Zombie Time

My short time in Tunisia was great. What made it so awesome was the my friend Amine had allll the hook ups. Arab culture is all about who you know and felt good to finally be someone in the know!

On my second night there I got to go to a belly dance show/dinner. I was moderately horrified. I felt like I was in a strip club. Probably didnt help that the table across from me was filled with african business men who really enjoyed the show. When they ran out of film on their camcorders and space on their cameras they whipped out their cell phones to take videos and pictures. I am sure they have some great ones of me in the background with some priceless expressions. Maybe it is from being covered up for the past two months but it just felt so harram! i guess it is culture but still....old men oggling young, half naked women felt very uncomfortable to me.

I also got the chance to go see the second largest colosseum in the world (to rome) and the Great Mosque, the third most islamic holy site (to mecca and medina). I had no idea there was so much history in Tunisia, I thought it was a litte po-dunk country at the top of Africa! Also did you know Star Wars was filmed here?!?! Tatouine actually exists, it is a city in Tunisia!

It was also great to spend time with Amine. Even though he was busy a lot organizing the conference he was there for I was happy for what time we had.

Currently I am sitting in a cafe in Tunis waiting to go to the airport for my flight. I have internet, turkish coffee, and I believe I can fly is playing, what more could i ask for? I actually have an interesting 24 hours ahead of me. My flight leaves Tunis at 10 35 pm. I get into Cairo and then have a 6 hour lay over and then get to Amman at 10 35 am the next mornign. I am anticipating that I will go straight to the University because I have class at 2 and also have to take a make up midterm at some point. Theoretically I will have lots of time to study on the plane and I actually think I will because it is unlikely I will sleep. I just hope my studying outweights my lack of sleep! I then will go and pick up my dad at the airport : )

So there is no rest in my future but I guess I can sleep when I am dead. I have actually never been a fan of that expression, I hate not sleeping. We'll see how it goes! Until later!

Pre-Eid plans!

I just booked my tickets to go to Cairo and Tunisia the week before Eid!! I am so excited. My Arabic teacher, Muna, inspired me with a speech about how we are not here to just learn the Arabic language, and shouldn't be in the library but out exploring and traveling (not that anyone had to tell me but it is nice for an authority figure to reinforce your plans to skip class).

I met a guy named Amine in Korea and he sent me a message on facebook the other day saying he was going to be in Tunisia (he is from there) and that I should come visit! But the only time he would be there was the week before Eid. Unfortunately I have all of my midterms then. woops. I guess I will have to go talk to my teachers but I am (unusually) not worried in the slightest. When will I be back here? I mean I obviously plan on it but there is no way a test is going to stop me from doing what I came here to do (even though it is called STUDY abroad...).

My friend Veasey is studying abroad in Cairo so I am going to visit him on my way to Tunisia. I think it is going to be a great trip. And then, the night I return to Jordan my dad arrives! What could be better?! We will then proceed to galavant across the country, and into Lebanon as well. Apparently Lebanon is very crowded during Eid so my condition for going there over somewhere else was that we follow in Anthony Bourdain's footsteps from No Reservations when he went to Beiruit (inshallah our episode won't end like his did in 2006...).

So I have some exciting travels coming up! Until then I will be dutifully studying (to some extent) to make up for my absence : )