I literally had to dodge him! Tunis, Tunisia pour noel 2007

for christmas, amy from AU and i headed off to Tunisia, excited to visit a new continent and escape the christmasy overload. i had done a fair amount of reading up on the country before we left, and was expecting that Tunis would be pretty much like any other European city since the country is pretty modern, secular, french and arabic speaking, etc, but i still experienced my first taste of culture shock...the ratio of men to women out and about in the streets was outrageous - ive never seen so many men in one place in my life. there are a lot of pro-women's rights laws on the books, but i dont know where all the women were. it was just a really striking contrast to life in france...for example, we only went to cafes in the colonial quarter - a slightly more touristy area - bc otherwise the cafes were occupied solely by men smoking chicha and absorbed in conversation. we drew more attention than i had expected to, both for being white and for being 2 girls out on our own, and much energy was devoted to avoiding the Mediterranean-style come-ons from male passers-by...for the most part the lines they tried to feed us were hilarious - we got "fish'n'chips!" twice, various "vous etes ravissante," and the like, in arabic, french, english, spanish, italian...no one knew just from looking at us what language we spoke, and in fact we passed as french for the whole week! our hotel guys were wonderful - they never quite decided whether they should speak to us in english or french, were helpful with finding the train station and vegetarian couscous, and enjoyed the fact that amy and i would rock out unabashedly to whatever music they were playing in the lobby, usually reggae or arabic pop. bc thats how we do.

a magnificent tree in the Parc du Belvedere, Tunis

we enjoyed sun and (relative) warmth for most of our visit, much welcomed after the grey and drizzle of france. exploring tunis consisted of wandering and getting lost, mainly in the Medina,where the souks (markets) are located. the prices in tunis also startled us - the first night we went to find sandwiches for dinner (eating veg was a whole different set of issues) and the menu ranged from 1,200 Dt to maaaybe1,500 Dt. ok, so the tunisian dinar is divided into
1 000 millimes, right? and the exchange rate was about 1E to 1.725 Dt - i mean, you dont find food for 1E20, and after doing the math, well, it was pretty sweet for us stipend-earning assistants. anywho, we walked all over the city, mainly trying to find la Grande Mosquee, but i dont think we ever really succeeded, although we did find some other, smaller, but still beautiful mosques. the Parc du Belvedere was lush and wonderful, although the zoo was depressing. we braved the train and the tramway, as well, over the course of our stay; the tramway station was the only time we weren't able to communicate in french - all the signs were in arabic and the ticket guys didnt speak french, so a man behind us in line translated for us so that we could get tickets out to the Musee du Bardo to see the roman mosaics and maghrebin antiquities.

citrus explosion at the farmers market in the Medina, Tunis

Amy and our christmas luncheon - omlette & surprise tuna sandwiches and fries. how healthy.

so eating veg equated to lots of egg/cheese sandwiches and crepes - tasty, but not so nutritious. and more than once we were plagued by surprise tuna, which was pretty disappointing...theres a lot of french-style food - crepes, pastries, omlettes. we did find a restaurant near our hotel that made vegetarian couscous, so that quickly became a favorite place. i discovered that i love harissa, a paste made from red chili peppers and garlic that is SO GOOD. we bought oranges and dates at the market, too...and fresh orange juice here was unbelievable, just like an orange squished into a glass. yumm.

government buildings in Tunis