First Big Snowstorm?

The overall forecast is for a warm winter, but we've got a great early season shaping up. Last year it was about 60 degrees at this time but it's been cold enough for snowmaking for a couple of weeks now (on and off) and we have a big storm working its way toward Northern New England. The forecasts are approaching two feet of snow by the time the upslope snows finish working their way through around Wednesday.

Fantastic for business and would hopefully set up our Christmas week.

I just have to get this thing with my ski boots figured out. My left foot hurt in one way or another for several days after skiing just a few runs last Saturday. I don't want to mess around with that stuff.

State of Siege word count: 17,000 words

Book Update

This might be the last time you see Engine of Destruction on the blog as I'm getting close to pulling the plug in favor of State of Siege. You'll notice that the word count is slowly accumulating. Word count wise, the first draft is already 1/6th done, more or less. Of course, then the real work begins.

My Lightening Seeds CD came. It's great, and not just for the nostalgia factor. I'm guessing it's going to be the soundtrack for the book, as it's been playing almost constantly in the background since I got it.

Engine of Destruction word count: 15,400

Next Time, Flush Yourself Down the Drain, Please

Crazy Things Guests Say and Do: Part 43 of a 737 part series

Christmas morning, two years ago, at about two in the morning, I got a call from a room on the lowest level of the lodge saying that water was dripping through their ceiling. I scrambled to get dressed with all sorts of horrid thoughts going through my head about broken pipes, etc.

The first thing to do is verify that the person is not down there smoking a doobie and seeing circus bears. Sure enough, big blisters of water under the ceiling paint directly over their bed and water dripping into the ceiling. They were terribly polite, all things considered.

I open the back utility closet on that level. No broken pipes coming from outside and it's unlikely, to say the least, that a pipe would freeze on the interior with a full house.

I went to the room directly upstairs and knocked on the door. A very sleepy guy answered the door. "So sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I've got a leak downstairs and I need to check out the plumbing."

"Oh, it's not coming from here." Huge yawn, slightly annoyed look.

Cringing inside, I try to make myself sound more confident than I feel. "Sorry, but I have to check. There's water dripping through the ceiling directly below here."

"Oh, fine. Whatever. Come in, then."

And what do you know. There it is. They plugged the drain to take out contact lenses or some such, then left the water on a slow flow as they went to bed. It eventually overflowed, leaked through the carpet, the subfloor, the floorboards, and into the room below. Wonderful.

M: Don't read past this point. :)

We have at least one bozo-worthy story every Christmas. And I'm not talking Christmas week, I mean the actual Christmas morning, sometime between the hours of midnight and five AM. We had two our very first Christmas, on our first night with the inn near occupancy. I'm bracing myself for this year's crop.

Engine of Destruction word count: 14,200 words

Ovens

The new ovens arrived today. The old ones are gone. The new ones are nice and shiny. And did I mention new?

Of course, M and I had a discussion about the crappy state of our living quarters as we cleaned the gunk that builds up under appliances after, oh, twenty or thirty years.

I just have to figure out a way to get some extra living space here without draining our emergency cash reserves to zero.

Little Women

Here's how I would have written Little Women.



And this is what would happen to you, if you burned my manuscript.

Surprised by Competence

I received a letter in the mail from my financial institution saying that the address the post office had on file differed from the one listed on my account and I needed to go online and make the change. I dutifully logged on (while vaguely thinking that I'd already done this a few months ago) to find out they had two addresses listed. The first was the physical address and the second the P.O. Box. So I tried to change the one with the physical address only to get a message that the primary address could not be a post office box.

I called, expecting the normal brain-dead response that you usually get where the help desk insists that I need a physical address while not understanding that the letter threatening to lock my account didn't recognize this distinction. The guy was surprisingly helpful and recognized at once the flaw with the web site.

Contrast this with the continual mixups we have suffered with the twins insurance over the years. The insurance companies routinely reject the second twin as an error, since they are not expecting two children with the same birthday. I think they're just hoping to get away with not paying or at least making the doctor's office work harder. Only the person at the doctor's office simply forwards the rejected claim to us and we have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it paid.

There was a time where we spoke at length to a clueless woman at the insurance company who said, "How strange. Here's the problem. There's a Dr. Kempler and a Dr. Kemplar in the same office. The computer thought it was a mistake."

It was a mistake, you twit. It was a mistake by the person who mistyped Dr. Kempler's name on the second request.

Engine of Destruction word count: 12,800 words

A Long Period Lacking Normalcy

Between the two weeks of Tunisia, the two weeks of in-laws, and M's trip to Massachusetts next week, there's a huge chunk of time in which life does not feel settled. We're also rapidly approaching Christmas and there's a good chunk of things to do around the inn.

Engine of Destruction word count: 11,900 words

Bye, Bye, Baby

We gave the little guy his first real haircut yesterday, trimming away all those curls. I would have left them, but they'd started to turn into an Einsteinian rat's nest.

He was remarkably good, even though he'd vociferously protested anytime the subject came up over the last couple of weeks. The whole time he kept saying, "No! No cut. No." But he didn't wiggle, believe it or not, just sat with a scowl on his face.

When it was over, my baby was gone, replaced by a little boy. Asi es la vida.

Flashbacks

I told myself I was going to cut back on the flashbacks for this book. It's a device that feels so comfortable to me, is perfect both for illustrating a certain aspect of a character's personality as well as stretching out tension by slipping into flashback at a moment of high intensity.

And I like to read a good flashback, too. It makes me feel like I'm immersing myself in a story, rather than just skimming along the surface. Of course, some writers (King, Rice) will throw you into a flashback from which you might not emerge for another thirty or forty pages. I try to keep mine somewhere between one and ten pages.

So it's not like I'm trying to avoid writing flashbacks in the way I eschew dream sequences or passive voice. I'm just trying to broaden my repertoire, to not use the same tool to accomplish the same thing every time.

Yet here I am, barely ten percent into the book and I wrote my first flashback today.


Engine of Destruction word count: 10,800 words

Another Great One

By The Lightning Seeds. Takes me right back to a certain time in my life.



I think I'm going to break down and buy the CDs.

itunes Orphans

Here's one of several songs that I wish were available on itunes, yet, inexplicably, is not.

Car Chase

Crazy Things Guests Say and Do: Part 42 of a 737 part series

Another lost item story. Our first winter, the year we had to clean all our own rooms and our busiest winter to boot, I took a call one Sunday afternoon when we were in the middle of a complete changeover of our 16 rooms with a bunch of check-ins on the way.

"Hi, we're in Nowhere, New Hampshire, and just realized that my husband left his keys in the room."

I had recently found said keys and said that we'd go ahead and drop them in the mail first thing on Monday.

"The thing is," she said, "we met at the park and ride outside of Boston. He has no way to get his car and then we'll be locked out of the house. What I'm thinking is that you could drive them down to us. We'll stop in Manchester for dinner and hopefully you can catch up with us there."

Are you out of your mind? You want me to drive your keys down to meet you and you won't even stop where you are and wait for me? Best case scenario I've got four, five hours of driving to get her the keys and return home. Worst case, seven.

I explained (in nicer terms than above) why this was quite impossible. She was more than a little put out.

I hate to have lost objects as they necessitate a special trip to the post office and all the attendant hassle. A special trip to Boston? Not going to happen.

Engine of Destruction word count: 9,800 words

Lost Objects

Crazy Things Guests Say and Do: Part 41 of a 737 part series

"Hi, this is Amy Jones. We stayed in room nine last weekend and left our digital camera."

Someone had stayed in the room last week for several nights, I had been in the room myself, and the housekeeper never said anything about it. When I told her this, she got a suspicious tone in her voice.

"You might want to check with your housekeeper then. I know it was sitting right on top of the dresser. There's no way someone could have missed it."

I hadn't said someone had missed it. I said that it wasn't in the room. We get this all the time, someone with a perfect memory of leaving a cell phone charger, keys, or a pair of gloves in some specific place. Yet when I am the first person to enter the room, I find nothing.

I told her I'd check and give her a call if it turned up and that she could check back later if she didn't hear from me. She assured me she would do just that as she was sure she'd left it right in that exact spot.

M took the call later that day. "Never mind. I found it in my car."

Calm Returning and Book Stuff

The second set of in-laws flew out this morning, so we're down to just my MIL and FIL. It was fun to have some visitors, but I'm enjoying the return of quiet. Not to mention having my own children calm down a little and return to their schedules.

I'm only a couple of days from running past my blockers (to use a football metaphor after all the time I wasted yesterday). That is, I know what the next couple of scenes will entail, but after that I've got a major let-down of tension unless I figure out how to keep things moving forward. I'm also hazy on events for a good stretch.

This is a point where I need to start thinking about the transition from set-up plot to main plot. I will have a second transition at around 50,000 words when we pass the point of no return and start a major move toward the end game.

Is all of that vague enough for you?

Engine of Destruction word count: 9,200 words

Busy But Not Productive

I got some writing done this morning, then went to the mountain for a frustrating first day of skiing. I had told E about ten times to verify his equipment, but we got to the mountain to find that his boots did not fit and he'd put on ski socks with enormous holes in both heel and toe. They had holes because he was wearing them all around the house last year in spite of my warnings. Even so, if he'd mentioned the problem to me earlier I could have chased up a backup pair.

So we spent about twenty minutes farting around in the parking lot trying to get him set with his equipment and I finally said forget it, you can wait here. As a result I took three runs, then felt guilty and came back.

In the meanwhile, my season pass wasn't ready for me at the ticket office, even though I'd paid for it already. The guy just said sorry, it's not here, but I kept restating my position politely and did not give any sign that I was going to walk away. Finally, he just gave me a day pass.

Conditions were not bad considering we're only in November, but there were a lot of people at the mountain considering they only had eight trails open. Some places felt like a bowling alley, with pins all lined up, ready to be knocked over. I saw two different people being sledded off the mountain by ski patrol with leg/knee injuries.

My new boots were not fitting overly well, and my left big toe is hurting at the moment (mostly the toenail). I'll have to go across the street to the ski shop to figure that out before I go again.

I then came home and spent all afternoon and evening watching football with my father and brother in-law and now feel vaguely guilty for having written so little this morning. Ah, well.

Engine of Destruction word count: 8,100 words

Work

What does it say about my personality that I work better when my time is under demand? I've got house guests, am recovering from jet lag, and have spent probably 20 hours this week just on cooking and dishes for guests and in-laws. And yet I managed to paint my bedroom and write the first ~30 pages of my novel. I wish I could be this productive all the time.

Entire weeks passed in late summer when I had very little to do and consequently accomplish absolutely nothing besides cooking meals, taking care of the little guy, and doing a few loads of laundry.

Engine of Destruction word count: 7,500 words

Titles

I need a better title. My main character has written a book about medieval siege engines called "Engines of Destruction" and the title is mirrored by later events in the book. So it's an effective title on that level.

I just don't like how it sounds for a thriller.

My other possibilities at the moment follow similar lines:

UNDER SIEGE
STATE OF SIEGE

I'm not overly fond of them, either.

Engine of Destruction word count: 6,600 words

edit: Reading the above, I think State of Siege isn't too bad. What do you all think?

Starting to Feel It

It's coming back to me. Slowly. The first fifteen twenty pages were clumsy and will need a good deal of work to bring into line, but I'm almost warmed up now. It's still work, but it's enjoyable work.

I've mentioned this before, but the pacing of a novel suits me so much more than short stories. I'm at about the length where I'd be finishing a short story and yet I've only begun to establish the plot and characters.

Engine of Destruction word count: 5,400 words

Socorro!

There are currently nineteen people in my front room and will be for the next four days.

My mother and father-in-law have had a nice surprise, carefully planned by M and her brother and sister for months. They flew out to spend Thanksgiving, not knowing that M's brother and sister and their families would also be coming. It's been fun to see how happy everyone is to be together.

But in the meanwhile, my living room feels very, very small.

In unrelated news, my oven died a horrible death yesterday. Perfect timing, with Thanksgiving and all...

Smelly

Crazy Things Guests Say and Do: Part 40 of a 737 part series

We have a handful of hunters come through every fall. They're mostly deer hunters, but two years ago we had someone shoot a huge moose and had him trussed up in the lower parking lot to the back of a trailer. I'd rather see them alive in the woods, but thus is life in Northern New England.

So we had a pair of deer hunters in a room last week and when they left the room smelled absolutely foul. We tracked the smell to a spot on the carpet and have spent the last week trying to clean that spot of carpet. I think they spilled a bottle of doe urine; they use it to mask their scent and attract bucks to a deer blind.

Nothing we've done has worked. We've tried machine cleaning the carpet, backing powder, vinegar, commercial cleaners, etc. I'm beginning to wonder I'm going to have to pull back the carpet and replace the pad. Needless to say, I'm not pleased about this development.

Thank goodness we can probably get away with not renting the room until Christmas, which is the next time we'll be full. But I still have to come up with something.

Book Update

I'm progressing into the second chapter and making slow, but steady progress. There is the traditional disconnect between the story in the head and the one on paper, but that impression fades as the book continues. I'm still at the point where a single day off can submarine the whole enterprise, but I'm also just a few weeks from really putting some distance between myself and these early, difficult days, if I can build momentum.

Engine of Destruction word count: 3,800 words

First Snow

A fresh blanket of snow covered the ground this morning, leaving everything white and beautiful. A storm passed through a few days ago and left up to a foot at the local ski resorts but here on the valley floor we only saw a dusting. The overall trend is much more positive for the business than the unseasonable warmth and rain we saw all the way into January last year. With any luck we'll have a good Christmas this year.

E and I are hoping to go skiing this weekend if we can slip away from the in laws for a couple of hours. But I'm sure he's grown out of his boots since last year, given that he's 3-4 inches taller than he was at the start of last year's season and his feet are now the same size as M's.

The Engine Turns Over and Sputters to Life

I finished my prologue. I'm coming right out and calling it a prologue this time since it does the traditional thriller thing: introduces a character, then ends that character's life in a horrible way. The main goal is to induce the reader to wonder what the hell is going on and to continue reading to find out. The real main character takes stage in the next chapter.

In unrelated action, something possessed me to pick up M's stalled painting project. I am not into painting. It goes very slowly and I'm sensitive to smells and don't care for the smell of paint. I regretted it almost immediately but I now have one fewer pale blue wall and one new wall in "prairie grass." I prefer to call it light green. I know, I know, one sign of good writing is so-called specificity of detail. Fine, prairie grass. Bring on the buffalo.

Engine of Destruction word count: 2,800 words

An Hour A Day

Thanks to our schedule, I've had the luxury of working off seven hours of jet lag (six hours, plus the hour early I was going to bed every night in Tunisia) in little bits. I made it until 8:30 last night before crashing and didn't wake until 4:30. If I can make it to 9:30 tonight, I should be more or less back to my 10:00-6:00 sleep schedule.

I've taken advantage of the quiet hours to work on the novel. Progress is extremely slow at this point. I feel like I'm exploring a cave by lighting one match after another and squinting into the gloom.


Engine of Destruction Word Count: 1,800 words

Infuriating

This article infuriates me.

An official at the General Court of Qatif, which handed down the sentence on November 14, said the court had increased the woman’s sentence because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” The court sentenced the rape victim to six months in prison and 200 lashes, more than double its October 2006 sentence after its earlier verdict was reviewed by Saudi Arabia’s highest court, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary.

Saudi Arabia is our second most important ally in the ME (after Israel) and doesn't stuff like this just make you proud to count them as friends?

We are, of course, the prime enabler of the Kingdom's horrific treatment of women because without hundreds of billions of petrodollars and our support the country would be forced to open and liberalize. At the very least, the dictatorship would collapse as huge numbers of people who have never worked a day in their lives were faced with the realities of a world without oil money.

It Makes Good People Do Bad Things

Happy Birthday to Me!

From the little guy's birthday party last month.



First haircut (just a trim and he already needs a real cut):

Engine of Destruction

I made a fumbling start to the next book this morning, tentatively titled Engine of Destruction. I'm not overly enamored of the title, although that may just be that it's the first thing that occurred to me and I haven't yet thought of anything better, rather than a deficiency in the title itself.

Even though the book itself has started to take shape over about 40-50 pages of notes and brainstorms, the actual flow of events is very much in flux after the first couple of chapters so I have to continue the prewriting in parallel.

In the meanwhile, I got that feeling of climbing back onto a bicycle and feeling it wobble as I try to get the thing up to speed. It's hard to believe I was completely in the groove of Devil's Deep just a few months ago, since it doesn't feel at all natural at the moment.


Engine of Destruction Word Count: 0,600 words

Ah, Jet Lag

It's 5:20 and I'm fighting to stay awake minute by minute. I know that if I go to bed now I'll be awake by 2:00 AM. It didn't help that I slept just a few hours last night in spite of opportunity to sleep in and serious exhaustion.

I've also returned to find that winter is approaching in Northern New England. There was a light snow all day and while most of it didn't stick (at least here in the valley), it was enough to add a white layer.

The good news is that this is usually the best time of the year for me, writing-wise and I'm armed with a strong new idea that I'm ready to tackle. Expect to see some writing updates before long.

Pictures From Tunisia

Boat at sunset on the island of Kerkennah


Luke, can you go check out those new droids?

Back Alive

After a grueling day in which I arrived home 23 1/2 hours after I left my hotel for the airport in Tunisia and suffered a long layover in Paris (but not long enough to justify leaving the airport, eh) and a delayed, near-cancelled final leg of my trip out of JFK. Those are the moments when you wonder what the hell you were thinking in the first place. It's now the small hours of the morning but the middle of the day in Tunisia, so I'm exhausted but wide awake.

On my last day, I went to the American cemetary just beyond the city limits of Sidi Bou Said. Holding the remains of nearly 3,000 Americans killed the North Africa campaigns of World War II, it was a beautiful site with gardens, immaculate lawns, and fountains, plus some information about the various theaters of the war such as you can find at the Punch Bowl Cemetary on Oahu or other overseas war memorials. It was very quiet among the rows of crosses and I didn't see anyone else there except for the gardeners and the Americans who staffed the visitor center.

I went to Marsa in the afternoon to walk along the beach as well as look unsuccessfully for an internet connection, then I went back to Sidi Bou Said to take it easy for the rest of the day, reading, etc.

I was up by five on Thursday morning (which would have been 11:00 PM EST on Wednesday) and didn't get home until after 12:00 AM on Friday morning. Very, very happy to be home.

More Notes from Tunisia

* A guy walked by with a perfect knock-off of a Star Wars t-shirt, complete with Luke, Han Solo, and Princess Leia. Perfect, except that the letters, which read: STAR RAWS.

* There were sheep grazing in the cemetary by the mausoleum in Monastir, complete with shepherd. The grass was nice and green there, I noted.

* The guy who scammed me did, in fact, use his money for booze. He greeted me, drunk, by the mausoleum shortly after I posted my last time from Monastir. He also added some helpful information about the cemetary, so I suppose there might be a fine line between hustler and tour-guide in Tunisia.

* The Berber in Douze commanded his camels to sit with what sounded like a slow clearing of the throat and a tap on the knees with a stick.

* They put vinager on their fries here, just like in Rhode Island.

* In Kerkennah I passed a rally of antique Peugots who are with a group of French people tooling around North Africa for several months.

* There are many orange trees in Sidi Bou Said with ripe, delicious-looking oranges. The ones within reach have all been picked but my reach is not the same as the typical person's. I'm very tempted.

* I heard my second American in the Bardo museum. A guide was showing her a baptismal font from the time before the arrival of Islam. "You have baptism in your religion?" the American asked.

"No, it's from the Christians."

"Oh. And that's okay with your government?"

Not getting the concept of a museum of antiquities, I suppose.

Sidi Bou Said

I took the light rail from Monastir to Sousse. I walked around the medina in Sousse for a little bit and had lunch in the shadow of the ribat. That crispy omelet thing is called a brik, by the way and is tasty with fresh lemonade. There was one place in the medina with a basket filled with tiny, live turtles that also had parrots and chickens bound together at the feet. Further up, someone was skinning a sheep in the middle of the street and letting the blood run down to a drain. Uhm...authentic, right?

From Sousse I caught the train to the Tunis area where I'm staying in a cute little town called Sidi Bou Said. It's along the same line as the train to Carthage, just a little bit further.

All the buildings in the village are white with blue doors, railing, shutters, etc. It's also on a picturesque spot overlooking the ocean with the mountains of Cap Bon sweeping up from the west. The downside for such a place is that the very definition of "perched overlooking the sea" means that there is a lot of walking up and down the hills.

My room is tiny but very charming with tile halfway up the wall and then an arched brick ceiling. The rooms open onto a nice little courtyard where I ate breakfast this morning. I initiated conversation with a couple at the next table last night while sipping a thé a la menthe. They are in the country for an architectural conference; he is from Iceland and she is from Greece but they both live in London. I think I'm starved for conversation since I also initiated conversation with a few people at the museum today.

Knowing what I know now about the geography of the area, I should have gone to Carthage at the end of the trip and gone to the Bardo Museum while I was staying in Tunis. Having said that, I went to the Bardo this morning and was suitably impressed by the mosaics, statuary, and other relics. There were also more tourists than I've seen probably the whole rest of the trip combined.

Ah, and I overheard this snippet last night from one of two girls walking past me in Sidi Bou Said. "So she was like 'no way,' and I'm all..." And I knew I'd encountered my first Americans of the last two weeks.

More notes from Tunisia

* There are pictures of the current president everywhere. The government also strictly controls internet use. It's definitely not a democracy here, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine are also sort-of democracies. Better to have good governance without free elections than blood in the street.

* The 150 dollar t-shirts turned out to be 2 for 10 bucks when you start with someone whos initial price is at least within the ballpark. Still, I hate not knowing the price upfront or in general what is expected. I want to know what's on offer and then make an arms-length transaction. This sort of haggling and taking the most you can get is undoubtedly part of the cause and consequence of a developing nation.

* I've taken 130 pictures so far. Thank goodness for digital cameras. I wouldn't have thought that I'd taken so many, but I guess that's only a dozen per day.

* Prices for hotels are per person with a single supplement. The hotels seem very cheap, but if I came with the family it would be significantly more.

* Why the water pipes at the cafes, especially in the evening? Passing the smoke through the water cools it down, but I don't recall any smoker ever complaining, "Damn, the smoke from this cigarette is just too hot for my lungs." The nearest I can figure is that the appeal is the communal thing of sitting together with friends and smoking through tubes leading to the same pipe. It's a holdover from the days when you couldn't get pre-packaged tobacco. Any other theories?

The mausoleum

I went to see the mausoleum of the first president of independent Tunisia. You approach through a long brick esplanade and the mausoleum itself is flanked by two towers that vaguely resemble minarets. The interior is all marble. It was impressive and photo-worthy and the overall impression was of a secular temple. There was an open Koran on a stand by the crypt itself, presumably to counter the charge that it was un-Islamic.

As I was passing through the gardens in front of the ribat a man greated me, as men often do in Tunisia, and said he'd seen me before. Turned out that he "worked at the same bar." What a coincidence.

"Oh, really?" I said. "Which hotel did you work at?"

"The same hotel where you are staying."

"Which hotel was that? Do you remember?"

It turns out that he couldn't remember exactly where he works. Funny, that.

You see, I wasn't born yesterday. (I was born this morning, actually, but I'm still not planning to squeeze through that birth canal a second time.)

Live and learn

A guy called to me as I was leaving the Ribat saying he seen me while working at the hotel and asking if I wanted to have a the a la menthe or coffee with him. I was ready to sit down for a bit, so I said why not, having had good experiences with other Tunisians I'd met.

He was from Matmata, the middle child of 7. His grandparents had twelve kids. Their genes are spreading rapidly, for better or worse. There being no jobs in Matmata, he'd come to Monastir about four years ago.

After leaving the cafe, he asked me where I was going. I mentioned the medina and he said he knew a place with inexpensive souvenirs. Well, whatever, but I do still need to buy stuff for most of the kids, so I stopped in.

After I identified a couple of t-shirts for the kids, the owner was evasive about price. He started by saying, "Typically, the rich Germans pay this for the shirts," and entered 167 dinar in the calculator. I clarified with disbelief the price and just decided to walk out. He hastily stopped me saying that of course they didn't have fixed prices in Tunisia but that I was supposed to propose something else and we'd work out a final price. Well sure, but when you quote me 150 bucks for a t-shirt, I figure we ain't coming together any time soon and what's more, you must think I'm an idiot for believing someone would pay that price. Use your own judgement on that last one.

After finally extracting myself from the shopkeeper, I mentioned that I was going back to the hotel for a brief repose. Not exactly true, but I was ready to be rid of my new friend. He mentioned that it was his birthday and would I mind giving him a few dinar for some beer.

It was at this point that I realized the scam in progress. He hadn't actually told me he'd worked at Hotel Corniche, just that he worked at the hotel. I'd volunteered the Corniche part. And unlike every other time in Tunisia when people had invited me to something he'd reluctantly let me pay for the the a la menthe and the coffee. Add in the friend with the outrageous prices and it was clear he was full of crap. It wasn't his birthday and he didn't work in the hotel and neither was today his one day off.

Ah, wait. That's what I realized thirty seconds after he walked off with a spring in his step and several dinars of my loose change jingling in his pocket as he went to look for another moron who'd been lured into a false sense of security by the overwhelming friendliness and hospitality of the typical Tunisian. I realized this as I stared at his retreating back.

Sooo, I took a deep breath and figured it was about five bucks and it was a stupid thing to get worked up about. Hopefully, the guy will use my money to buy himself a toothbrush.

Monastir part 2

Checkmate



After posting yesterday I walked along the beach at sunset, then took a causeway out to a big rock in the bay. The waves pound along the rocks out there and a handful of locals (mostly teenagers) were sitting there enjoying the breeze so I thought I would, too. You had to time it just right not to be swept off your feet by the waves that spilled over the causeway. I stayed there until I got cold.

I went to bed kind of early last night and got up early to read and then chuck my book across the room for logical obnoxiousness and then write some notes in my notebook about my next novel.

Notes from the field

I was again struck by the different appearance of northerners. Discounting the Berbers, the southerners look more Arab while the northerners look more Mediterrenean, almost like Greek or Sicilians. There is a lot of overlap, of course.

There are also more tourists further north. I had seen very few in Kerkennah and nobody (other than the boorish Libyans) the day I was in Sfax. On the other hand, I still have not met a single American on my trip, although I've heard rumors of a few.

I decided against going to Kairouan, the Islamic holy city, after the Danes I met in Douze told me the touts were aggressive there. It was enough to change a portion of the itinerary that already left me somewhat ambivilent. It explains how I ended up in kerkennah instead.

Monastir

First, to the people leaving me comments, I'm not responding just because I'm trying to get things out on this French keyboard without spending too much time on the blog. I do appreciate the comments and am glad I have a few readers.

I spent another evening reading near the beach. It was really picturesque although a little cold at times with the strong breeze. The weather overall has been just to my liking, sunny but not overly hot. I've definitely needed those extra blankets and still find it a little ironic that I was freezing cold that night I spent in the Sahara.

I left the island this morning, surprised to find out that the return to the mainland only took an hour this time. If I'd known I would have slept in and taken the next ferry, but I really needed to be on the 11:15 train.

The station in Sousse was a little far from what they call the metro but is a light rail line. I was quite impressed with what little I saw of the medina in Sousse and think I might spend a night there before returning north for my last couple of days.

In the meanwhile, I took the light rail to Monastir, which is another seaside town. The former president of Tunisia was from this town of 30,000 and at one time was spending 10% of the national budget in the area and it shows. I checked into the hotel and then walked along the ocean before getting some food, consisting of something like a very crispy omelet (often served as an appetizer in Tunisia), grilled fish and a creme caramel. It was about 10 dollars but I hadn't eaten a nicer meal since my unfortunate incident night before last, so I was happy to spend a little more.

I then walked up to the Ribat, which I'm going to explore in greater depth tomorrow. It is a 9th century Arab fortress, added to and restored over the years. It was immediately recognizeable from the Life of Brian and does have that Middle Eastern, exotic look while still obviously being a castle.

Long walks and the old port

I got up this morning and instead of sensibly calling for a taxi, continued my winning streak by setting off along the deserted road, thinking I could flag one down. I reached the main road across the island some 3 kilometers distant without seeing any vehicles.

I spent a few minutes talking to an old guy with a fez and lips disfigured by burn scars while numerous taxis passed by in the opposite direction. A younger guy stopped by to ask some of the old men if they needed a ride into Remla and the man with the few asked him to take me with them. I thus was gifted back one dinar of the extra 32 I paid for dinner last night.

I picked up a couple of croissants and then continued up to the old port of El Attaya. There were lots of fishing boats around, but more interestingly dozens of piles of urns, each pile containing up to several hundred urns. They are used to catch octopus, who climb inside and are too daft to find their way back out again.
I had told the taxi driver to come pick me up in two hours as the port is off the main roads and I didn't want a repeat of the morning, but two hours proved to be about an hour more than I needed. Thankfully, I had remembered at the last minute to bring my novel with me.

After leaving the port, I backtracked to Remla for another chawarma sandwich--yummy--then went to the museum. It had interesting displays of the past way of life of the islanders. Again, I was struck by how far and how fast the world has changed, even in dusty corners of the world such as this one.

Dinner adventures

I went back to the hotel after blogging yesterday and spend some time walking along the beachfront. It was a fantastic view of the sunset and I took some nice pictures of boats framed by the sunset and so forth.

I had picked up a pretty decent thriller from the hotel exchange and spent some time reading before deciding to try to get something to eat. I'd heard good things about the hotel restaurant and it had a nice outdoor eating space, but there wasn't anyone eating there so I thought I'd walk to a place called La Palma where those people had helped me earlier. That turned out to be a mistake.

There was nobody there, either. At this point I was pretty hungry, though, so I went in and asked for the fish of the day which was listed at 5.5 dinars. They didn't have any left after lunch so he brought me what he had. I picked something and ordered some water to go with it. The entire time I was there, nobody came in.

When the time came to pay, I handed over a twenty dinar note but the guy kind of frowned and handed me the bill it was 39 for the fish and 1 for the water. I paid in a sort of shock wondering what I could have possibly done wrong. As I inspected the receipt later, I saw that it was marked as 6.5 dinars for the fish, but somehow multiplied 6 times. The waiter did seem new, but I can't believe that he didn't notice it and that I didn't speak up at what seemed obviously wrong. I've thought about going back today as I still have the receipt, but apart from pride I'm thinking I'll just chalk it up as an expensive lesson.

Meanwhile, I went back to the hotel to find the restaurant full of people.

Kerkennah

Not exactly seaworthy.



I left this morning for Kerkennah. The ferry takes about 90 minutes and cost about 50 cents. There were a lot of people waiting in the ferry terminal. One dirty guy attracted lots of flies, most of which fixed on something nasty stuck to his sock. It turned my stomach so I moved away, only to discover the flies were worse elsewhere where they didn't have something to focus their energies.

The ferry had three decks for people and one for lorries and other vehicles. It was only about half full, which meant it could probably be stuffed with 3 times as many people in a pinch.

There was an old guy on the ferry with a single, blackened tooth who approached me. He wore pink pants and was filthy and drunk. He also spoke very good French. He told me a rambling tale of someone stealing dynamite to detonate in the water to knock up a bunch of fish, but then got in a shouting match with some other guys who were clearly telling him to shut the hell up and stop bothering the tourist. I saw him later sobbing while two better dressed guys tried to comfort him.

I caught a taxi to the center part of the island. It cost about a dollar. At this point, while searching for internet, I fell in with a better crowd than the Libyans.

The guy I asked drove me to where he thought I could find internet and when that failed, offered to buy me a beer. I was not in the mood for a beer, but had a la menthe instead. The guy is an orthopedic surgeon in Cardiff, Wales, and went to medical school in Wisconsin. His family is still here and he returns for the sun when the Welsh weather depresses him.

One of his friend is apparently some local bigshot. When the surgeon said he needed to go to catch the bus, the friend called to divert a small plane so he could stay another hour. The surgeon was not happy. He said that it was just this sort of doing things unofficially by the rich and powerful that keeps Arab countries poor.
Nevertheless, he had his friend drive me to my hotel about ten minutes away. The friend is a fishmonger (does anything get mongered besides fish and whores?) who comes to the island to buy fish for restaurants in Tunis. Everyone tried to disuade me from looking for the internet or indeed, from doing anything at all on the island.

Mr. Bigshot insisted that there was nowhere in the world like this island. Nowhere. It's definitely relaxed and the beaches and fishing boats are wonderful, but I still bet you could find a thousand places on the Mediterrenean that look like these villages.

The hotel is right on the ocean with a small, but clean room at 15 dinar per night. It's really quite wonderful, and I'm not usually one for beautiful places with nothing to do. Nevertheless, I was far from my goal of getting internet access.

Getting no help, I walked toward the road and asked someone at a restaurant if they'd seen a taxi going past recently. The guy whipped out his phone and called someone, then asked me to come in for a drink or to share their pizza while I waited. They are two English girls, one of Tunisian extraction, and a Tunisian guy who teaches English. We shortly switched to English when they heard where I was from. Alas, the taxi arrived too quickly now that I was no longer in a hurry. They told me how to find them so they could show me a few things, but I didn't feel I'd spent enough time with them to take them up on the offer.

Notes from the road
* The women going to the island seem dressed more conservatively than on the mainland
* The heads of camels are very soft and the camels like it when you scratch them
* Just offshore are elaborate corrals with woven traps at the ends to catch fish
* There was a guy at the desert camp who looked like a Berber Rupert Everett and the Danish guy used that to call him (rudely, but humorously for the rest of us)
* A girl on the bus at Gabes had matching shirt and skirt that read, "It's a question of taste and I'm very tasty." Her conservatively dressed mother would have been horrified to get the translation. I wasn't the one to give it to her.

Libyans behaving badly

I spent some time wandering throught the medina at Sfax last night. The medina contents are typical market stuff, but the medina itself is surrounded by beautiful old walls.

I then went back to the hotel for a needed shower. I had taken a rough shower in Matmata, having lost my shampoo, but then I spent the night in the desert without any water. It felt good to be fully clean again.

Returning toward the medina after dark, I came across three guys cheerfully shouting in English at a Tunisian woman in a window. "No, fucking you!" one guy kept saying. The ringleader spotted me and came over to talk to the American. "I'm Canadian!" he said with a thick accent. Then, he turned to shout at everyone passing that I was American.

Turns out they were Libyan, which is why they dont speak French. They were boorish in their behavior, to say the least, but oppressively friendly, so I had a hard time extracting myself gracefully. They have come to Tunisia because "Tunisian girls are dirty. Just for fucking, you know."

He claimed that part of the medina was a brothel. The girl they were shouting at was a prostitute. Who'd have thunk it. I didn't believe it, but he pointed down the alley and there were a bunch of blue neon lights in front of every door and I could see a couple of very ugly, scantily clad women.

Thankfully, the Libyans were more interested in hanging around the brothel than in following me far, far from that place, so I got away with giving the "Canadian" a fake phone number and escaped.

I passed through a fish market in the medina as it was closing, then ate another chawarma sandwich for dinner. It was 2.2 dinar. They are very tasty and just a little spicy, made from goat, I believe, and served in a scooped out piece of flattish bread.

Notes on the medina:

* There seems to be a 3-1 ratio of men to women everywhere on the streets in Tunisia

* Men in the medina are still using dark corners to pee. I use litter/mess control as a sign of development and by that measure, this part of Sfax has a ways to go

* There are a lot of young women in Tunisia who wear pastel track suits with head scarves

Camel trek

My camel.



I'm writing this from a French keyboard, so it's going to be frustratingly slow and probably filled with all manner of errors. I'm going to have to wait until I get better access before giving a full update, which could be a couple of days, as I'm on my way to Iles Kerkennah, which may or may not have internet access.

And it's frustrating because there's so much to write. The tour guide drove me to Douze in a beat-up old car that I began to wonder if it would make it. Along the way out of town we stopped to pick up another one of Mohammed's friends, making us four people. They then asked me to cough up 10 more dinars of the money I still owed. Turns out they wanted to stop and get some beer (smuggled under one guy's shirt so family or friends wouldn't see what bad Muslims they were) and some cigarettes. The driver didn't drink but the other two guys spent the next hour and a half drinking and smoking. We picked up a fourth guy at one point and it was more than a little cramped.

At Douze; Mohammed led me to the hotel that would hold my bags but didn't want me around while he paid the Bedouin camel guys out front so I wouldn't see how much I'd overpaid these guys. I found out later, quite a bit.

There were a bunch of people leaving in caravqns at the same time, but I was in a group of four. The others were a Danish woman named Kaina and her English husband, Charlie, plus Karina's brother, Stefan. Karina and Charlie live in Tunis, where she works for the UN and he works for an international company.

The camels were pleasant to ride on, although the Bedouin guy was very concerned that we hold on tightly at all times. He directed special attention to Karina, telling her again and again to hold on "comme ça madame." First Karina got annoyed, then her husband, then everyone was irritated. She didn't appear to be doing anything different. Sexism, I suppose.

The dunes reminded me a bit of parts of Utah, although the others were very impressed. We saw the sunset and arrived a bit before dark. The Bedouin camp had been proudly modernized and made permanent, complete with a noisy generator. This annoyed Katrina especially, but I'd decided to roll with the punches or I'd still be upset that I'd paid more than anyone else. Some Quebecois showed up having arrived via Landrover. They were an energetic bunch and sang songs and danced around the fire. We ate (couscous and chicken, of course) and then the four camel riders went to look at the stars. No light polution whatsover. That alone was worth everthing. We had a philosophical discussion about life on other planets, etc.

The others all spoke very good French, much better than mine. Impressive for Charlie, especially, as the English have almost as bad a reputation for languages as Americans.

It may have been the Sahara desert, but it was butt-numbingly cold last night sleeping in a tent. So long as I was wrapped tight in my blanket I was ok, but I move quite a bit, as M can attest. I shared a tent with Stefan and he's a snorer. It could have been worse, though. My dad, for example.

We rode camels back this morning and then the other three gave me a ride to Sfax, which was on their way to Tunis. It cut several hours off my trip, so I was very grateful. I'm kind of off schedule, though, as I thought I'd be longer in the south. My plan is to see the islands for the next couple of days and then work my way north to Monastir. They have a fortress that served as the backdrop for Monty Python's Life of Brian as well as other sites of interest.

Notes

* There were lots of animal tracks this morning, which I was better at identifying than the Bedouin

* The camel guy stopped to pee once on the way out. He just squatted discretely and peed, then kicked it over with sand.

* One camel was muzzled. I figured he was a biter. Question is, people or other camels?

* One of the Bedouins asked where I was from. "America. Great friends of the Arabs," he said sarcastically. I was only saved when one of them heard Karina say that she worked in development. That was apparently a dirty word. They spent a good deal of time discussing how development was people talking with no action or how it destroyed Bedouin and Arab culture. Nevertheless, I noted that they were quickly making their camp permanent. I suspect it's the usual thing. We want others to stay primitive while we modernize and get all the toys and goodies.

Tunisia vs. Morocco

Keeping in mind that Morocco might have developed more in the last 8 years, Tunisia is much more modern. It's poorer in the south, but the north is roughly akin to Mexico. I have seen no beggars and there are few hustlers although there are some aggressively friendly people. Others will drop what they're doing and walk you to the place you're looking for.

Tunisians are also less outwardly religious than I'd supposed. In the north, about 1/3 of the women wore head scarves, the rest dressed completely modern. The ratio is reversed in the south. I haven't seen a single veil or burkha; heck, you can see plenty of those in London.

Nobody has given me a hard time about being an American. I'm glad; I've grown exhausted by having to have a political discussion with every French or Mexican that I meet. No, I don't support the current regime and yes, I know the issues without needing you to explain them to me. None of that here.

They might not see many Americans. I haven't met a single one. The South Africans/Londoners I met last night were the first English speakers. There were some Germans in town who are riding motorcycles through North Africa and some tour buses have passed through that are staying elsewhere, but they seem to be French, Italian, or Spanish.

It's not an overly touristed place. Some locations, like that abandoned village, or the troglodyte dwellings seem like they could be major museums or such.

An aside: the others in the internet cafe seem dumbfounded by my typing skills, which is fairly speedy, but not exceptional back home. They are hunting and pecking in French, which is not their native language, obviously.

Sleeping in a Cave, etc.

The room at Hotel Sidi Driss is rustic, to say the least. It looks pretty much like the rounded insides of the houses people still live in, with three beds crammed inside (which is good, because I needed to raid a couple of pillows) and a single light bulb. For a desert, the plumbing system here is very wasteful with toilets that don’t shut off, leaks, etc. I keep thinking they should charge a dinar to all the people who come through on tour buses to see the Star Wars stuff.

I like the food here, although I’m hoping to get something other than couscous soon. It comes with every meal. Also, I keep eating some tasty but otherwise suspect vegetables. I hope this doesn’t catch up with me. They have some yummy date/baklava things and breakfast is the French croissant and coffee style.

Other:

My guide has very bad eyes. Watery and with a permanent bloodshot appearance. I wonder if it’s sun damage. He’s only 32 but I’m guessing he’s halfway through his life. The constant smoking doesn’t help.

The bus from Gabes was standing room only. Every time I looked in someone’s direction, eyes looked hurriedly away. I wondered at one point what percentage of the people on the bus were looking at me or thinking about me in some way. Not sure I like that.

Some prices:

Large bottle of water – 50 cents
4 small but extremely tasty oranges – 12 cents
Internet for an hour – 90 cents
Large meal – 8 dollars
Room in a cave – 10 dollars

On the Edge of the Sahara

There was one other room last night at the Hotel Sidi Driss, a couple driving from London on their way to South Africa, passing through Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, etc. Yes, it sounded dangerous to me, too. They drove through part of the Sahara with nothing more than a GPS and a Land Rover.

We ate dinner together in the part of the hotel that’s still set up like the Star Wars set. It’s been 30 years and the stuff is made of styrofoam and yet the stuff is still there. Okay, Grant, I admit the fanboy part of me came out a little bit.

I left this morning after hiring a guide to take me around to some of the Berber villages. The second one, in particular, was very evocative. It’s an entire village of stone with arches (they filmed part of the Phantom Menace in something similar, where Anakin and his mother lived) but completely deserted. Not yet in ruins. I asked the guide and he said, “There aren’t any Berbers anymore. They all became Arabs about twenty years ago.” The replacement village down the road could be a cinderblock village anywhere in the world.

There was also an oasis with Berber (uhm, they looked Berber to me) homes and people and date palms. There were cisterns of water and lots of shade. It must be heavenly in the summer when it gets 120 degrees. I felt like I’d stepped off the set of Star Wars into a scene from World of Warcraft. (That’s for you, E)

In the other village, partly ruined and of a different style (Arab, I think) I let a couple of boys take me through and show me various troglodyte dwellings, etc. They had limited French but managed to communicate quite well anyway. We had a “this is baby money!” moment when I gave them their tip, but I think they were just angling for more, rather than genuinely disgusted because they waved and kept shouting “Au revoir, monsieur!” as I left.

I’m going to Douz next and will be taking a camel into the desert as part of a small tour starting this afternoon.

Star Wars

I took the train south to Gabés and then to Matmata, where the troglodyte dwellings are. I’m staying in the place where Luke Skywalker was living at the beginning of Star Wars. It’s different now that it’s back to being just a hotel, of course, but you can still recognize the courtyard from the movie.

The room is rustic, to say the least. With as many people coming through just when I’ve been there (and it’s the off-season), you’d think they’d find a way to scrape together a few more dinar to upgrade. I’m not talking turning it into a posh hotel, but it’s a troglodyte dwellings with multiple chambers, courtyards, etc., and a big hill behind it that could open into some more space for bathrooms.

No problem. I hear a group of traders is passing through this evening. I might buy a couple of droids to clean the place up before heading into Toshi Station to buy some power converters.

I’m heading out in a few minutes for a paid walking tour of the troglodyte dwellings in this part of the valley for 10 dinar (roughly 8 bucks). There are some desert tours leaving from Matmata, including Land Rovers, camels, etc., that see the ksour (hilltop fortresses in the desert), but I’d been thinking of going farther south, since I’m just at the edge of the Sahara at the moment. But since the tours first drive to either Douz or Tattoine (uhm, not that Tatoine), it might actually save me some time on the bus.

But as I said, it’s the off-season and right now there’s nobody signed up, so it would be just me. I’d prefer to go as part of a small group of travellers, just for the conversation. This is what I did on the elephant trek in Thailand and had a great time. It’s fun and easy to make new friends in that kind of environment, even if you promise to keep in touch and send pictures and, predictably, nobody ever does.

Ruins and Octopus

I almost gave a pass to the museum associated with the colliseum but am glad that I didn’t. It had a wonderful collected of tile mosaics and an exposed Roman road with foundations of buildings and some standing columns. There was a reconstructed Roman villa, too.

I felt funny walking over 1800 year old mosaics left right on the ground, but they had so many that they’d only mounted some of the more spectacular examples on the wall. Apparently, the mosaic business wasn’t particularly prestigious in those days, and the workers earned roughly as much as a blacksmith.

I ate dinner at the courtyard restaurant at the hotel. I ordered lamb couscous and they asked if I wanted the octopus salad and I decided, why not? A few minutes later the waiter staggered under a plate topped off by some great monster of the deep that had only previously seen the surface when coming to capsize ships and devour the terrified sailors thereof. That they’d cut it into various squiggly, tentacled pieces did nothing to disguise its great bulk. There were a few vegetables hidden among the bulk of the creature.

But it was good. Seriously yummy. I had no problem eating the whole thing. What I did have problems with was eating the equally good lamb and couscous when it finally arrived.

Tunisian Food

I've eaten a lot of bread, both of the French variety and flat breads. I've been warned a couple of times that the food was spicy, but it wasn't overly so, to my taste. Like moderate Mexican food, I think.

In El Jem I ordered something by saying, "What they have." It was a saucy something with no fork or spoon, just bread to sop it up. People in Tunisia throw their bones, olive pits, whatever, directly onto the table to be cleaned up by staff. There was no napkin, either, but people lined up at a sink to wash up before going up to the front to pay.

I need more vegetables. I also faced my first gurgly moment. I drank some yoghurt, but it's hard to deal with a drastic change in diet. Thankfully, I have a pretty strong intestinal system. (I hope I don't regret writing that in a couple of days.)

Day 3 - El Jem

I took the train to El Jem this morning. It took about three hours. About two hours into the trip, a guy boarded and sought me out, wanting to practice first his French, then his English. We spent about twenty minutes going over the hard words on the back of my book. I reminded myself that it can be fun to talk to a foreigner when you're learning a foreign language. I asked him a few Arabic words in return.

El Jem has only one hotel, but it's a great deal. 17 dinars (about 15 bucks, depending on the current state of our rapidly eroding dollar) and includes a private bath, much bigger and quieter room, and a courtyard. Charming. And I checked: no mosquitoes on the wall. I counted 84 bites on my hands and face this morning; thank goodness there is no malaria in Tunisia.

The coliseum in El Jem is supposedly the second biggest after Rome. It looks to me roughly the same size as the one we saw in Orange in Provence last spring. It's in a semi-ruined state but that adds to the evocative nature.

There are some people giving camel rides around the colliseum, but we're not in the desert yet; I think this is the farthest south many tourists come. I'm planning to hit the museum after posting to the blog, then I need to figure out the bus schedule for heading south as the train doesn't make it that far.

Day 2 - Carthage

I guess you get what you pay for. My room was about 10 dollars; the French guidebook to Tunisia about 20.

I couldn't stay awake last night after about 7:30, but then I woke up again a few hours later, convince I'd slept most of the night. I hadn't, as it was only 11:00. The room was very noisy and there were people on the lower level talking in loud voices. I decided to get up and read for a little while and try to swat a few mosquitoes.

I went to sleep again at about 1:00, voices still right below me. Just as I would drift off, a mosquito would buzz in my ear and I would flail at it for a moment. I pulled all the blankets around me, which mostly did the trick. My hands bore the brunt of it as I counted 28 bits on my hands and only a few elsewhere when I woke up this morning.

I got up, waited in line for the only shower servicing 27 rooms and then took a 30 second hot shower and a 3 minute ice-cold shower. I was definitely awake, even though it was on 3:00 AM EST.

Other than the noise and the shower, the hotel is okay, I suppose. I've slept on worse beds, even though the pillow was overly hard and large. The room itself was clean, except for the remains of mosquitoes from my actions and those of previous guests.

It was relatively simple to catch the light rail and then the train for Carthage and I arrived a little after nine.

The Punic city is mostly gone but for a few foundations and some artifacts in the museum, but there are large excavations from the Roman era that were great. One, in particular, is right overlooking the ocean with columns that frame the mountains of Cap Bon curving up to the south. I stayed most of the day, pausing for a rolled pizza and later for a coffee that was so thick that I couldn't drink it.

There were some great souvenirs and I kind of wish I'd bought something, if not for me, than for the kids, but I think they have similar and less expensive stuff in the medina and I'm early in the trip and don't want to load up.

I haven't met a single American since I arrived. There were a fair number of Spanish and French in Carthage and a few Italians, too. I saw someone who looked almost American although they were overly thin and talked in suspiciously low voices for Americans. They were Italian.

Yesterday, when I wore a colored shirt, a few people identified me as American; today, with a darker shirt, some have guessed English-speaking, but most have thought I was French. Not that I look particularly French, but they haven't met many Americans.

The train back from Carthage was absolutely packed. After a couple of stops, people were just hanging off the side. It was kind of a relief, as it kept the air flowing through the cars.

It's been pleasantly warm today, probably 65-75, as the day has progressed. This morning, you'd have thought it was winter in New England, the way people dressed. I saw one kid wearing what looked like a snow suit tucked in a snuggly against his mother. I was wondering, just before I saw them, if I should go back to the hotel and put on a short-sleeved shirt.

Tunisia

I've arrived in Tunis, after a couple of misadventures. I spent about an hour trying to track down my guidebook before I left, but I apparently didn't want that thing, because I left it in the airport in Paris. I realized that it was missing just as I took my seat, but of course they wouldn't let me off the plane. They sent someone, but the someone couldn't find the thing. I'm now on a quest to find a foreign language bookstore as travel will be impossible without a guidebook. So far, no luck.

I did manage to sleep probably two very cramped hours spread over a couple of flights. That's actually pretty good for me and as a result, I'm only tired instead of exhausted from jet lag.

I picked up a tourist map of the city at the airport and had a taxi driver drop me off near the medina, where I managed to find a hotel. It's quite cheap, at roughly $10 a night. Of course, it doesn't have a private bath and is very basic, to say the least. I was tired and with limited resources at that point, so I took it. I'm only there for two days.

After settling in a bit, I wandered through the medina. I was immediately on my guard as it reminded me so much of Morocco and I was bracing to fight off the touts and hustlers. But actually, it wasn't so bad. Nobody even paid me any attention on the outskirts and it was only when I got into the winding lanes that guys tried to get my attention so I'd go in and look at their stuff. Even then, they didn't hassle and follow me down the street like in Morocco. There are some interesting things, including some cool tile mosaics (both Islamic and Roman style), hammered copper plates, and various jewelry, carved wood, and pottery.

I overpaid for lunch at a place selling fish and couscous since the woman at the register hadn't understood that I'd order the poisson with couscous instead of an order of poisson and an order of couscous. But the woman who spoke French was long gone and it was just a couple of dinar (worth a little less than a buck, but gaining fast, like all other currencies), so I just let it go.

I left the medina through a cool medieval gate with a fountain in front of it and entered the very French looking part of the city. There's even a French cathedral here instead of all the mosques you see in the medina.

On My Way

Barring some last minute action by bozodom, which will necessitate a final addition to my ongoing series, this is likely to be my last post before I leave for Tunisia. No guarantees, but I'm hoping to stop at an internet cafe now and then to post thoughts from my trip journal.

Until then, au revoir.