Weekend Excursion to Dugga and Tabaraka

This past weekend, we had another wonderful field trip. Again, we headed towards the beach (this time to Tabarka in the northwest part of Tunisia, I think). On the way to the beach, we stopped for the afternoon at Dugga. At Dugga we saw ruins from the Punic Period and from the Roman Period. The first picture is from the Roman period:


This picture is of a tower (?) from the Punic period:

After exploring the ruins, we did a talent show on the stage of the theatre there, (the back of the theatre is in the first picture). It was great fun, but very very hot, as summer as finally reached Tunis. (If anyone is interested, yesterday it was 115 degrees in Tunis and the day before it was over 120 degrees - so happy my classroom has air conditioning).

In the evening we arrived at the beach, giving us enough time for a cool dip before dinner. On Sunday, I opted to spend the day at the beach (some others did more active touristy things...). The beach was great and it was nice to take time to relax. Sunday night we returned to Tunis and hit the books (and the heat hit us!).

A weekend sleeping in a sand castle and Staying in a Tunisian Home

yikes, well, it’s been too long so since the last post, I have too many fun pictures and nice things too report, so this post may be to long to appreciate, but I want to tell everyone what I’ve been up to…..

Not last weekend, but the weekend before, we had a field trip to Le Cap Bon. It’s on the northeastern part of Tunis and its quite beautiful. We stayed in Hammamet, in a hotel that looked like a sandcastle. The hotel was right on the Mediterranean, so I got to have my fill of swimming and wandering around old forts.

Below is a picture of an area of the beach - note: the area I swam around was crowded with tourists, not boats. But the boats seemed more scenic when I was taking pictures.


And this is a picture of me at a seaside cafe next to a very old fort:


And on our way back to Tunis, we took the long way back and saw some differing places on the coast. Below is at the very tip of Tunisia:

And finally, a picture of the sunset on the Sunday before last:


After the wonderful and fun weekend, we had another week of intensive classes and homework. But on last Friday, we all went and stayed for the weekend with differing host families. My host family was really wonderful. The 'mom' (a few years older than me), is an English teacher at the University. Her husband owns a restaurant (where I was fed amazingly delicious food), and they have 2 children - a 10 year old girl and a 4 year old boy. The woman's mother lives with them and the woman's sister lives close by. The sister also has small children andalong with an assortment of random nieces and nephews, I was happily surrounded by children all weekend.

Saturday morning we went to the Bardo museum, which has art from Grecian times to the Ottoman empire. Below is a picture of the mom, her daughter, and I in front of a Roman mosaic.


Later Saturday evening, we went to Sidi Bou Said to watch the sunset and relax. Below is a picture of the family at a cafe:


Finally, on Sunday, we drove to Hammamet and spent the day at the beach. It was a really great time and I am hoping that the next time I have a free weekend that I can go and visit again.

An Afternoon in Carthage

Well, perhaps as you can see from the overcast sky in the pictures below, this weekend ended up being unseasonably cold and rainy, so no beach. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the warm weather and sun returns quickly....

So, instead of going to the beach I spent a relaxing Saturday hanging around Tunis. I took a nice walk and ended up in the meat section of the general market, where I can buy a cow head for very little (yuck...)

On Sunday, I took a 20 minute trolley ride with many other people in my group to the city of Carthage. It was really cool to see the ruins of the city from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC and I put a couple of pictures from the visit below.