Miguel is always such a sweetheart on my birthday, and this year was no exception. He blissfully wished me a happy birthday first thing that morning and then rose with me early so we could get breakfast together at the giant hotel buffet.
I was picked up for work as usual at 7:30am, while Miguel was left to frolick on his own at the hotel. Although originally planning to hit the Bardo Museum, he just chilled out and loafed around the hotel most of the day, taking advantage of the beautiful weather and our beachfront hotel while I slaved away, enduring office meetings and tedious work-related e-mails.
Here are a few of Miguel's envy inducing photos of his glorious day on MY birthday (something is wrong here).
Photo from the balcony of our room:
Caveat: OK, the view is nice, but the room really was wretched! I've never been bitten alive by so many mosquitoes in my entire life!
In fact, here's an e-mail that I wrote to my mom that day from work (replying to her birthday note to me):
I’m actually still here at work – Tunisia is only five hours ahead of DC so it’s not even 5pm here yet. I’m leaving work at 5 to go meet Miguel in downtown Tunis, where I’ve requested taking a birthday walk around the old city, looking at some of the beautiful mansions and wandering in the little alleyways around the medina that I haven’t seen yet. We shopped all day in the souk on Saturday (even impatient Miguel was interested and a good sport about it) and then spent Sunday touring the sites of Carthage, which are spread all over an area of the city.
As for today, after our walk this evening, we’re going to dinner in an area called Goulette, which is reached by a little metro train. It’s on the water and is supposedly very charming – we haven’t seen it yet.
The only downside is that our hotel is pitiful. Worst I’ve stayed in for work. It’s about a 15-30 drive outside of Tunis in the middle of nowhere, the beach is rather dirty, the water is clouded with sand, and it’s not really warm enough to swim anyway. The pool is also full of hair and debris, which we discovered when we put our goggles on. The hotel is full of either old befuddled tourists in large groups, Chinese businessmen, or heavily smoking Arab conference attendees. The worst part, however, is that our room is teeming with mosquitoes, even with the windows closed!!! Every night we’ve been killing at least 5-8 of them, and my first vision this morning was of a large blood filled critter sucking on my forearm. I smashed him against the wall when he flew away, and now the room is semi-covered in blood smears from crushed skeeters. Pretty gross! Also, the room is seriously mediocre – old and dillapitated and all the rooms are for smokers, plus sometimes there is an aroma of sewage wafting around. Miguel and I have figured out that there are no foreign managed hotels in Tunisia – so voila, service is a disaster. Also, we heard the WORST female lounge singer last night, whose audience was comprised of some bobbing headed old geezers with comb-overs and Granny curls -- a British tour group, we surmised. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing at the sad scene.
But I digress... back to Miguel's leisurely day. This pic sums it up best:
We had arranged to meet at 5:30pm in the old city, but I must confess that I was about 30 minutes late due to some delays getting out of the office and then the driver dropped me off about 10 full minutes walk away from our meeting point.
Once I finally got there, Miguel took picture of me in front of the Bab al Dahr in the old city:
I had hoped to visit a couple of the historic old villas in the old city, but by the time we got there, they were all closed for the evening so I had to make do with an exterior shot:
As we tried to work our way back out of the old city, we came across the "hip young man's clothing" section of the market. I found this mannequin just too cool to be true:
Miguel took this shot toward sunset:
We made it back to the TGM train and hopped onboard enroute to Goulette, another neighborhood in Tunis, set along the sea, about 10 minutes away by rail. It was once the residential area for Jews in Tunis. Most have since emigrated, but a few still live in the area.
Having heard and read that Tunisian cuisine is nothing to write home about, we had done a bit of internet research and found that a Judeo-Tunisian restaurant called "Mamie Lily" came highly recommended for its variant cuisine:
"Mamie Lily and her son Jacob run this great restaurant, which is an ideal place to enjoy the delights of the traditional Eastern North-African cuisine of the Tunisian Jews. People come here not only for the unique food, but also for the family atmosphere, which adds a level of comfort to the dining experience."
The recommendations were right on the mark... the place was great! It's set up on the first floor of the family home, and there are only about six tables in the small room. After walking through a small courtyard and enclosed foyer, where the mother and son sat smoking and holding court, we found ourselves at a cute little table in the rear corner of the restaurant. At the neighborhing tables were seated a sprinkling of Jewish customers and a European tourist couple.
The son, who I would guess is in his mid to late 50s, clearly fancied himself an artiste. He was really helpful in translating the menu (as the waiter was a French-speaking African guy, and Miguel and I have very minimal French skills) -- I ordered a roast beef and cinnamon bean dish common to Judeo-Tunisian cuisine, and Miguel ordered a Moroccan-style lemon chicken and cous cous dish. Both of our meals melted in our mouths!
Here I am delightfully digesting my delicious birthday dinner:
I'm sad we didn't take more pictures, but alas we were too busy enjoying our meals.
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