Sunday, April 20, 2008 - VICTORIA

We arrived home late Friday afternoon and stayed up until 8:30pm in the hopes of sleeping through the night. I woke up around 2:30am with a growling stomach and a great desire to start the day. I gave in and got up at 3:00am, hoping not to wake up Mom, but discovered that she was also awake. We had coffee and then Mom unpacked. I was starving so I made soup and then watched a bit of TV. We went back to bed around 5:30am and slept until mid-morning.

Today we woke up at 6:00am, so we seem to be back to the correct sleeping schedule. I was ready for dinner as soon as I woke up, though, so it looks like it'll take a little longer to get my stomach back on track.

I was reading my blog this morning and I realized that I was very factual, which is kind of boring. So, here are some of the lighter moments and observations from the trip:

It isn't as bad as Asia, but ... driving any vehicle in Tunisia requires equal mixtures of balls and precision.

You need an advanced degree in jaywalking ... to cross Tunisian roads safely. The traffic rarely lets up so you have to get halfway across the road then wait as cars whiz by on either side for an opportunity to complete the crossing.

Tunisian wine is dreck ... but you're lucky to get it in a Muslim country. The waiters in the hotels carefully pour a bit of wine into your glass for you to sample, which is laughable because the wine always smells like industrial cleanser and tastes only marginally better.

When it's 30 degrees outside ... it's still considered winter. The "air conditioning" units in Tunisian hotels blast hot air into rooms from October to April. At the beginning of May the system is cleaned out and configured to distribute cold air. We didn't learn this until the third or fourth hotel, of course, which meant a lot of unnecessarily sweaty nights.

There are almost no public toilets in Tunisia ... so at some point it is necessary to walk into a cafe full of men and ask the owner if you can use the loo. This request is met with smirks. You understand why when you're hovering over the cracked and dirty bowl. Toilet paper is rarely available so you need to get used to drip-drying. Tunisians actually think that toilet paper is a very dirty way to clean your bottom bits and prefer to hose themselves down instead. So, cafe toilets are often very swampy.

To Tunisians, there is only one province in Canada ... Quebec. So many tourists from Quebec visit Tunisia that when you say you're Canadian, the natural response is "Ah, Quebec!"

There is a definite hawker lingo ... including the opening bid "How much for this bouche-bouche in Canada?" Don't bother asking what a bouche-bouche is, because it doesn't matter. The key objective is to get you to look at something. Don't believe a hawker who says he won't bother you and that you can look "slowly slowly". Run away from the hawker who says he won't "eat you" and makes biting motions with his hand. One of the funniest hawkers was in Hammamet. He'd been spending a little too much time with English tourists, because when I walked past his shop without looking he called me a "cheeky monkey" and then said "I can't believe my bloody eyes" in a very heavy Arabic accent.

Elevators in Tunisia don't have sensors ... so don't shove your arms or legs into a closing door. The door just closes on your limb(s) and stays closed. You have to press the up or down button again to get the door to open.

There's so much more, but these are the best bits. I wish I could record everything but unfortunately we don't have the technology for brain-blog transfers at the moment.

Until the next trip...