i am 1 lucky girl!

the pictures are all on top of the words but they are in order by day as well as my typing- sorry if thats confusing

on the flight- amanda, lynne, jenn

lunch with the tunisisans

shisha! 

Heather and i 

US military cemetary

el jem- amanda and i made an arch for mo to peek thru

us in our new t-shirts at the star wars bar- camel crossing! jenn and i in back - amanda and heather in front

me and jenn on camels!

how cool do we look?

starwars set! im holding an imaginary lightsaber if you dont know
train ride

roman ruins in sbietla- you cant see but thats alex, amelia, me racquel and amanda

an ornate tile wall in kairouan

in the med!

I just got back from Tunisia last night and it was INCREDIBLE

i cant even begin to tell you all the amazing things i did in just 10 days- it felt longer and shorter than that at the same time-!

im picking 1 or 2 pictures from each day to show you and that wont come close to the 400 i took and other 400 ill probly take from other peoples cameras- so all of you will have to sit down with me later and go through scrapbooks if you really want to know about my trips- im gonna make a separate book of this spring break i decided- thats a project for this weekend

ANYWAYS- here goes

Friday-we woke up early- well i didnt wake as early as i would have liked but whos surprised there? haha aka my alarm never went off and i woke at 645 (game time) as they yelled "load up the bus" down the hall

luckily i had packed the night before so i could just grab my bags and go- then we had an easy flight into Tunis Airport where we went straight to a nice lunch and a presentation by the US Ambassador in Tunisia- it was really interested to hear his point of view on relations between the 2 countries and get to ask some questions too. That night we had another nice meal then they bused us to a local Shi Sha bar (sp?) where we all smoked hookah and drank tea-

Saturday- another early day and a presentation by a Tunisia professor- i dont remember much of that because the room was freezing and he spoke super quietly but then we had lunch with Tunisian grad students who went to an English speaking school- they took us to the market after which was nice because i am not a good haggler- it was beautiful to see all the goods made- some of jenns jewelry broke tho after which was sad- i bought these cute leather shoes that they embroider with floss and a bracelet with my name engraved in arabic- there might be 1 for a sister of mine too??? we'll see - i think i crashed early that night because all the feather pillows were making my allergies act up and of course my loads of sudafed here in Rome didnt make it to africa

sunday- we went to the Bardo Museum which has tons of awesome Roman Mosaics then we went to Carthage and then a US Military Cemetery which was very moving- It was the site of WWII victims in North Africa the hotel we stayed in that nice would have been really fun in warmer weather or even daylight- we went out onto the beach and took pictures of the perfect sand- then on our way back in ran into this "dance club" that was holding lessons for old people- naturally we joined into the salsa circle and had maybe the most hilarious experience you can imagine- i wish i had taken pictures of the hip action i witnessed- WHOA

Monday- in the morning we went to El Jem which is i think the 3rd largest ampitheatre - after of course the colosseum in Rome- then we went to this cool spice market that was selling every thing from amber and henne powder to paprika = pretty much anything you can think of was there- i got some cool pictures but i dont htink they made the cut for this blog post- after we visited this underground house which i think is called troglodyte- there are complete villages of them it was so cool but hard to describe- theyre built into dunes and have a big whole in the top then rooms in a circle around each room has a little light bulb in teh doorway and the one we visited even had satellite tv! after we went to the star wars bar because tunisia is where a lot of the scenes were filmed i guess- here the leaders of the trip gave us all t-shirts that say jfrc on the front and Spring 2009 and Tunisia in Arabic on the back- we were very excited!

Tuesday- was the day we rode camels- jenn and i were on connecting ones which was very fun - hers kept acting up tho and foaming at the mouth weird! also camels do this thing where they throw up their stomach which is gross- it hangs out of their mouth like a long tongue bag or something- they dressed us in robes for the ride- it was amazing- our guide was very nice- then we hopped in jeeps and rode out into the desert where we camped in 10 person tents all night- we climbed dunes ate dinner in the dark then sang by a fire til we were too cold then snuggled into our tent-

Wednesday- i couldnt tell you when they woke us the next day except it was realllly early- we freshened up sorta(shook the sand out of our clothes) then hopped back in jeeps and went to the actual star wars set in tatoween- this was the day it started to get really warm- so when we checked into the hotel that evening we laid by the pool for a little while- and took super looong showers to try to get the sand out of our ears

Thursday- we took a bus to this train that rode into this beautiful canyon where we could take pictures and climb around- it was really fun then the afternoon we spent pushing eachother into the freezing hotel pool- my 2 euro watch got a swimming lesson on accident but he survived with flying colors- what a great deal!

Friday- we visited these amazing roman ruins at sbietla - we had fun with Todd's 2 young boys- - (jfrc director) they started to be much less shy around us- that day we had a LOT of driving to make it back up to Hammamet - id love to show you the route we took therough tunisia- it was a big loop from north east to south west then back north again- i seriously can say i saw about everything in Tunisia- the last hotel we stayed in was really nice and had a great buffet which we all enjoyed as well as pool and beach access

Saturday- we went to Kairoan which is the 4th holiest city in the muslim world with some 200 mosques- we visited 2 and also went to 1 last market where i bought a few postcards- it was a lot of fun that afternoon we spent at the hotel playing strict volleyball and i played a little frisbee- which is a surprise im sure considering my usual frustration with the necessary "wrist flick" i dont have mastered- i hate to say it but i had a lot of fun- also i loved swimming in the med it was BEAUTIFUL! and Salty!that night we went to a dance club which was crazy if i do say myself

Sunday we relaxed until leaving for our flight at 1- we got home about 7 last night - i still havent unpacked but i should cuz i pretty much have no clothes-

also- mom (or anyone else) how could i get sun screen stains out of a favorite pair of sweats- it looks like i peed on myself kinda.......awkward

i had the best time to sum it up and now im back in the real world sorta except im kinda on vacation here god my life is good

miss you love you