(no subject)

[ahimsa114]

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Tunis. It's our last day here, and we've done almost everything in my guide book, so our only plans for this afternoon are this, getting tea (mmm, mint tea is so yummy) and buying books and/or cds. So, we're taking our time here now. Tunis has been pretty interesting. There's not a ton of interesting things in the city itself, but it's a pretty big metropolitan area, so we did a day trip to Carthage and another to Sidi Bou Said. Which are both on the Bay of Tunis, so that's pretty cool. In the city, we've visited the Medina and searched for the Great Mosque (this city is so confusing, and we've gotten lost a bunch). And stumbled onto some pretty government buildings, and today we took a trip out to the history museum, which was pretty impressive, but filled with tour groups. The thing that shocked us both about Tunis is how masculine it is. Tunisian women have it pretty good. The government is one of the most feminist of the Muslim world, but it's still been pretty challenging for us here, as two non-Arabic speaking white women. We can get around alright with our French, but we attract A LOT of attention on the streets, and it's pretty unnerving. And, when we want to stop for a tea or something, most of the cafes are filled with men. No women at all. I think I would come back (although I would prefer to travel with someone who is comfortable not responding to people who talk to her on the streets. D sometimes gets us into situations that make me very, very nervous. I might post on that another time...), but certainly not alone.

All in all, I'm really glad I came.