It is officially the last day of my foolhardy North African adventure (volume I). It has been packed. Did I actually say that I would be able to relax in Tunis? I vaguely remember using the words 'chill out'. Today I went to my first and second legit museums of my entire 6 week trip. I am so le cultured. I visited mostly all the old Carthaginian ruins near Tunis in the 35 degree, humid weather. Able to look at the crystal clear blue Meditarranean but never close enough to go in! I shopped for souvenirs, bargaining with shopkeepers, trying to [View Full Entry]

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Louage: (n) a six or eight person taxi; a ubiquitous form of transportation in Tunisia. Also, Stacey's place of residence during most of her sejour. Since Tozeur, I have continued my whirlwind trip of the south. I've driven across the Chott el Jerid, a dried up salt lake... where Luke contemplated the two moons on his home planet in "A New Hope." Yup, I'm still geeking out. I've sprinted through Saharan sand dunes. Myself and 6 other people spent a night under the stars in the desert, riding out on camelback and having a lovely after lunch-snack of sand on the [View Full Entry]

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"What a difference a day makes... 24 little hours" For those of you who haven't seen "Run Lola Run", do it. Anyway: Reasons I was Tired Yesterday 1. lack of sleep 2. that freaking call to prayer at 430am 3. its hot 4. did i mention its hot? 5. two long bus trips back to back 6. giant backpack 7. lack of sleep Anyway, I was really ready to call it quits yesterday. Thankfully, my sarcastically mentioned 'genius idea' actually ended up being a pretty good one- no mosquitoes (where would they breed anyway? This is the Sahara desert), no bed [View Full Entry]

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Im tired. Its hot. Im tired! It sucks- Im in TUNISIA, on the verge of going to see both the desert and Star Wars (yes, I'm a geek) sites, and all I can think about is doing absolutely nothing. Going back to Cairo, and going to sleep. Argh! In dire need of kind words of encouragement, please. Either that, or a very good night's sleep. Which, as my choice of budget 'this might be an interesting experience' bungalow camping- no aircon, lots of ants- accomodation, might not be in the cards. Stacey [View Full Entry]

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...never again will I complain about the Greek alphabet! First of all, apologies for the long silence. I am alive, in Africa, specifically in Tunis, and just starting to recover from the biggest bout of culture shock ever. I am functionally only semi-literate. Tunisia is a francophone country so in theory, although arabic is an incredibly difficult language and I have only a few phrases and cant read the alphabet, I technically have that and the signs in latin alphabet in French to fall back on. In practice, arabic french is incredibly accented. I only realised how much when, in S [View Full Entry]

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Due to a sheer apathy, I have not posted in the last couple of days. As in, I was waay to lazy to leave the little oasis I found on Cap Bon. But I get ahead of myself. One only has to read my journal entries of the day and the night from the 9th to the 10th of August. To say the least, I was a wee bit cranky at my captivity in the Doukhane household in Annaba, and of my 3am scheduled departure time for Tunis. Exhaustion hit me like a hammer in the middle of the day, and [View Full Entry]

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So, long wait but Ive finally made it to Africa. And the Sahara is beautiful in an oh so desolate sort of way. I havent been able to go very far into it yet (I hope to spend longer when I explore the Western Desert in Egypt), but the splendid desolation of searingly hot dunes and terrain so flat and endless that it plays tricks on your eyes is something to see. Also, I have descided that Bedouin-style turbans suit me, and I intend to aquire one when I have the chance. The single most wonderful thing I have found in [View Full Entry]

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Packing for Tunisia? Take a black wig just in case!!! I am not kidding... when I was a kid I had red-blonde hair. Obviously there are not that many people with red-blond hair anyway (not talking about our Scotish friends ;))...and in Tunisia the number of people having or having seen red-blonde hair might just be near zero. All thar resulted in Tunisian people touching my head when I was passing them thinking my hair was made of gold and one man even bidding 1000 camels in trade for me...glad my parents didn't agree. Just THAT one "hairy" fact gives us [View Full Entry]

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Tunisia Arrived at Gabes, Tunisia on Saturday and had an all day free tour sponsored by American Express. Saw lots of sand and quite a few oasis with their date palm trees. Our first stop was the city of Matmata where almost all the inhabitants live in cave like dwellings that have been carved out of the hillside. We got a chance to tour one of the homes and were very impressed with the cleanliness and overall layout. We next toured the site where they filmed the first Star Wars Movie and got a chance to buy some real desert souvenirs. [View Full Entry]

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Ok, get ready, this is a long one. For Spring Break I went with about half of my school (100 kids) for 10 days to Tunisia! Talk about another world! Even going to Europe, everything is still so Western and there is a little bit of American influence everywhere, like finding 5 Starbucks in Barcelona. Tunisia was really foreign with a completely different alphabet and the influences of Islam everywhere. Their president pretends to be super liberal and democratic (they call themselves a republic) but he's pretty much a dictator. We were followed around the entire trip by a couple of [View Full Entry]

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