Bizerte

Bizerte is another tourist town in Tunisia- about an hour in the loauge (an 8 passenger van... our primary means of transportation) from Tunis. So I wasn't too excited about going to another crowded beach, but I'm definitely glad I went. On the coast of one of the beaches (called Rimel) there are two wrecked World War 2 Italian ships. So we get on the crowded beach and we see two massive things in the distance. The Tunisians didn't seem too excited about it and said that they weren't that interesting. But the foreigners (well at least the 4 Americans) wanted to check it out. So we started walking and made everyone else follow. It took a little over an hour of walking on the beach and over rocks to reach it, but it was real nice because you could actually go inside one of the ships. I took over 70 pictures of it (a few are below). We were all pretty amazed by it (except the Tunisians) as you can see from the pictures. There was absolutely no one else in there except for us so we were able to walk through the engine room and the whole ship. Definitely the coolest thing I've seen in Tunisia. Afterwards, we went to the actual town of Bizerte. Its another nice little town- unfortunately we couldn't see much since it was a Sunday and some stuff was closed. But we did see Tunisians jumping off a bridge into the river. We ended the day by going to another beach to relax. A pretty good day.

Bardo Museum

The Bardo is the most famous museum in the country. My roomates and I had a discussion about it the other day and concluded that they never really needed a museum and should of left everything where it was. The museum is mostly just statues, mosaics, and other old stuff taken from Carthage and other cities around Tunisia. But nevertheless, its still a pretty cool museum. Unfortunately a lot of the descriptions are in French meaning I had no idea what i was looking at sometimes. But, I'm more of a fan of old artifacts than art- so personally I'm going to rate it above the Louvre in Paris.

Kelibia

Kelibia is one of the more famous beaches in Tunisia. Its about a hour car ride away and not too touristy, but the water is really clear. I've only gone to Galveston beach before Tunisia so any beach is pretty good relatively. All the beaches are pretty crowded this time of year and even though I can't really swim, its always a good way to relax on the weekends.

Music

So what kind of stuff do I hear on the radio or in the taxis. Well, obviously there is a lot of Arabic music- some of its good, some I'm not too sure about. The most popular genre is house/techno... which I'm not really feeling. And they of course have a lot of American music, but not all mainstream. You hear 50 cent and J-Lo like many parts of the world, but Bob Marley is ridiculously huge hear too. A lot of the Tunisians I've met are really into anything from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Pakistani dude) to Sting to Guru. One taxi driver was playing the new Common cd in his car- i gave that guy a tip. But the two biggest songs in Tunisia right now: Lonely by Akon and Gasolina by Daddy Yankee. I'll hear both songs multiple times a day... in taxis, in stores, walking down the street, or blasting from the neighbors. They were ok before I got here.. now I'm sick of them. I tried to introduce some H-town stuff to the people here. But explaining what tippin on 44s means to a Tunisian who doesn't speak great English is tough.

I'm back. I'll try to update more often now.

But I've been busy with work and travel- with just enough time to relax. I feel pretty comfortable in my new home. Sometimes I feel like I've been here forever and other times it amazes me that I've been here for a month and a half. I guess I'll divide these posts up into sections.

Carthage

So most of you know what Carthage was- Hannibal's base, eventually taken over by the Romans. It surprised me what it is now. Its really a nice town full of retired old folk and lush greenery. And dispersed in between nice houses and foreign embassies is... basically some really old stuff. We were able to walk to most of the sites. But since we tried to take shortcuts everywhere, we usually ended up in people's backyards. So what did we see? The acropolis which overlooks the city was pretty cool. They also have a small museum at the top with a lot of mosaics and ... old stuff. Then we checked out a Roman theater. They had a recent festival there so the Tunisians have basically completely rebuilt it. I wanted to go the music festival and didn't think i could afford it- 20 dinars is like two weeks of food. But guess who came- the Temptations and the Commodores. How random is that? Then we checked out the Roman Villas. Pretty cool although you can't really ascertain what a lot of it is since its so old. But its more fun to pretend what things used to be anyway and use your imagination. The best part about Carthage in my opinion is the Antoine Baths. Those are the pictures below with big pillars still intact. The place was huge. There are still a few places I haven't seen but will definitely check out later. Carthage is about a 20 minute train ride from where I live so I'm sure this won't be my last trip to it.