Tunisia

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Tunisia...Welcome Back

We're back.

Let's just say that if we had a choice we would not choose to fly back mere hours after a wedding reception. We had a great time at Andy and Kelsey's wedding, but when the festivities last until midnight and we don't get into bed until 2am, 4am comes quite quickly. Leaving Bellingham at 4am to drive to Seatac to begin our 3 leg, 30+ hour, half world traverse was a bit brutal (not to mention leaving all of the family and friends that we had seen for only a few days out of the last 4 months). Being home (and in Hawaii) was great, but at the same time it reiterated what is by far the most difficult/detracting part of living abroad, namely the abroad part. Life here for the most part is great; there are a few aspects that are trying at times, but they are more than offset by the benefits. What is difficult to weight is the time that we are missing with our family and friends. For better or worse, for the moment, that seems to be the price of our continuing adventure.

Arriving at the Tunis airport we were once again greeted wholeheartedly by the adventure that we had left 3 weeks prior. All of our bags arrived and we easily cleared customs (who am I kidding, there are no inbound customs, just two lines: one marked items to declare and the other line that is actually used.) Exiting the airport we were quickly picked up by a hoard of hopeful/desperate taxi drivers. (To fully appreciate the scene you need to know that the taxi ride from our house to the airport, with baggage, cost just over 8 dinars.) The first offer we received, for 40 dinars, we countered with 10 and received a scoff. The second driver surprisingly agreed to 20 (which we had previously decided was our price point having just spent the last 30 hours traveling and really wanting to be done). Upon agreement the driver took control of our cart and began leading us to the taxi cue. As we approach the cue it became obvious that he had been happy with the lower fare because he wasn't parked in the cue and would be saving himself a lot of wiating. It quickly became apparent that the other taxi drivers did not share his appreciation for the situation. Entering the cue it quickly became a full on tug-of-war over our cart and who would have the privilege of driving us. There were no less than 15 people yelling, pushing, and arguing over our fare. At one point our "original driver" received an open handed push to the face. At this point I decided that if we were such a hot commodity that we should at least benefit from this final distraction in our journey. Auctioning our selves off, I received one shouted bid as low as 5 dinars. Unfortunately, we didn't really have any ability to accept at that point because so many people had a hand on our cart. Eventually, (this whole scene probably took less than 5 minutes in real time) we were able to determine which driver was actually parked in front of the line (and thus best suited to our getaway) and reached an agreement back at or original 20 dinars.

Twenty minutes later we were back at our house, which was just as we left it. After unpacking for a few hours we had one last task before going to bed and getting up at 5:45 for work the following morning: to check the car and make sure we had a ride for the morning. To our lack of surprise, the battery was dead, dead-dead, not even a click. Perfect... our first day back with a forecast of heavy jet lag now involved getting up a bit earlier to take a taxi to work. Some good did come of our dead battery though. We got to meet our neighbor the next day and ask him to help jump start our car. Fortunately, he speaks a little English (enough to tell us that if we were going to live in Tunisia that we needed to learn French or Arabic...good idea, wish we thought of that). Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the battery to take a charge. Soon it became a challenge to see who would be able to get our car to start. At one point we had 4 other locals and two different vehicles attempting to help us. When the last guy showed up in his 1980's something vw that had roughly half of the normally necessary components and yet a functioning car we were confident that we had someone with the mechanical talent (and magic) to get us going. Minutes later (and once again with a complete language barrier) we were doing all we could to thank them for the help as our car sat idling on its own. An hour and 142 dinar later we had a new battery to add to the list of vehicular headaches that we have had to overcome.

I am worried that this post overall may come across a bit negative, but I want to assure you that in general that is not the case with our experience here in the past and since we have been back. If nothing else the weather has made up for it. Mid fifties to mid sixties and clear crisp blue skies, hard to ask for much more when the forecast in Seattle is calling for snow for the next four days.

This evening, while driving to a party at another teachers house we were pulled over for the second time. Waiting at a red light, I decided to take a right turn since no one was coming. You should know that we know that taking a right turn on a red light, while common practice at home is not here, and actually quite the opposite: it is illegal. Joking about how we just broke one of Tunisia's many vague driving laws I completed the turn and came face to face with three police officers that for once were actually watching traffic. I was immediately waived to pull over...at least this time I knew exactly what for. (The officer spoke no English) He asked for the paperwork for the car which I handed over and for my driver's license. When he starts to question the paperwork I realize that my name isn't on the title so we hand over Kaylee's ID, this relaxes him a bit. Then he begins to tell me (I am mostly guessing at this point) that it is illegal to go through a red light (who would have thought?). Apparently he decided that my broken french was not convincing him that I understood what he was attempting to convey, so he had me get out of the car so that he could better point out the red light and the intersection in which I had done something bad. Satisfied that I understood the situation, he began explaining how I now needed to pay a fine of 60 dinars. Not about to give the officer cash out of my pocket my French suddenly degraded to the point were we had no line of communication. He repeatedly tried to explain the fine, and after a couple of minutes gave up and asked (I think) if I was a tourist. I tried to explain that we lived here and that we work at the American school. Whether he understood or not I don't know, but at that point he gave up completely, gave me our documents and ID's back and said we were ok to go...I love this country.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Istanbul, Turkey

Wow, what a trip! We decided to go to Istanbul, Turkey for our Turkey day this year, it only seemed fitting. Many staff members had been to Istanbul and everyone spoke so highly of it. We flew out early afternoon and arrived into Turkey at 5pm. We were greeted with winter. Simon is convinced that he can continue to wear his shorts everyday that is a non-work day. Not in Turkey. We quickly changed, after finding our hostel, into our winter clothes, Under Armour, puffy jackets, hats, and gloves. We practically stumbled upon our hostel. We had taken the time to write the directions down before we left but conveniently thought each other grabbed them. Luckily we had both looked at the map of its location and were some how able to find it among the thousands of other hotels.

The first night we spent just wondering around the huge city, about 17 million people, near our hostel. We knew the next day we would be taking a tour. Most of the large historical places were very near to our hostel. Most of them closed in the evening, but are viewable from the outside.

Hagia Sofia, fourteen hundred years old, was built by the East Roman Empire as church. In 1453 it was turned into a Mosque by Sultan Mehmed II following the conquest of Istanbul in 1453. Today it is a museum.

Blue Mosque- Is the largest Mosque in Turkey. It was built right next to the Hagia Sophia to make a statement, saying that he, the Sultan in 1609, could also build a Mosque of the same beauty.

Friday morning we decided to be real tourists and do a boat and bus tour for the day. It was the only real way to get to see the city. The first part was on the boat. We caught the boat in what is known as the Golden Horn, the water that divides the European side of Istanbul. We then worked our way up the Bosphorus, which connects the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea. The Bosphorus also divides Istanbul, Asia is on one side and Europe on the other. The European side is where old town Istanbul is located, and where tourists spend all their time. After the boat we did a city tour, which was completely on the European side even though bridges also connect the two continents together.

The view from the top of what our tour boat looked like.

Looking back on Old town Istanbul from the water.

The Bosphorus bridge which joins Asia and Europe.

Fortress along the Bosphorus.

A picture of us when we are standing on the top of the Maiden Tower, which is its own little island. Dad you may recognize the Island it was in the James Bond film, "The World is not Enough," it was a prison.

Yes of course I had to get pooped on, good thing I was wearing my rain pants.

Once we were back on land the bus took us to a lookout area, which was on the top of the largest cemetery in Istanbul, all people that are buried are facing towards Mecca.

Picture of us from that lookout area.

After our day on the bus and boat. We had an hour or two before the spice market closed. We had the bus drop us off so we could check out the word famous spice bazaar, which is still used for spice trade in Istanbul. It was a great place for some dried fruit, tea, and spices. We were even able to try some good cheese.

Saturday we spent our day touring the insides of the Mosques, going to the Grand Bazaar (which it looks like we didn't get any pictures of), and the palace (from the outside we got there too late to go inside, 3:30)