Tunis, Tunisia

Tunis was very interesting. On top of just being able to say I've been to Africa it has an interesting history. It was destroyed and rebuilt under Roman rule. They have no oil, so they primarily export olive oil and grain to Europe as well as Tourism to generate income. They were under financial oversight and part of France until the mid 1950s. They had a president who declared himself president for life in 1956 and while there are problems with that, he actually did a lot of good for the country. For example, education in Tunisia is compulsory through age 16 and universities are free. They have a literacy rate of 85%. WOW. They also just had a revolution which was apparently quite peaceful (well, other than someone self immolated in protest at the inequities in the government). Facebook was a strong driving factor in the revolution - apparently word of what had happened and when to protest was spread over Facebook. Wow again. Today they have a temporary government and will have elections in October.

We first visited Medina - which is bascially part of the old city and the market place. Most of it was closed due to it being Sunday and a Muslim holiday season (Ramidan - spelling likely wrong). Actually I was glad it was pretty quiet. Even with that by the time the tour left we were bombarded by people trying to sell us stuff on the streets. It was fascinating how it was constructed to help it keep cool - it was over 100F outside. I was channeling my cousins Mary Swenson and Donna Seibert in terms of shopping bargains. Ray said if Donna had been there, the handmade rug (which they are famous for) would have started out at $900 and by the end she would have had 4 of them for $49 shipped to the US and the pushy salesman would have been fleeing!

We then saw several sets of ruins - including what was part of the old Carthage before it was rebuilt by the Romans and part of the remains of the Roman baths.

Fascinating place. Not sure I need to come back here (unlike Barcelona), but very glad I was here.

The evening ended with an outstanding performance by Patti Lupone! Amazing day.