Crazy travelling week part 2: Tunis

Tunis: Wednesday 10th to Friday 12th

with most photos shamelessly stolen from Hermann, who had a nice camera when I didn't.

Actually wrote this post while I was out there.

Here I am in Tunis, sitting on my hotel balcony looking out onto the pool through an arch of pink, orange and white bougainvillees which at this time of day is teeming with birds chattering away (reminiscent of the Golden Tulip in Nizwa in fact)…maybe it comes with the Golden Tulip package ;-) Anyway, waking up slowly this morning to the sound of several hundred birds was pretty amazing and a great start to the day.

Bougainvillees in Sidi Bou Said:

We arrived yesterday (Wednesday) around 3:30 and got to the hotel around 4:30 after a bit of a long wait for our luggage (Hermann went from muttering about priority luggage to crossed fingers and a few shades paler until his luggage finally came through on the last batch). The weather was lovely, 24 degrees and sunny (PLUS 24 this time!!!) and the hotel is in a pretty nice location-perched up on the hill on the way to Carthage, overlooking the bay and the mountains…a perfect holiday or conference hotel, not so perfect for doing business in town as it is a bit of a drive (but nothing compared to a British commute!)

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Our driver, Lotfi, has been very helpful and agreed to take us to Sidi Bou Said after we had checked in, so we spent an hour admiring the houses and enjoying the atmosphere with surprisingly little hassle from the salesmen on the way up, and ended up at the café overlooking the bay where I had a Turkish coffee sitting on rugs.

We got back before seven to allow Lotfi to get home in time for food (it’s still Ramadan) and agreed to meet a bit later for dinner in the hotel restaurant…while I waited I sat out at the terrace, enjoying a burrha (Sp?) with orange, watching the sun go down :-).

Had a good chat with Hermann over dinner (we really need to have a team dinner…hardly know anything about anyone on this team! Or a teambuilding exercise in Tunisia…)

This morning we headed into town to meet ETAP, the Tunisian Petroleum Agency, to get to know the data people there and have a bit of a chat about our area. We ended up with the friendly Dr Amri going to look for a whole bunch more things and not giving up till he personally found them. A very productive and positive time there.

After ETAP we asked Lotfi to take us into town to the main hotel, where we had a nice lunch (most restaurants are closed at the moment for lunch) before heading off to meet our Country Chairman for Tunisia (downstream office). That was also pretty interesting and got even better as he revealed that he had set up an office for us to use when we are in town!! No need to mention that one twice…I think Hermann and I have already decided which desks we’ll take ;-)

After that we noticed that most people were heading home, even though it was quite early; the whole place feels a bit like Christmas Eve which is interesting and unexpected. It is still unclear whether Eid is going to be tomorrow or the day after but everyone seems to be assuming the former anyway.

Our country chair suggested that we head out to Medina and the old city where there is apparently a lot going on in this season…street shows etc, till late into the night and during Ramadan only. So we are thinking of heading out pretty soon in that direction.

Although very short, this trip has actually been really productive. It feels pretty surreal being here in the mild weather and so clearly in a completely different environment, yet only a short flight away from home. The swimming pool was a bit chilly when I went in about an hour ago but still perfectly swimmable, and the evening sun still warm enough to make a difference…

It has been fascinating for me to finally come to Tunisia; although I have only had a snapshot view of it so far, it seems to me that at least in Tunis, people here are A LOT more relaxed than in most of the Middle East and North Africa; women drive around, bare-headed, wearing trousers etc etc and look in fact just like our North African immigrants back home, just on a sunny backdrop. I noticed several different types of ethnicities although I haven’t managed to identify them all of course. And the big thing here is being able to speak French…it opens so many doors (see Dr Amri) and just generally allows you to communicate where English is just non-existent. And our driver just gave me a box of makroud as a present simply because I had asked for a recommendation of a good place to buy it (and pestering him with questions about Tunis). I am tempted to skip dinner…

I could definitely see myself living here…yet another reminder of why I took this job in the first place. NOT to sit in a big corporate office in a grey rainy country. Yeah.