An Incredibly Busy Journey to the South of Tunisia

This past weekend was quite amazing. I think I did more diverse activities in three days than I ever have in such a short time frame.

FRIDAY:

We left Tunis early Friday morning for the city of Kairouan. Kairouan is the 4th most holy city in the Muslim world, acted as the North African capital of the Arab world for most of the five centuries of Muslim rule in the area, and has more than 100 mosques. We visited the Mosque of Sidi Oqba that was begun to be built around 680 AD. However, I think this early building was torn down a few times and the mosque I saw looks like the one that was built in the late 9th century. Sidi Oqba was a saint who arrived in Kairouan 40 years after the death of the prophet. He founded the city and began the mosque that bares his name. A picture of the prayer area of the Great Mosque is below:


Also in Kairouan, we visited the shrine of Sidi Sahib, a companion of the prophet (I think he was the prophet's barber). The inside of the building was covered with beautiful tiles and mosaics. Below is a picture of me in the shrine. The lower walls are covered in decorated tiles, the upper part of the wall is carved stone:


After the visit to the shrine, we stopped at a carpet sellers shop, ate lunch in a hotel and then went to Dougga. The Romans began occupying Dougga around the 2nd century BC. There was a theatre there (similarly to the last Roman site that we visited) and there were three temples to the gods in the former center of the city. The picture below is of the remains (I do believe they've been rebuilt a bit...)

Finally, after about 14 hours of traveling, we arrived at our hotel in the desert. I watched the stars in the sky for a while and then headed to bed.

SATURDAY:

We woke up early on Saturday, ate breakfast, and jumped back on the bus for probably the most jam-packed day of my life. First we visited an oasis in the desert. To get around the oasis we rode in horse drawn carts (below is a picture of me and my horse):

We also walked around the oasis. In the oasis, they grow fruits and vegetables for local consumption and dates for export. Below is a picture of me and some friends climbing a date palm tree. I think the background also shows how very green the oasis is.

After we left the oasis, we headed back on the bus and began our trek across the desert. We stopped in the salt desert and played for a while (the picture is below). I guess the salt desert was a part of the Mediterranean that was cut off and now is a pretty thick layer of salt covering a lot of sand. What really surprised me about this place was its incredible flatness and lack of anything in sight. It was almost like walking into nothingness. It was an especially strong contrast to the other desert we had thus far seen - which looked a lot like Death Valley in the USA.


After this stop, we headed on farther, until we got to the part of the Sahara where it is just sand and sand dunes (and tourists). At this stop, we did my favorite activity- we rode camels into the Sahara. It was very hot and the camel was a little bumpy, but I had a wonderful time. Below is a picture of me and my camel. As you can tell, we didn't go too deep into the Sahara, because as the rest point, we could buy a coke.

After the camel ride, we had lunch (I can't believe we did all of that in one morning) and then headed out on the bus to ride through more of the Sahara. We stopped in Matmata, which is an old Berber town with two very cool things. The first is that the houses used to be all dug into the ground, which is impressive considering the hardness of the rock there and the coolness of the houses compared to the outside air. A picture of a house:

BUT this was no ordinary house, it was also the location where Star Wars Episode 4 was filmed. Remember Luke's childhood home? This was the location. When he ate with his aunt and uncle, he ate in a room here. Now its a bar (and the rest of the homestead a hotel of questionable quality). Here is the entrance to the bar:

However, I was a little disappointed with the bar, besides a few newspaper clippings and movie posters from the movie, there was really not much to see. I think I had been hoping for something with a really high kitch factor - like the bartender dressed as Chewbacca or a few droids wandering around. But, alas, Tunisia is not really Disney Land....

After our pilgrimage to the Star Wars site, we continued our voyage across Tunisia to the Island of Jerba. We crossed the Roman Causeway (also rebuilt often, I am sure) and here we stayed the night in a very nice hotel. (By the way, the Island of Jerba was home to the Lotus Eaters where Ulysses and his men spent some time in the Odyssey, but I didn't see any lotuses.)

SUNDAY:

Sunday morning we had free, so I woke up early and had a nice run and swim in the hotels pool. Afterwards I split my time between the beach and the hotel. After lunch we again boarded our bus (I was a little sick of buses at that point), and went to see the sights of Jerba. We stopped in a little village that seemed to exist solely to sell pottery to tourists.



After our stop at the tourist pottery trap, we visited the synagogue on Jerba. It was quite beautiful, and a picture of its interior is below:

After the synagogue we headed to a museum that was interesting in so much as all it had was mannequins of everyday Tunisian things, and then went to the airport. After many hours of waiting in the airport, we boarded our plane and arrived back in Tunis in time to sleep before Monday morning classes.

Last Last in a Watermelon Eating Contest

Arabic is going along well, although I can't believe how quickly time passes and that the program will be over at the end of next week- oh my! Its been an interesting experience: we have an incredibly large amount of highly structured activities on weekends (like we go on a field trip almost every weekend), we have lots of time at the school during the day, and everyone lives in the same hotel. The result is that I feel like I am at summer camp, only with tests in Arabic.

Last weekend was one of our few "free" weekends. Most people traveled around the country. I stayed at the hotel and had quite a relaxing experience. On Saturday, I had lunch with a few new friends and then headed to the beach for some swimming and sun. On Sunday, the American Embassy in Tunisia had a 4th of July party. It was an interesting event. There was a navy band that played music (they sounded just like the songs on the radio) and they said that they spent the whole year just traveling from place to place playing music. Doesn't seem like too bad a job. They also had a BBQ. The invitation said they would have veggie burgers and at first they were very reluctant to make these, but after some "strong" requesting, they pulled them out of the freezer and made a couple. I ate two and they were pretty good (I think they were my first American made veggie burgers in over a year....). Most excitingly, I participated in the watermelon eating competition. My motivation for this was that I wanted some watermelon - its really good here in Tunisia. Surprising, I came in last place. And I think I've satisfied my desire for watermelon for a good long while.

Tomorrow morning, we are heading to the south of Tunisia to see the Sahara and ride camels. I'll take some pictures of the travels and tell all early next week!

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.

These Days in Tunis

Tunis is a really beautiful city. I've been here since Saturday morning and I feel as though I am settling into the pattern of class. I go to class for about 4.5 hours a day and have an additional 2 hours of informal tutoring time. Hopefully by the end of the 7 weeks, I'll be able to say "hello, my name is Andrea" in Arabic. Right now I am struggling with the new sounds - the Urdu and Arabic alphabets are similar (but Urdu has more letters), but the sounds are very different. To me, Urdu uses softer and more beautiful sounds. Right now, I think I can say good morning (SabaaH il-Kheer) with relative competency and most people even seem to understand me, but then I totally mess up on asking how people are..... but, its fun to learn a new language and quite exciting too.

We don't have classes on weekends, so last Sunday we took the metro north a few stops (maybe 15 minutes) and visited a small town overlooking the Bay of Tunis called Sidi Bou Said. It was a beautifully painted blue and white. We walked around the town and I had a cup of tea in the harbor area. Below are pictures from Sidi Bou Said:




This weekend, I think I'll go to the beach and swim. It gives me a thrill to think that I'll be swimming in the Mediterranean off the coast of the African continent!

Some Pictures from Lebanon

Well, as I think I made clear from my older posts, I loved my time in Beirut. Unfortunately, the internet connections that I had access to were a little slow making updating the blog hard and putting pictures from Beirut up on my blog impossible. Well, now I seem to have faster access to the internet and can put up pictures. So here they are, a little dated, but nice.....

The first picture is my on the route from the main road to Will's home. Will moved since the last time I was there and now he is living in a beautiful house that has balconies, lots of windows, sunlight, and Syrian turtles living on the roof. The only downfall to the apartment is that you have to walk up a pretty steep hill and then a bunch of stairs to get to his house. Fortunately, the path is quite beautiful, as you can see below:


Will and I took many walks around Beirut while I was there. One day we headed to the northern part of the city. On the way, we saw a man selling Christian paraphernalia and plastic flowers that he had decorated his car with. When I expressed interest in taking a picture he added even more flowers to add to the beauty of the picture. This is him and the flowers:


We also took a day trip to Tripoli. Fortunately, we went a week before the conflict began there. It was a really nice city. I enjoyed the, what seemed to me to be, a calmer pace than Beirut. There was quite a nice old part of the city that we wandered around. While we were there we met a very nice woman that makes soap. We also walked around and looked for a castle, but unfortunately, could not find it. This is a picture of part the old city with some boys taking a break from playing soccer.


Will and I also took a trip to the south. There we visited a castle that was built by the Crusaders and later used by the Ottomans. It was really fun to wander around the castle, climbing staircases, and exploring nooks and crannies. Below is a picture of Will at the castle:

Doing well in Beirut

Well, its been a long time since my last post and I have tried to post a few times, but I really wanted to post pictures along with my words (they seem so much more interesting to me). Unfortunately, the Internet access that I get here (in really nice coffee shops - what a luxury!) is a little slow and doesn't seem to be able to upload the pictures. I really wish that I could as it is so beautiful here. Hopefully when I go to Tunis on Saturday I'll find a better Internet connection and post some old pictures. I think I've probably written this before, but I think Beirut is really one of the most charming places I've ever been. The city is located on the Mediterranean - allowing me to run along the beach in the morning and watch the sunset over the sea in the evening. In addition, the streets are narrow and have a distinct French flair to their style. The people are lovely, super friendly and polite (and very fashionable). I've been doing quite a bit of reading and relaxing. Some of my favorite activities are making dinner with Will and playing Scrabble. Its nice to have a little time off with such wonderful company.

We have done some exploring around the country. Its a pretty small country (geographically speaking) and most places are only a 1 or 2 hour bus ride away. Last weekend, we went to Tripoli. While we were there we wandered around the old part of the city (it has to be one of the oldest cities I've ever been in) and met a really amazing woman who makes soap. We also have gone to the southern part of the country. We visited a castle the Crusaders built and walked again on the beach. Both trips were fantastic.

Yesterday (Sunday morning) there was some fighting in Tripoli (you can visit this BBC website if you are interested http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6675163.stm). It really makes me horribly sad that such a beautiful place with such wonderful people is having these problems. But, besides my sadness for the Lebanese people, I am fine and very safe.