Late Night Tunisia

Music of the day- Nick Drake

Yesterday was a break like I needed. We spent the morning sleeping and then decided to head out on the town. We live, as I mentioned before, just down the road from Carthage. We thought that we would go down and look at some of the ruins, but after getting there we found out that everything was ridiculously expensive. To get into each of the different ruins was ten dinar, which equals about seven dollars. That may not seem like much, but that's our daily budget, either see this stuff, or not eat was sort of the choice. We wavered and stood around for awhile and finally one of the guys at the gate started talking to us true Tunisian style. Really nice guy who asked about what we were doing in Tunis and all. Eventually we found out from him that everything is free if you have a student id. Which I did, so did Lilly, but Kevin didn't. So we decided to go back another day. Instead we went off in search of a beach. Which ended up being a true failure.

 We talked to some guys down the road via Kevin's Spanish and ended up on a not so great beach. We turned around and walked back the way we came and up the coast towards Sidi (Bou Said, I'm gonna refer to it by Sidi from now on because a) I go to school there so it'll come up a lot, and b) because I'm too lazy to type the whole thing). So we walked up to Sidi, about a half an hour walk past one of the President's palaces and several other residential neighborhoods. We got there just as Katie and Rose called us so we got some water at the grocery store while we waited for them to catch up with us. We made it down to the beach eventually, after some serious hills, and had our first cultural experience of the day. As we sort of expected, it was all men. So of course the girls were super popular and got stared at the whole day. It was a little awkward but they actually didn't really notice, just Kevin and I. We spent the day warding off teenagers who kept trying to play ball closer and closer to us all. We spent a few hours there listening to music and talking and swimming. The water was surprisingly cold and salty, little bit of a shock to the system. We finally had to leave because Rose and Katie had a wedding and Lilly had some other ceremony to go to. Kevin and I were coming home to have some dinner before the game because we had invited everyone over to our cafe.

We weren't really sure how many were going to show so we hedged our bets and said 5 or 6 to Bessem and the cafe owners. We sat down just the two of us and got some coke's and tea and a hookah with prime real estate right in front of the TV. After about half an hour people started showing up. They had a little bit of trouble finding the place because it is sort of in the middle of nowhere, but not nearly as many as they could have. At first it was just Kevin and I and Nihel which was funny because she was the only girl in the place and all the guys kept looking at her like she had three heads.

They definitely weren't used to seeing women in the cafe but it was alright after awhile. Claire and Kate showed up to back her up so it got less awkward. And then Bessem and his friends got down there. A few others showed up later and we had to move somewhere else because there were about 12 of us. It was a great group though, and as you might know, had you watched the game, an excellent match. Well played by both teams and I can honestly say one of the best games I've ever seen. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. But it ended with only a couple broken glasses and lots of yelling and rowdy Tunisian crowds. We headed out and got congratulated by half the place on our team's success.

It was about 10 and we wanted to go out so we stood around in the road for awhile debating what to do. Megan and Allison and David and Leah's families called to say they'd planned something so we all took off to get our stuff and meet up. Kev and I changed quick and then walked down with David and Nihel to his place to get Leah who'd gone home with her host brother. We picked them up, and then went to Megan and Allison's to get them. Along with their host sisters, cousins, and friends. We left and got lost three times on our way to the bar. In the end it took us two and a half hours from the end of the match to get to where we were going with all the stopping, starting, chatting, getting lost, etc.
It was an odd situation. None of the Tunisians we were with had ever been there and they were as surprised as us by how the night went. It ended up being a super expensive and exclusive Tunisian night club. With lots of techno (not my thing) lots of pricy drinks (not my thing) and an awesome night out with our friends. There were about 15 of us and when we got there they told us we had to either buy a bottle of something or buy food. Turns out that a bottle in a Tunisian night club runs about 250 dinar (175 dollars) a little above my price range.

 The food was ridiculously expensive too, but we caved and Allison and I split a hawaiian pizza. Mmmmm pineapple. Megan and Kev got calamari which was pretty good, and a lot of other people got pizzas. So we sat and talked, had a few beers, wandered around on the beach, and danced to ridiculous Tunisian music. It wasn't a normal day out for me by any means, or anyone else in the group, but it was really fun. We started to get a bit tired though and everyone finally decided it was time to leave about 3:30. We made it home and were crawling into bed just as the sun started to come up. The roosters made it a little hard to fall asleep, but we managed.