Friday February 23 - Man these days are long. But I slept later today - until about 6am. I met Felix for breakfast at his hotel at 7:30 and we were on the road by 8am. The destination today was Dougga, one of the main things I was interested in seeing in Tunisia. It’s an old Roman city and has the largest and best intact Roman ruins in all of Africa. It took three hours to get there, so I had some time to read about the history of the country on the ride. At some point, we were pulled over for speeding, but then when they realized we were tourists they let us go. That is so the opposite of what would happen in some other countries, where being foreign equals being pulled over and ... read more

Wednesday February 21 - Another night without much sleep. I just can’t sleep well in new places, and it’s always a new place. I hear everything. After breakfast we left for Sousse, which is just a few kilometers away. We are staying at one of those all inclusive resorts on the beach a few miles from town, so we couldn’t just walk in. Don’t get too excited - my room is nice, but it’s only about $25 with breakfast and dinner. It was chilly when we arrived but warmed up throughout the day. At least I thought so. I peeled down to a t-shirt at times whereas the locals were all in their puffy coats and winter jackets. Sousse is mostly medina - old town surrounded by a wall - and it is quite large. We ... read more

Monday February 19 - I so did not get a good sleep last night. I felt like I was up most of the night. It was so cold and I could not get warm. Finally at 4:00 I put on my fleece jacket and that helped, but man, so cold. I popped some earplugs in at 5am, as I knew the others would be getting up and leaving by 7:00, and I did not wake up until 7:45, which was good. Then again, it got me a late start on the day. At 9:00 I left to find the metro. Well, it is above ground so it is really a tram. I asked a few times and people kept pointing me in the right direction. It was odd having no map. It took about 10 minutes ... read more

Saturday February 17, 2017 - Today was a difficult start to a holiday. Work has been busy and stressful. I haven’t had enough time or energy to plan this trip properly. I had a good starting plan, and that seemed like enough. Except it wasn’t. Since I bought these tickets a little late, I decided to buy two separate round-trip tickets to save money - one, Zurich-Milan, the other, Milan-Tunis. It seemed like it couldn’t really go wrong. Swiss is reliable. Usually. I woke up at 5am and left the house before 6am, to start the journey to Zurich airport by train. Once I arrived and looked at the board, I could see it all fall apart. My flight was canceled. I’ve often seen other flights canceled and felt bad, but was more glad it wasn’t ... read more

July 27, 2017 - I woke up at 5am and watched episode 2 of Reign. Then I left to go back to my same spot to watch the sunrise, and hang with the crabs. A couple of dogs came by and were annoying, so I left a little early. That left me time to watch episode 3 before breakfast. And episode 4 after breakfast. Why didn't I start watching this on day 1 of my vacation? At 10 am, I headed back to that same beach as this morning to spend the day. There was already a couple in the spot I'd scouted earlier, but then I found one that suited me better. It was under a tree and had rocks on both sides, so it was pretty secluded. The only bummer was that the road ... read more