Amara here again!

We are terribly sorry about the delay of the blog post. I got home and immediately got caught up in jet lag and moving home to NYC and Ariel had a busy week at work.

Anyway, my final two weeks in Tunis were split between apartment improving and beach walking. We added rugs and wall hangings to the apartment to make it more homey and less full of echos and fully stocked the kitchen. The oven also is fixed now so Ariel can actually has a fully functioning kitchen. All in all, a successful attempt to make her house seem like a home and not just a short term dorm situation.

We got to know the cashiers at the huge supermarket pretty well since we went at least every other day. It's called Carrefour and resembles Target in many ways. I was mostly impressed with the variety of good available with a few notable exceptions: any kind of volume measurement, thread, hammers, and ammonia. I know that weight is a common way to measure ingredients elsewhere in the world, but we couldn't even find a small scale. Luckily, Ariel has awesome coworkers who collaborated to get measuring cups to her. The others were hopeless. I'm sure they are available somewhere in Tunis, we just didn't know enough about various hardware stores to find them. I left Ariel to continue the search alone.

We spent the my final weekend at the beach resort of Hammamet. It's about a 40 minute drive south of Tunis and is beautiful. We stayed at a nautically themed resort, which made me very happy. Ariel said that it reminded her of a cruise ship on land because it had a daily list of activities and limited food options. The views were incredible and the weather was perfect. We found a cat to hang out with too! He had figured out that the beach chairs set up by the pool were a perfect place for him to both be endlessly petted and have a long nap. I managed to convince Ariel of the joys of the Middle Eastern hammam as well, so it was a very relaxing weekend. It felt a little odd to not have a schedule every day since Ariel's and my trips are usually a little more frantic, but it was a perfect pace.

We also took advantage of the only way we could sail on the Mediterranean: a pirate cruise. We walked onto the deck and our first sign that this would be the cheesiest thing we had ever seen was the speakers blaring "My heart will go on". Our second was a "pirate" standing at the bow with a falcon. We promptly chose a seat as far from the festivities as possible and spent the next four hours blocking out the noise and enjoying the water. I may be biased from my time on Semester at Sea, but I think the Mediterranean is the more beautiful body of water so not even awkward pirate performances could ruin my excitement. And they were pretty awkward. They acted like rejects from Chippendales. Ariel and I put on our best non-tourist glares and after the first few minutes, they left us alone to look at the view.

After Hammamet, we had less than 24 hours before my flight, so we focused on last minute souvenir shopping and packing. The timing of my trip worked well since Ariel had meetings the rest of the week and I was out of her hair by then.

It was a great trip and I'm looking forward to my next one! Ariel will be on here sometime soon to update you all on her further adventures.