Trip to Tunisia

I just returned from a trip to Tunisia with 4 friends from Saudi Arabia. We're all Canadians with roots in Calgary, except for one Texan, who is now an honourary Canadian, since we always responded 'Canada' when asked where we're from.

Tunisia is a small Muslim country in north Africa, sandwiched between Libya and Algeria. At one time it was a French colony so the languages are Arabic and French (somehow we managed with our smattering of recollections of high school French). However, it has a flavour all its own, neither African, nor European, nor Arabic - truly its own style with a lot of diversity in landscape and culture. Tunis - the capital city

The Fez is the typical hat worn by older men. This man is a milliner (hat maker) who I convinced to have his photo taken because I loved his mustache. Then he gave us a demonstration.

These are my traveling friends - me, Michelle, Lynne, Cathy and Therese. Notice the door - very typical in style and colour here.

The ruins of Carthage, the 3rd most important centre of the Roman Empire. From here, Hannibal set out to conquer Rome with his famous elephants in tow.

Sidi Bou Said is a quaint village, very picturesque with its white buildings and blue doors and windows; blue doors were everywhere in Tunisia. Here we wandered the streets, had lunch and in our typical style, found great shopping opportunities.

It wasn't quite warm enough to be tourist season for Europeans yet, and North Americans haven't really discovered Tunisia yet (except for those from Quebec who come because of the language connection). We did wander along the Mediterranean several times though.

Fishing is the second most important industry, after tourism. Unfortunately 14% of the population is unemployed. We couldn't interpret a word at the fish auction, but the transactions and process were clearly understood.

I was in heaven with all of the pottery for sale. We each came home with several pieces and miraculously it all arrived without damage. The vendors were quite agressive in their sales approach, but we were hard bargainers. More than one salesman said, "Canadians - hard women", but it was all part of the fun.

Since all of our husbands are employed by Aramco, we had to take some photos of the petrol for sale - imported (smuggled?) into Tunisia from neighbouring oil-rich Libya.

In many ways Tunisia seems caught in a time-warp. We visited some local berber homes, caves cut into the mountain sides. This demonstration of an oil press inside a cave, gave us an appreciation for the centuries-old process of making olive oil. We read that Tunisia has more olive trees than any other in the world, and it seemed true from the miles and miles of neat and orderly orchards we passed.

One highlight was the time we spent at Ksar Ghilane, on the edge of the Sahara Desert. We slept in luxury tents (with modern plumbing).

Me on a camel in the Sahara Desert at sunset. (We all bought headscarves).

The Sahara Desert at sunrise.

Quite a few scenes from the Star Wars movies were filmed in Tunisia and we visited several of the sites. None of us are great Star Wars fans, but it was fun to say we were there. It was apparent why the area was chosen as 'another planet' for the movies.

El Jem has the 2nd largest and best preserved coliseum of the Roman empire. We also visited a coliseum at Carthage. It was eery to think about the gladiators, Christians and lions in these places.

Bizerte is a fishing village along the northern coast, along the Mediterrean Sea. The canals are reminiscent of Venice.

These early morning fisherman, only found one small fish in their large net.

It was a great trip - lots of diverse and beautiful scenery, historical sites to investigate with interesting people to photograph and places to explore. Sharing friendship and laughter is always a bonus to any trip! Thanks to my terrific 'Canadian' exploring buddies - here or away.

I just changed my favourite saying (above). Then I realized how well it fits with this blog post...all about my family - the best gift of life.

On New Years Eve I flew to North America for 5 weeks with our family. After 14 flights and 3 countries later (not counting starting and ending in Saudi, via Bahrain and London airports), here are a few memories.

We celebrated a late Christmas on New Years Day. Here is David with Mari opening his gift.

Mom bought a new camera - the 7th Cybershot like mine that I've recommended. I think I derserve a bonus from Sony. We enjoyed a walk in the snow to learn some settings.
From Calgary I headed to Utah for a week with Jennifer & Jared.

Jennifer is continuing the Ames tradition of making lasagne for special occassions - I guess my visit, their first house guest, was the special occassion.

From Utah it was on to Texas. Erin had changed a lot since we last saw her in May. She is now walking everywhere and talking a lot too. Notice the shoes - she loves shoes. I wonder where she gets that from?!

Elaina and I spent hours playing Candyland. Sometimes she won and sometimes I won, but she was just as excited either way.

Erin is also learning to share.

This is one of the best grandparenting moments. We read this same 'Spot' book over and over, even though they have a bookshelf full of books. Finally I insisted on different ones sometimes.

Several times we went for walks around the neighbourhood with the girls in their red wagon. Our kids had the same wagon - but in those days they didn't come equipped with pop-up seats and cup holders.

Here is Elaina on her tricycle. But since my visit, she's graduated to a bicycle with training wheels. Before I know it she'll be driving a car!

Yellow is Elaina's favourite colour. It was a great day at pre-school when the paint easle was set up with only yellow for each child to create a sun as part of the craft.

This is the Gallery Wall in the girls' playroom, mostly Elaina's pre-school creations. The yellow sun above was the latest addition, but Elaina told me that the pumpkin was her favourite craft. Erin loves dolls and here she is putting her babies to bed in the cradles Grandpa Derry made for each of them.

A backyard swingset...the universal, timeless, childhood toy. Bikes and swing sets - who needs anything more? It was cool out that afternoon and I don't know which we enjoyed more, the backyard play time, or the hot chocolate afterwards, with marshmellows of course.

What a good helper!

Trousdale family portrait. They didn't actually ride like this of course. But I did have a ride with Mike one evening - he took me home from a restaurant on the back of his bike.

After time in Texas, I headed even further south to spend a few days in our new home in Mexico. Dad & Deanna joined me there and stayed on for a few weeks. Now I have a clear image of retirement - breakfast on the patio. Sounds enticing!

From Mexico, it was back to Calgary. Heather & I drove to the temple in Cardston and had a good time together. If you've looked at the previous blog post you'll notice Heather's change in hair colour. Yup - blonde in January, Brunette in February - and I like them both!

This last photo is Mom & Eldon opening a gift. It's a calender that Allison made with photos of all the children and grandchildren. She learned digital scrapbooking and did a fantastic job.

It was a whirlwind trip...but a great time with everyone!

Heather's Visit

Heather spent Christmas with us here in Saudi Arabia. We kept her very busy with hardly a minute to rest - but then that's a vacation - Ames style. She had requested to see some camels so we obliged and went looking for camels. (They're not too difficult to find here).

Our first stop the day after she arrived was the camel market, where she petted a baby camel, rode a bigger camel and milked a mother.

The next camel sighting was in the desert where we'd gone to dig for sand roses. This time she was prepared with cookies.

Camels are great friends, as long as you keep feeding them cookies. But when you run out and they all start looking for more, you suddenly realize how big they are.

Heather's final camel interaction was for one to feed her...literally. She and Brian prepared hashi for dinner. That's the equivalent of veal - that's right - she cooked and ate a baby camel!!!

Here are a few more activities we did: shoppping, sandboarding, and walking on the beaches.

What a way to spend Boxing Day! What a great vacation - for all of us.

Eid Mubarek - That means Happy Eid

Haj is the time of year when Arabs make the pilgrimage to Mecca. It is a 4-day national holiday, one of the two Eid holidays of the year. Typically we travel during the Eid holidays, but Brian is on call this time, so we are here to see the celebrations. Last night we went with friends to the events on our compound.

Typical Saudi dancing - all men of course.

Holidays & Oman

While hanging the Christmas lights, Brian was missing the large spruce tree in our front yard in Calgary, the tall ladder required, & doing the job with big gloves on typically the coldest day of the season - NOT!!! What he was missing, was help from the kids.

For American Thanksgiving we had a progressive dinner with 4 couples - ironically we are all Canadian. This photo is our main course. We eneded at our house with pumpkin cheesecake for desert. I love cheesecake but had never made one before - it was a hit.

The following weekend we traveled to Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman, for church business. We went early on Thursday. We stayed with a family and they showed us around a bit. These photos are of the corniche - the yacht belongs to the sultan.

We went shopping at the best souk I've seen. We weren't there long... but long enough for me to make a few purchases.

You can never own too many pashminas. Next we found the jewelry store.

Watching the people is almost as interesting as the shopping.