Monday

I wake up, and I'm in Tunisia. Or rather I'm roused from sleep and I eventually realize I'm in Tunisia. It's 6:30 AM and it's time to get ready for the first Port Excursion. This is the sight that greeted me:


Cars, lot's of cars

Excursions are set up by the cruise ship company and can cost anywhere from $50 to $150 dollars each person. They take care of everything so that you don't have to plan anything. They arrange for tour guides, transportation, entry into tourist spots and sometimes even meals. So if you feel lost, and are not confident in your abilities to get around, then this is the best route to go. Some ports are actually a few hours away from the main cities; for example, Rome, is about a 1 hour drive from the port. But if you really want to save money and you're a seasoned traveller than going your own way is the way to go. Plus you get to wake up when you want to...

This is actually my first time to this part of the world. This was the first time I've ever been to Africa, but it felt more like I was in the Middle East. Tunisia is a muslim country and it is surprisingly sometimes incluced as part of the middle east, even though it is west of Italy geographically. Tunis, the city we visited is actually very close to the old city ruins of Carthage, the base of power of Hannibal. They mentioned that once this area became a Roman province, it was a vital part of the Empire because it provided 2/3 of the grain for the Roman Empire.

I never realize the influence of the Roman Empire in Eurasia/Africa. They were truly great engineers. In every port that we went to, we saw ancient Roman ruins. It is very different when you go to Europe because there are literally ruins everywhere. Compared to North America, everything over here is brand new. You would never see the following in North America. a juxtaposition of the old (coca-cola in english and arabic and the columns from Roman times)


A nice juxtaposition of the new (Coca-Cola banners in english and arabic), and the old (columns from the Roman period.

Here are some examples of the engineering prowess of the Ancient Romans. Ruins of the a Roman Aqueduct in the old city of Carthage:


Those Romans were obssesed with clean water

And the ruin of the Tunis Coliseum:


(I was already impressed at this point...I didn't know how big a surprise was waiting for me in Rome!)

After touring some ruins, we went to a museum that was famous for it's mosaics. Mosaics were an art form that were popular during the Tunisia's Islamic period, which begun around the 8th century, if my memory serves me correctly. Some of these mosaics were huge, and others having intricate details. Mosaics are made up of little tiles which, is hard to see, because from a distance, it makes up some sort of pattern.


It's hard to see the small tiles that make up these patterns

A lot of the time, the mosaics were arranged in intricate geometric patterns. Apparantly, Muslims do not allow the human image to appear in art and that is why they have geometric patterns. They think that the display of the human image is sacriligeous because it attempts to glorify the human image, when only Allah should be. Since an image of God is impossible to reproduce, they concentrated more on producing abstract images. I could be wrong, but that's what I remember the guide saying. I guess that's also why the persian carpets have such fancy geometric patterns on them.


This is a ceiling with an intricate pattern design

There were also lot's of Roman statues exhibiting the naked human form. When the Christian Vandals conquered the Roman territories in Tunisia, they would break off all the penises and the noses. The penises, because they thought that it was lewd and the noses because large noses were a sign of power.


It may be hard to see, but this statue can't smell or piss

After the museum, we were off to a Bazaar (arabic marketplace), but first, we had to drive through the city. There was a lot of agressive driving, which our bus driver also engaged in. The city was a sprawling urban area, consisting of mostly low rises (residential and office buildings) and what appeared to be housing that would be called low income housing over here. In contrast, we also drove through an affluent neighbourhood (the old city of carthage) and the housing there was really nice. But in the rest of the city, a common sight were people walking with goats along the road, which is something you wouldn't see in North America. But in general, Tunisia is relatively modern. Most people wore jeans and shirts, they were selling lot's of coke and nestle ice cream treats and IBM had setup shop there. The highway we were driving ono was in excellent condition and there were lot's of cars, (which all happened to be french made. I wasn't even aware that France had a large auto industry, because they export much to North America (Correct me if I'm wrong about that). Tunisia was a past french colony, so that's why they were all french, but most of the cars were small in size. Actually this is a huge difference I noticed in Europe, but I'll have more to say about this later.

The bazaar was very large and teemig with people and goods (fake designer sunglasses seemed to be a popular item wherever we travelled). We were first taken to a perfume store. They were selling the extract for Chanel No. 5, which is derived from a cactus plant indigeneous to the area. Then we were taken to a Carpet shop. Persian carpets are world famous and this store was agressive selling them to foreigners. We were brought into an air conditioned room with high ceilings, whose walls were covered by layers of carpets. The people selling the carpets would bring out carpet after carpet and unroll them at our feet and talk about its high quality. They emphasized that they accepted all the major credit cards and were willing to ship them any where in the world (and even take it back to the cruise ship if desired). They said that it took one sewing girl four months straight of hard labour to make one carpet. They were selling these for prices in hundreds of dollars. So if the salesmen labour figures are true, then this girl would not be earning very much money. After the material and sales people take a cut, the girl must be left with very little. It's amazing how little money some people in the world get by on. I also got to thinking how the guide were taking us to specific vendors who would give a little demonstration of their wares. I was wondering if the guide got any kickbacks, but of course that's not for me to know. Who knows, maybe the tour company had an arrangement with these vendors. I forgot to take pictures of the bazaar, which is quite a sight to see, but here is one that I took.


A busy picture for a busy place

Something that I don't know a lot about is what is depicted in the following picture. They had these places were you could pay some money and get something to put into this contraption, and then inhale the smoke coming out of it. They were very prevalent throughout the bazaar, but other than that I don't know anything about this practice.


A busy picture for a busy place

The bazaar was situated close to some goverment buildings. And throughout the bazaar, there were these armed guards. I'm not sure what they were doing there (maybe protecting the tourists visiting the "tourist" area of the bazaars), but they were carrying Steyr Augs (at least some variant of it). I had never seen one in real life (actually, I haven't seen much weaponry in real life...everything I know about guns, I learn for computer games like CounterStrike and Ghost Recon). I tried to take a picture of a guard, but he wouldn't let me. I tried again later, in a more covert manner with a different guard, but he saw me lift the camera. He started to wag his finger and shout at me, so I put down the camera. But what he doesn't know, is that I had already taken a picture of him.


Such a good picture, because I actually captured him wagging his finger at me....At least he's not pointing his gun at me!

On the way back to the bus, one of the street merchants began to follow and harass my dad. He kept shoving a bunch of necklaces in front of him and asking for a price. He walked with us all the way back to the bus. I guess that's what bazaars are famous for...agressive merchants and agressive bargaining.


Back on the ship and time for dinner. Since I have nothing much to say in the captions, I'm going to start ranking it. It's funny that I remember how each dish tasted.


Starter: Fried Calamari with Orient Noodle (10/10). I only wished they gave us more calamari...


Main Course: Roast Lamb (9/10). Lamb usually has this strong taste that some people absolutely detest. I could barely detect any in this dish. Does anyone know if it's dependent on the preperation, cut, type of lamb or something else?


Main Course: Curry Chicken (5/10). This curry chicken tasted like it had no curry. There was only a slight hint of it. I'm more used to Indian curry chicken which is not shy with the curry seasoning. I suppose this dish was toned down to be more agreeable to caucasian's.


Dessert: Chocolate Fudge Cake with Ice Cream(7/10). The cake was pretty good, the ice cream, which I specially ordered in addition to the cake, was so-so. Unfortunately, all the ice cream they had on board was icey...

The show that night was a magician/comedian. Once again British, once again a preoccupation with which part of England people were from. He was alright...nothing too fancy about his tricks or jokes, but enjoyable. At midnight, they served snacks/appetizers that the waiters brought out in big trays to various locations throughout the ship.

That's it for Africa. It felt like I was in the Middle East as opposed to Africa.