There's some OK sheep's milk cheese in Tunisia, but it's not like the cheese in France. I actually kind of missed the cheese for the week that I was gone. Imagine what will happen when I get back to the U.S.! No, but really... my trip to Tunisia was awesome! It was really cool to go to another country and set foot on my third continent. Now I'm back with quite possibly the best tan of my life and getting used to my normal life once again. I'm at least lucky to get eased back into the school routine. Today I only had 4 hours of class, tomorrow I'm not going to school because of a student/teacher strike, Wednesday is the normal half day, Thursday is a holiday, and Friday I only have three hours of class.
Anyways, I should start with the last week before I move onto what I'm up to now. I'll give some of the major details now and then make a few supplementary posts so that this one is bearable for you and I. Just make sure you check out the pictures that I put up tonight and tomorrow. Here goes...
I left France on a flight from Marseille at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, April 20th. The plane passed over Corsica and Italy before landing in Tunis, Tunisia's capital which touches the water. I didn't get to see much of Tunis leaving the airport, as our representative from Lookéa Voyages was there at the airport to receive us and the other passengers coming on the same plane. We were put on a bus and drove about an hour down to our hotel in Hammamet, which was an interesting ride. Setting my foot in Africa for the first time was an amazing experience. Driving from the airport to our hotel was kind of eye-opening for me to see the real social conditions of the country. Even for a country which is well-off for Africa, it is easy to see how much more poor it is than the United States or France. Of course I've been in certain small places in both of those countries where the social conditions might not be too terrific, but realizing that most or all of many other countries are like that is.... I don't know quite how to describe it... difficult? A couple quick things along the same lines that surprised my immediate sight of Tunisia:
- The amount of people I saw just sitting around. One person, two people, etc. just sitting around in no particularly important places doing nothing or just talking. At first I thought this might because I was arriving on a Sunday and they may not be working but then I learned that the weekly holiday is Friday rather than Sunday in Muslim countries for religious reasons. Tunisia's listed unemployment rate in travel guides is about 12%, while it's probably something more like 20-25%.
- Sheep. It's not quite the fact that I saw sheep as the fact that I saw sheep everywhere. No real herding boundaries or anything; they could have been grazing on a soccer field in between two housing complexes or on a field more in the country.
- Other small things you notice about the state of wealth of another country: the conditions of buildings, the trash easily overflowing the single dumpster, and the bottom halves of trees painted white as warning poles.
So that's a basic rundown on my first impression of the hotel and the country. I want to go to sleep now, but I'll try to post again tomorrow a little more in depth. I hope everyone is good, and keep reading!
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