Resurfacing

Hello again, I hope that you are all still there. I am back after a too long hiatus into illness. My brain went away for a bit, and though I saw lots of things I wanted to relate to you, I couldnt formulate words very well. I am still not all here, so please excuse the poor descriptions, lack of insight, and general unstructured approach to these updates.

As I wrote last time, I am in a new country, Tunisia. 9.8M people in 164,000 sq km. As much as Egypt is considered more the Middle East than it is Africa, Tunisia is more Medeterranian than Africa. It is the site of ancient Phoenecian city of Carthage which was then lost to Rome and then to the Byzantines. In the 7th century the Arabs arived and finally the French established rule in 1881.

It is a land of tourism resorts lining captivating beaches. I am hoping to find some out of the way pocket, hole up for a bit near the water and write. But first I am spending a few days to really recover. Flying with a head cold is never fun. And extrapolating from my flight, I have to assume that flying EgyptAir is never enjoyable. So combining the two was horrific.

Two Plusses and a Minus:

1) So I managed to book a room in a hotel in French. Only a few of you have ever truly heard me butcher this language so the rest will have to imagine it yourself. I always claim that my Chicago accent rivals directly with the vowel-heavy round-mouthed lexicon of French. But regardless, it is bad. Combine that with my sometimes deathly fear of telephones (stemming from my poor hearing) and calling someone in French was quite an accomplishment so allow me some self-congratulation.

2) Successfully avoided the taxi touts this time. I had not been successful at Cairo Airport and fell into one of the many scams you hear about. Here, I have learned to be ... well, rude. Not a natural skill for this good-ole boy from the heartland. I can find my own taxi thank you very much and without a commission for you. Overall my ability to navigate foreign cities, airports, etc has improved greatly.

3) And a minus. Apparently the Egyptian Pound (EGP) is not a ´world currancy´ meaning that it is pretty much useless outside of Egypt. I had intended to arrive at the airport with plenty of time to change it to US dollar but with a string of errors (my taxi being late, agreeing with someone from the hostel that she could share the cab, myriad problems she brought along, etc) I sort of ran out of time. So hopefully I can change it, Somewhere, or else I guess I am ready for the next time that I come!!

It is so funny: within Egypt the (EGP) bills could be ratty and torn but they would definately not take a USD if the corner was ripped off. It seemed like canadian and british currancy was in-between (some use was ok but not a wrinkled mess). But upon leaving, the nicest EGP bill is nothing more than paper and a creased up $5 note is still worth something.

Anyway, I am feeling quite a bit better after the bathhouse (will describe later) and getting some orange juice and water for my room. Now I am off to dinner.