:18 at night... I get up in 6 and a half hours to leave on our next excursion... Things slowed down this week so expect a post about the entire week and separate ones for each of the days of our excursion this weekend (3 days long this time)... Wish me luck!!

Take care!!