Tunisia
TUNISIA TRIP - Feb. 2-16, 2009
SUNDAY, 2/1/09: 8:35PM: Desperate to pack and get ready for trip tonight, before leaving tomorrow. Start this---just to start this!
MONDAY, 2/2/09: Early part of day in WP51. Then started notes. Take Valium 3:35. Call car at 3:40 and am told a black SUV is waiting for me. Down to JAMMED mailbox, mainly with IRS information, but extract a New York magazine to take with me. I'd put bag by the wall and went out toward the SUV, when I realized I didn't have my bag! Waved to the driver and went back for my bag, which he accused me of leaving, but I fibbed and said I wasn't sure he was outside already. Into car at 3:48 and he makes a big deal about which way we should go, but I end up saying that Atlantic Avenue is always reliable, and he agrees. Eventually he asks where I'm going and I say Tunisia, and he allows as that's a rather unusual destination. He'd lived there for a few years, as he did in Egypt, having been born there, and then launched into a sad tale of how he'd abandoned a good job as a financial advisor in order to bring his children to the United States so they could get good schooling: his daughter's now in training for finance at 19, and his two sons are 10 and 7 and in school, and I remarked that he started a family late. He started into a disjointed rodomontade about happiness versus family, and I allowed as how my family was so messed up I decided not to have one of my own, other than those I chose to make my family from my group of friends. It started getting cloudy as we approached the airport at 4:42, and he thanked me greatly for my $45, which I gave out of the goodness of my heart from the quoted $40 fare. To security at 4:50 after finding that I'd been assigned two "C" seats on my new planes, but I cursed OAT and the clerk said the planes weren't very full, so she managed to get me two window seats in the back---it was only when I was ON the plane that it occurred to me that I hadn't inquired which frequent-flyer plan Alitalia was on: I should add that to my things-to-do-before-trip list so I don't forget in the future! Through security by 4:55, astoundingly fast in an almost empty airport. Skim New York magazine to 5:34, slightly tired. Board plane at 6:20 and at 6:30 remind myself to take 1/2 melatonin, but having forgotten to put it into my shoulder bag, I had to unzip my black bag (thankfully there were many vacant seats around, including the one next to me, so I had room to do this even as we started taxiing out). Asked for a glass of water and took the melatonin. Backed out at 6:30, VERY empty plane, but by the time I looked back at the rows of three empty seats, they'd all been claimed as beds by someone else. Take off at 6:52 over brightly lit Long Island before heading south into the empty Atlantic. Looked through the Herald Tribune for not much in the line of news and puzzles before an awful dinner of beef and a rather good chocolate cake, which I finished by 8:20, having had glasses of poor red and white wine. Take Ambien and try to sleep. In misery to 11, trying to stretch out over the two seats, but then it's 1:02AM and only one hour to destination, so I might have gotten two hours of sleep.
TUESDAY, 2/3/09: Over LAND, but it's still dark as I change my watch to 7:05AM. Pee at 7:30, take morning pills at VERY slight breakfast of two rolls and a glass of the bizarre RED orange juice and water and a double-sugar coffee in desperation for something to feed on. I see lights at 7AM and clouds at 7:30, and they say we'll land at 8:02AM. Snowy hills for #1 at 7:42, changing the hours on the camera by one, for some unknown reason. Snowy Alps at #2 at correct time of 7:49AM. Zero degrees in Milan, they say. #6 Malpensa Airport at 8:05 landing, 7:17 flight. No entry form for Italy. Through sleepy security at 8:25, and meet Burt and Joan Millette, and she chats endlessly about North Carolina and their trips, saying that he's going deaf, but I suspect he hears more than he wants to. No gate announced by 8:53AM, saying it's only announced an hour before boarding. Talk, pee, do a bit of puzzle, and at 9:59 go to gate B26. Sit alone and do puzzles, no one else from group visible. Call for boarding at 10:43, and board at 11:03, the woman behind in waiting room CONSTANTLY pushing against my back with her screaming baby, and of course she sits one row ahead, but on the other side. Off at 11:18 for some shores that I try to take a picture of, southern Italy I guess, then some fragments of what might be the Lipari Islands or part of Sicily, but it's mostly cloudy and slightly bumpy. Get served tiny sandwiches and more red orange juice and coffee, and still more water. Lower through clouds to see elegant shore houses along the Tunisian Mediterranean coast, and land at 12:53, 1:35 flight. Out quickly, passing everyone waiting for luggage, and to the lobby to see NO sign of an OAT guide at 1:08. Stand and wait and he shows up at 1:10, and I go to a falling-down chair and wait for the Millettes to get their luggage; the guide says we're the only three on this flight, getting into a large bus at 1:21 for a ride past parts of town I don't recognize: large new buildings for the port, the Hotel du Lac still looking like it's about to topple, and pull up in front of the elegant Hotel Africa. Mamdouh, who said he'd teach us his name later, greets us, says something about a welcome drink that never shows up, and says that eight people have already arrived; one will arrive later, so I remark we're only twelve then, but he says he added wrong, and now that I look at the list, I find that six had signed up for the pre-trip, so they probably got here on their own plane together, and a few others will arrive later. He says we can cash our money at the bank, at an ATM machine, or at a cash exchange, since the rates are VERY similar; and he says he'll show us where to get water. The guides are staying in room 914 if we need any information. We meet everyone at 6PM in the lobby for orientation---hopefully our welcome drink, and then have dinner here in the hotel. To room at 1:47. I decide to cash my $50 bill, so go down to meet two charming younger representatives of OAT, and of course I should have brought down my passport to cash my money, so I go back up to get it, back down to go next door to an STB bank, and then they DON'T ask for my passport, just giving me 70.650 dinars for my $50 at what he says is a good rate. He leaves me and I decide to shop for water, finding a two-liter bottle, giving him a 10D note and getting 9D in coins back, having paid $.80 for two liters of water, and the guide says I can do better at a grocery store we'll stop at tomorrow, but "this is a good lesson for you." Thanks. I'm up to room to find the "air conditioning" stuck at 26 degrees C, quite hot. I try opening the window, but it's a bit too chilly. Phone for help with the A/C, and get told by the two guys who come up that that's what it's set at, so it'll be better if I just shut it off and it'll cool down when it's shut off, and anyway I can always open the window. Take some shots from the window before it starts raining somewhat later. Read the itinerary to find we're here for three days, marking the itinerary for what tours I want and which I don't want, and marking the days of the week for my own orientation. This goes to 2:50 and I'm feeling tired, but don't want to nap, so figure that sudoku will keep me active. I go to the book that I haven't looked at in a while, do a few easy ones, and then decide to "clear up" the ones that might or might not be diabolical (they mostly are) and finish a few that I started, but then tire of THAT at 4:33 and decide to catch up on these notes, which certainly keeps me more alert, though I'm trying to distract my stomach from being too hungry. Finish these notes at 5:20 and will now finish the rest of the unpacking, easy, since I've brought so little. 8:47PM: Put things away, but at the very end I realized I had lost my earplugs. Tore EVERYTHING apart looking for them, but at last got downstairs at 6:01 for a chat with Mamdouh, as he says it, 11 of us at meeting, one sick, one late. Crista, at 6:41, asks about government. To an enormous buffet at 7PM, when I thought to go out for a walk, but decided AGAIN to search for the earplugs with an obsessivity little known, despite the fact that I DO have a SPARE pair! But COULD NOT FIND THEM! They MUST have dropped out of my pocket in cashing money or buying water or changing clothes. TOTALLY GONE, and I HATE it! Now think to do more sudoku to pass the time digesting food, since 8:50PM is too early to get to bed for a wake-up call at 7:30AM for tomorrow's tour, leaving at 9AM after breakfast in same room as dinner. Try sudoku but just fall asleep in chair, so decide I MUST get to bed at 9:10PM. Actually get to bed at 9:20PM, taking just a little while to fall asleep in the fairly comfortable bed, still obsessing about HOW and WHERE I could have lost my earplugs.
WEDNESDAY, 2/4/09: 1:55AM: Wake from a dream and get up groggily to record it. Finish typing dream at 2:02AM, figuring I've slept just over four and a half hours, a usual stint before waking with a dream, and can sleep four or five MORE hours to catch up---so I'll take another melatonin, pee, and get back to sleep. 6:21AM: Having tried to capture some of the poignant, sexy, frustrating details of a second dream this morning, I've now had over eight and a half hours of sleep infested with almost fever-dreams of a pathetically loveable "hero" who's created a total mess in a house vaguely patterned on 1221 Dietz, possibly inhabited not only by the Dean-Pitt-Bacon character but by some of his equally inept, yet attractive, friends. I still feel strung out with fatigue and jetlag, but now there's just 67 minutes left to the wake-up phone call at 7:30AM, so I have no alternative but to put away the Neo and lie back down to try to get more bed rest before a busy day touring Tunis. 7:20AM: The typical "tourism lassitude" hits early: maybe I'm not quite recovered from the lack of sleep on the flight over, maybe I'm not enthusiastic about the people on the trip except for the sexy Gaetano, maybe I'm not enthusiastic about the meats at the meal last night, which makes other meals questionable, particularly the Tunisian dinner after the wild-boar lunch in Dougga; though I do have to tell Mamdouh that I'll take all the optional tours except that one, since I don't want to be alone and am afraid of missing something, and what's another hundred dollars here and there. Get the room ready for departure after the 7:30 call, a quick shower, and breakfast before leaving for the day's trip. At least MY TV works well, with some crazy Arte programming of modern dance, Desi Arnaz-type Mexican early films, and a modernistic Vie Parisienne at a number of French theaters. And the sky seems clear, with the sun just coming up out of sight on the right, illuminating the Hotel du Lac: an upside-down chandelier like the enormous one in the lobby that I've joked about taking home as a souvenir, and which I'll have to take a picture of sometime. The room isn't nearly as warm as it was last night, yet the A/C seems to be on with a recorded temperature of 26 degrees C. Will have to generate enthusiasm about what we'll see today. HA, just realized I can zoom in and out on pictures ALREADY TAKEN with my camera! Phone FINALLY rings at 7:34AM. 8:35AM: Lovely breakfast, first with Rachael alone, and then the pick-up pair of Janna and Elsie. I'd ordered hot chocolate, recognized the hot milk, and had to be pointed to the small container of powdered chocolate, which made two nice cups of cocoa when combined with a bit of Janna's extra milk for her coffee. They all knew computers inside and out and sympathized with the demise of my indexing business. Rachael is doing her OWN travel arrangements, and came from the airport to the hotel by taxi! Good fruit, and I'd picked up a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice as I entered, and was shown to a smaller table: how NICE that we don't always have to sit at a table for 13! Decide to brush my teeth to pair with my quick shower this morning. How clean can I get! Someone said this was the first sun seen in the city since before Sunday. Take extra batteries, ChapStick, jacket, name list, umbrella, sudoku book, pens, and everything but a toilet, but DO have extra toilet PAPER, in case. Leave room at 8:53AM. Through prosperous suburbs to Sidi Bou Said at 9:35AM, before many of the souvenir stalls were open, but small numbers of tourists surrounded us at almost every point on the small streets flanked by pure white houses with elaborately nailed and knockered doorways and bright aquamarine shutters and "women's balconies" giving eye-catching contrast. Make sure to pay 400M (1000 millimes to a dinar, at about 1.4 dinar to the dollar, so 400M is about 35 cents) for a fluffy bombolini, which surely sounds more Italian than Tunisian, but with Gaetano in constant bright-eyed presence, the two cultures seem quite contiguous. #25 Presidential Palace from the heights (which we were told not to take a picture of) at 10:11. #34 church and almond tree in bloom from a distance at 10:54 after our walks through the streets, going down many cul-de-sacs for views over the Mediterranean and into nailed-door entranceways flanked by flowers and plants and ceramic pots. Young men called to us to look at their products, but I just took pictures of the colorful plates, model doors, souvenirs, and paintings. If I saw this before, I certainly don't remember any of it. They said the houses were all very expensive, and some had wonderful unobstructed views over expanses of blue waters with hazy mountains in the distance, once with an enormous ferry steaming across the middle distance. Then to the Antonin Baths, with maps of Punic Carthage that flourished 814-146BC before being plundered by Rome, that looked like #36 at 11:15 during its brief reign 45-146AD before being sacked in the third Punic War. #39 forbidden photo of the sign that said not to take pictures of the Presidential Palace, which was behind the sign itself at 11:49. The baths were second in size only to those of Caracala, and I descended to the muddy ground from the original paving stones of the Roman road, decumani laid out in squares to the forgotten-named crossroads at right angles, numbered for our reference. Great sunny day and German-reconstructed columns to give an idea of the HEIGHT of these congeries of hot, medium, cold, drying, dressing, and heating rooms. To a souvenir shop owned by "Mamdouh's cousin," who, we were assured, had the best price for the book, and though it was listed at more than 12 British pounds, it was only 12D, or an improbable $8.57 for a book of the entire country. Then bought a map that was listed at 1.5D for only 1D of the whole country, with insets of many of the towns and areas we'll be visiting. Leave 12:25 and go to the American Cemetery, which the guide had never been to before: a pristine expanse of kikuyu grass, noted for its endurance with little water in great heat. Rachael had a great-uncle who was buried there, and the administrator found where his cross was and offered to drive her to the site, and I asked to come along to watch him spread sand over the white marble to make the name and rank clear, along with the date of death, and I took Rachael's picture with her camera and with mine, and Gaetano came along to admire the settings. Leave cemetery 12:55. Then through many circlings of small blocks to the only Jewish house in the neighborhood offering lunch to tourists, served by an enormous Black with great gentility, with coleslaw and a small salad, and then a delicious sweet lemon-based sauce on tender pieces of chicken with a mound of rice that I barely touched, with a baked apple dessert topped with what could have been burnt marshmallow, followed by a tiny glass of perfectly bitter mint tea. Didn't take a picture of an odd collection of dildo-shaped figurines of local prostitutes, including those in black djelabas whom we were assured were the most free in their sexual offerings. Lunch over at 2:09, and at 2:46 to the enormous parking area for the Bardo, with only two other busses there, and into a series of rooms that I remembered only vaguely, with the thought that the ship's discovery was certainly since I was there last, impressive with columns for the building they were traveling to construct, austere-looking cot-beds of wooden slats and construction, and household implements and decorations and busts and a marvelous bronze statue of an angelic youth. Took picture after picture, dazzled by the variety and lushness of the mosaics, many more than I remembered having bought the book of in the past (since I don't think photos were allowed inside before), and took an enormous hulk of a mausoleum surrounded by the reconstruction of a garden that may have originally housed it. Stairways and statuary halls and harems and dining areas and I even picked up a piece of fallen paint from a crumbling ceiling that the guide said had to be repaired by Italian artists, since no one in Tunis was qualified for such repair work. Room after room, few with anyone in them, and I even bent over a few times to moisten the foot-dusty mosaics to see the contrast of their original colors after the dirt of years. Some sexy subjects, too, but many had large areas of white absence of original tiles. #100 outside later of an attractive 17th Century military encampment doorway that was "forbidden," though the guard at the gate clearly saw that I was photographing. Stopped after the thankfully "gratuit" john to look at what books were available, nothing really of note of the mosaics themselves. To bus to relax from great leg fatigue from walking up and down the many stairways, and we leave at 4:33. Off bus at a line of fountains surrounded by students to walk at 4:45. Told that women who surrounded their faces with veils were not allowed to work in any government offices: the idea was for equality of sexes in opportunity and dress. Guide recommends restaurant [and it's 8:25AM and I've got to get to bus!] Dar El Geld. Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul, across from French Embassy. To room TIRED at 6:14. Tomorrow: wake-up call at 7AM, leave at 8:30. 50D Visa dinner after totally confusing menu, no dish the two slices of meat surrounding a layer of tuna as described as wonderful by Mamdouh. Get some descriptions of strange words, but three on the other side order the same thing, which I guess I get a taste of, and nothing really stands out, particularly my odd dish of two thick patties seemingly held together with potatoes with large pieces of tough meat held in the middle. Tried other dishes from the sides, and I just wasn't impressed. The guy in charge of the wine tries to look through the list, and the waiter seems to recommend two different wines, but we're served both in the same glass, though there does seem to be some difference in taste between the two, the first I think mentioned to be Chardonnay, and not really that bad, but nothing to rave about. The assorted appetizers came and came at the start: sardines, vegetables, seemingly cheese- or potato-based dumplings of sorts, and then some warm appetizers of equal nonentity, but maybe I was just in a bad mood. Another table of Americans sat across from us, and a large contingent of Japanese, all listened to the zither music coming from the hallway in front of us, maybe even the SAME zither that Janna and Elsie and Janna's Tunisian friend heard when THEY ate at the same restaurant: though it seemed to spread over at least three yellow doors, though the cards in the holders all proclaimed the same name. [Now it's 7:15AM on Saturday and clearly the phone isn't going to ring for this room.] Everyone agreed we should just split the bill, though some had tea, and I had the best course of all: a dense chocolate cake that I shared with everyone at the table, surrounded with nut-caked ice cream that may have been refrozen to give the slivers of ice that made some think it might be sherbet rather than ice cream. Everyone poured the wines from the decanter, and I may have had slightly more than my share. Then to a side room when they hadn't ordered our taxis, and then a sort of dance to get our six people into two taxis, my driver interested in Oprah Winfrey and Doctor Phil! And at the end wanted to know the English translation of "au revoir," which I could only translate as "see you." Our taxi fare was 8.9, for which the husband of the couple with me "generously" offered 6D for my tip of 10D, which the driver thanked me for, but the other taxi seemed to have been only 6D, for which they ALSO paid 10D. Mess up sudoku to 11:46 to digest before bed, and get to bed at 11:50PM.
THURSDAY, 2/5/09: Wake at 4:40AM with dream, doze to 6:40, very tired. To breakfast 7:15-7:52, and to bus 8:32AM LAST, in rear with sexy Gaetano, whose legs in jeans I can't take my eyes from. 9:41AM to Testour for "fifteen minutes" to 10:28, boarding still-empty bus. Many people friendly, taking pictures of children, men, animals, and storefronts. Mamdouh remarks that the fields are VERY green now due to a few rains recently, but a week ago it was all DUST. We're SO lucky with weather! To Dougga at noon, FIELDS of foundations of ruined buildings. We sit in theater and he asks if I remember anything different from 20 years ago: No, I say, but he points out the new white mosaics on the floor of the stage and the higher levels of structure around the proscenium, some of which are still under construction. Stones with inscriptions ring the top rows: will be interesting to compare slides I took in the past (if I in fact HAVE them). Then through many houses and temples and shops and fora before getting to the iconic temple, which I seem to remember OK, but there are OTHER temples even BEYOND that I don't remember from before. He describes EVERYTHING as being rebuilt by a Frenchman at the turn of the last century, even the Phoenician tomb. 12:14 eagle in pediment carrying Julius Caesar to Africa. 7-9,000 people lived here, many of the amphitheaters, farms, and buildings still lying in wait to be excavated in far fields; everyone moved out about twenty years ago to preserve site. #171 Livic-Phoenician tomb from 200-300BC of Prince Ataban, one of King Atabis's sons, at 12:54. Sit on bus in GREAT pleasure at 1:42: it had rained a few drops, I got to tops I hadn't seen before, and down into tunnels before he led the group down to the bus. Down the road a bit to the luxury Dougga Hotel for an empty dining room with a fixed-plate dinner that I don't feel like eating much of, except for a juicy orange at the end, my cough seeming to get worse. Sit in lobby as guides talk and tourists buy postcards and look at other things to purchase. To john twice. I feel EXHAUSTED. Leave 3:06. Tomorrow 7:30 luggage out to move to Sousse. To room 4:56. Do two sudoku. Do two 11/18 Times puzzles by 7:38. Try a diabolical sudoku to 8:15, then puzzles to 9:30. Bed 9:40PM, feeling absolutely no need for dinner. Take an Ambien.
FRIDAY, 2/6/09: 2:25 still coughing. Pee. Take Fisherman's Friend. 5:06: type dreams. DAMN cough! Take two CVS cough pills and up at 6:40AM. Pack and get call at 7AM exactly. Bag out at 7:30 and breakfast to 8:08, good omelet with same single women. Wrote note in Neo file 4: 8:17AM: Glad the coughing stopped after taking the cough medicine after AGONIES through the night. Had absolutely no aftereffects of not eating dinner last night, not even to having a large breakfast this morning. Fellow from prior OAT trip comes on to say you have to INSIST on going to Cape Bon, rather than taking a turnoff that denies us some of the better scenes promised on the trip. We'll see what happens. So much for trying notes on the bus now at 8:26AM. Hassle talk to 8:33 by guy from previous tour who says, "You should see Casuarine Causeway at Cape Bon" and "You can get three-village tour for $25 around corner from hotel." Mamdouh is clearly pissed, people talk back and forth, but most think the guy shouldn't have said what he did. I praise him, to myself, for it, but offer no opinion. Who'd listen? Frances is on bus, a bright-eyed old lady taking front seat. Beni Rhier at 9:43. 9:41 weaving shop CLOSED on Friday for religious purposes. Libyan resorts being built by TUNISIANS. Nabuel at 9:58. Biggest pot, information brochures from tiny office in four languages, and we don't go to beaches, though he praises them and they're only minutes away. To 10:25, taking two more CVS cough pills, everyone jabbering but me. To pottery shop 10:32, to #194 by 11:07. Leave 11:10. No baskets 11:24, WHAT a bore! Off bus in Hammamet 11:48. Hammamet coast and ships and Mitterand's brother's castle to 12:44. 12:53 to Mamdouh's mom's house to 1:17 with mint tea, hazelnuts and three perfumes: gardenia, bitter orange, and bitter orange leaves. Well, I'm SEDUCED by kindnesses of lunch to 2:52 on Ali's farm, by Rana (age 12) and Wee-sal (age 8) daughters and young, cooking mother. Two more CVS cough drops at 3:20. Dinner 7:30 at reception. Off at Sousse medina 4:17. #220 at 5:28, Africa mosaic in room. Onto bus 5:44 at last. 6PM to room 71 in Sousse Palace to find JERRY'S bag. Call Mamdouh and he says he'll fix it? Note taken in file 4 at 6:04PM: Sitting in room 71 of the Sousse Palace with Jerry's bag in the room and mine---somewhere else. Not QUITE clear what Mamdouh said on the phone, but all I can do is sit and wait until someone comes to the door and says something that means something. Part of the last part of the day was embarrassing: as I dashed around taking pictures before meeting people in front of the shop at 5:30 for the bus, I started LEAKING PEE, so that the front of my trousers were actually wet when I managed to get into the shop, go up two escalators, and find that the john was up another level, and I peed to find my pants wet, but thankfully my flannel shirt, left out, covered the sinful spot! So I wandered around a bit more, waiting for someone to show up, and Alonso was in front waiting for everyone, and then a few more showed up, and finally Mamdouh with the rest showed up and he phoned for the bus, which was nearby, so we RODE to the hotel rather than walking there. A small panic when I didn't see my bag in the stack in the middle of the lobby, but he said that most had already been put into the rooms. He FIRST handed the key to room 71 to Jerry, then paused and took it back and handed it to me. I looked around for the elevators---is 71 on floor 7?---and a bellhop took mercy on me and showed me down a few stairs and said something like "to the right on 1," so I rang 1 on the elevator when it arrived and was directed to rooms 55-111 to the right, then to an intersection to another set of directions, then down a long corridor, across a large hallway room, down another long corridor, and through two or three doors to FINALLY find room 71, and unlock it, desperate AGAIN to pee, to find JERRY'S bag on the settee. Whatever---I found how to turn on the lights and peed with great relief, seeing that the front of my pants had finally dried, and then phoned to find SOMETHING would be done---and now at 6:12 the same cute bellhop knocks on the door with two ENORMOUS suitcases, neither of them mine. So he apologizes, tells me to stay here, and leaves with all three bags. I go out to the balcony and find I overlook an enormous blue swimming pool in front and the SEA lapping against a sandy beach just to the right, past maybe a half-dozen rooms, and maybe the exit just past the door to my room will lead down to an exit which will much more quickly lead to the sea than going back the infinitely long way to the elevator to get to the lobby---in fact, it'll probably be quicker to go around the swimming pool to get to the lobby than to go back to the elevator. Can't wait for my bag to get here so I can take my first Cipro, which I'm determined is going to cure my cough and what I fear might be the beginning of a fever, which would indicate an infection, which would hopefully mean that the Cipro could actually do some good. Now at 6:17 there's still no bag---and I KEEP hitting something that sends me to an Internet connection, after which I just have to shut the damn thing off and turn it on again to get back to where I was typing. Ah, I investigate and find I inadvertently hit "send" rather than "backspace," which gets me to the Internet message, which I can exit by hitting "esc" but now find that if I just WAIT a few seconds it seems to go back to my text automatically. STILL don't know if this is going to be MY room, so I can't even think to try to find a place to type rather than on my knees while I sit on a corner of the bed, though I hear the rumble of a bag, and at 6:20 MY bag arrives! 6:31: It's six of one and seven minus one of another: walked down two flights to get to the side of the pool, walked to the end of it to find a locked gate to the beach, but almost instantly a flunky arrived with a key to let me out, and I walked along the beach, returned to find it unlocked, detached the lock and chain just as he returned with a smile to lock me in again. I went around to the lobby, just as far that way as through the hallways, and found the SAME elevator to take me back to the SAME long hallways back to my room to finish this at 6:34PM and start unpacking so I can get to my Cipro! Take the Cipro, but I only have FOUR left, so I can't decide whether to take two a day and order more later, if possible, or just take one a day and hope for the best. Really don't feel THAT well right now, but maybe a good night's sleep will fix things? My bag was marked room 400---wonder if that was in the adjoining tower? Sudoku to 7:17. Up at 8:11, feeling pretty awful. Bed 9:05. 10:22 take three aspirin, two CVS pills, and melatonin.
SATURDAY, 2/7/09: 5:50AM take two aspirin and Cipro. 6:05, take 2 CVS night cough. No phone call at 7AM. Type to breakfast at 7:20. Breakfast table hassle when we take someone's regular table. Phone call at 7:30, it turns out. Pack and leave 8:18. To half-empty bus 8:26. Rachael shows up last: "My watch was slow." Leave 8:40AM to El Djem at 9:30 for INCREDIBLE mosaics in the House of Africa, enormous area in open with almost a hundred rooms with dozens of extant mosaics under the sun and dust. Mosaics to 11AM, taking dozens of shots inside: perfect examples with VERY few flaws; just extraordinary! To El Djem amphitheater 12:25, built 310-318AD, only 8 years: it was SIXTH largest in past, but now third, after to Rome and Verona. Then MUST stop at tourist-discovered junk shop with TONS of worthless stuff, then to a mosaic shop with one sad little boy watching over us as we look and touch everything and buy very little. To bus 12:58PM, TIRED from climbing all the stairs and looking into all the passages and going around partway INSIDE the gates, then again around the OUTSIDE after sitting at a table in relief for a few minutes. Take to #295 and two CVS day-pills to stop cough at 1:25. We gather at 5PM for the mixed-cultural couple's evening. To hotel at 2:03, exhausted. Paid Mamdouh 11.365D for 14 Cipro, a 10D note plus $1 almost exactly right, or $8.11 total, or 58 cents each! Sit to puzzles at 2:18. Lie down at 3:06, feeling just worn out. Finish 11/29 puzzle at 4:02. TV a bit, not finding remote until the next morning, having to backspace individually from channel 99 to get to BBC. Cipro at 4:40PM. Frances late for bus. Leave 5:08PM and follow car to barely new-made house to sit in a circle and drink tea and have cookies served by the wife's Hungarian mother while the two kids come in and out, too shy to say much. Arrive at house at 5:30 and sit VERY awkwardly, no one asking much of anything, except she tells ME she wouldn't join her husband if he were transferred to a country which had less freedom for women. On bus at last at 6:35, after awful session with the woman and her daughter. [612 lines of blanks! Which somehow, in the actuality, turned out to be 530 lines, somehow! How STUPID it all is: now at 8:59PM it took me TWENTY-EIGHT MINUTES to backspace that many lines. I could SIMPLY have gone to file TWO, since I CLEARLY won't do more than two or three files for this ENTIRE trip, and I could have just PRINTED out the blank lines and deleted them as a whole in WP51! AND, of course, I should have SHIFTED to a blank file so that if any silly "automatic typing" appeared, I could have simply CLEARED FILE to make it all go away. STUPID, STIPUD, yes, even STIPUD! But an obsession is an obsession, and I AM obsessed!] Tomorrow phone at 7AM, leave at 8:30. Back to hotel at 7:25, SHIVERING! 7:26 start 11/23 puzzle. Finish at 8:25. 8:30 take two night CVS pills, two aspirin, one Ambien, and one melatonin! Bed at 9:50PM. 10:08, 852 left---WHAT did THAT mean? But looking at it, it's clearly 8:52 time left between 10:08PM and 7AM tomorrow morning!
SUNDAY, 2/8/09: 12:21AM: Take Cipro, two aspirin, two more CVS, one melatonin, desperate to avoid coughing myself out of sleeping. Phone rings at 6:58, I type dream, wash face, and feel somewhat better, though I SNEEZE maybe six times on waking. Breakfast 7:30-8, good two-egg omelet again with yakking Alonso. Back to room to type, getting to top of last note 4, few for the seventh day of the trip. Leave room at 8:23, getting a decent seat on the bus, waiting for Alonso's lost laundry---to match his lost camera? But he's using another camera today: did he have TWO? Mamdouh says that at the next stop HE will collect all the laundry and take it to a place that he KNOWS will finish it on time---but we ARE there three days. Bus goes at 8:44. Mamdouh says Alhambra was built with 365 windows, so ordered that EACH sunrise in the year was seen through one and only one window. Did that mean that there were NO windows on the north side? Kairouan at 9:45, to bus at 10AM after climbing to the top of the Information kiosk to look over the reservoirs below. I type more to 10:13, determined to catch up. To video on Kairouan at 10:28, nothing much new. 10:55 to retired imam of mosque for not-very-interesting questions, Alonso saying afterward that someone should have asked why the imams don't come down harder on terrorists. Out at 11:34, feeling TOTALLY out of it: coughing, depressed, bored, wishing I were at the hotel and could do what I wanted to do. Back to bus FROZEN at 12:06; take Cipro. To mausoleum at 12:15, helpful guy takes photos inside with my camera, I give him a dinar, and when I look through I find a picture that didn't come out: he said I needed flash, so I put it on and new picture came out wonderfully! Cough STILL hurts, and here I'd hoped I was getting better, having taken five Cipro, which clearly isn't doing any good. [Now at 9:23PM I think I hear noises from Mamdouh next door, but I'm not sure.] Back to bus at 12:37, bound for Golden Yasmin Hotel La Kasbah Kairouan, five stars at 12:43. Sit at a table and am joined by Rachael and the inevitable Alonso, and I actually confide to Rachael: "I'll burst if I don't say this to SOMEONE, but does Alonso EVER shut up?" She smiles and calls him "motor mouth," and I ask how we can shut off the motor. Try a number of dishes, none of them very good, no soup at all, and stock up on desserts, mostly sweet creams, and I'm feeling worse and worse, so I go over to Mamdouh and say I won't be going with the group this afternoon to the carpet weaving, the Medina, and the bidet-plumbing shop that many women seem determined to go to. He says I should join them for dinner at 7:30 because he's going to take a vote on whether we get up earlier tomorrow to see the Casuarine Causeway---or whatever it was, though it can't be what the guy said we were missing at Cape Bon, since we're now far south of that. I say I'll vote for anything that adds to the trip. Up from lunch at 1:35 to find bag in front of door, and I just go into room and pull back the blankets, take off my pants, and crawl under the covers to shiver myself into some feeling of warmth, having put on the heat in the room. I'm SO sure I have a fever, and an infection, and my medicines AREN'T helping, that finally at 2:04PM I call reception and ask for a doctor. He calls me back to confirm at 2:10. Then Mamdouh calls to sympathize. I lie in pain until doctor Seif eddine Merghni, Medecine Generale, comes in with a young woman assistant. He asks for my history, saying he can understand English, but then he says he's confused, so I start over again with my French. First he takes my blood pressure, which he announces at 150, not that bad according to the circumstances that I think I'm about to die. But both HE and SHE insist that I DON'T have a fever, she saying that if I DID have an infection, I'd have a fever of 40 degrees, and I'm not even above 30-whatever-is-normal. Tell him about the Cipro and he says I should stop that. He looks into my throat, saying it's sore (well, YEAH!), and into my ears for some reason. Listens to my heart and completely pooh-poohs my concern about an inverted T-wave. I say that the cough HAD been productive, but now it isn't. He's not impressed by my multiple sneeze-coughs. It turns out I just have a COLD! He writes out a list of four items: 1) Tavanic, levofloxacin, to be taken once a day for five days. 2) Drill, which is an antitussive, which I NOW find has its OWN spoon inside, but it's a TEASPOON size, while he insisted I take a TABLESPOON three times a day for five days. 3) Ozothine a la Diprophylline as a SUPPOSITORY (at which I also laugh: as with my five sneeze-coughs: a new experience for me) twice a day for three days, though there are ten in the package, which he said should CALM me, but the brochure says it's "an essential oil of turpentine (Portugal type) as an adjuvant to benign, acute bronchitis, used as a mucolytic." 4) Doliprex: paracetamol, vitamin C, and pseudoephedine, for "etats grippaux, congestion nasale, and fievre," which he wants me to dissolve in water three times a day for five days, but the box only contains eight sachets. He charges $35 American cash, writing me a receipt, and goes out the door without even OFFERING to leave the prescriptions downstairs. I call reception and at 3:38 an older guy comes up for the list. I give him three $10 bills and two 10D bills, having no idea what the medicine will cost, but probably not much, since both the Cipro and the doctor were reasonable. AGAIN I sneeze spasmodically five or six times. Up to put on lip ice and drink some water, since doctor said it didn't matter if I ate or not, but I should take liquids. Guy returns about 3:50 with a bill for 40D, which he said my $30 covered exactly. I tip him $5 cash and ask for a tablespoon, which he brings me. Take a Tavanic at 4PM, the Drill at 4:08, mix the Doliprex with a bit of water at 4:10, and shove an Ozothine up my rear as I dive back under the covers. More or less zonk out until 5:30, when Mamdouh calls to say we're getting up at 6:30AM tomorrow and leaving at 8AM for the Caserine Pass. He's right next door. I decide to get up at 5:45, just so I won't be bothered about sleeping too much, and sneeze five MORE frantic times, inundating tissues. Finish 11/30 puzzle at 7PM, feeling good about it, though I'm cold in my shorts at a chair at the desk. At 8:10 I finish a VERY hard 11/22 Times puzzle I thought I'd NEVER get, and at 8:20PM got to file 4: It's almost my worst dreams come true: sick as a dog; nose constantly running, chest sore when I cough, and then there are those AMAZING spates of five or six SNEEZES that are absolutely uncontrollable. And of course it doesn't make me feel much better knowing that Mamdouh is right in the room on the other side of my bathroom wall! At least from the awful sounds I make he won't think I'm faking it. Try desperately to think what to do next: try to sleep, but wake up exhausted from coughing? Of course I hope that the FOUR medicines actually HELP me, but I can only hope for a miracle like that which happened the day following the IBM group's arrival in Cairo from Pakistan (WHY can't I think of the name of the town?---not Peshawar, not Rishikesh, not Rawalpindi, not connected with the name Yakini chicken that laid us all low---at last: Karachi!), when I was sure the day we landed that we'd NEVER recover, and the very next day we were all on our feet as if nothing whatsoever had happened. But I was younger then, and maybe could recover more quickly. I wanted to start typing HERE, before catching up on my notes for the past few days, so that I'd get my CURRENT feelings out---but that's all there was to them: I feel awful, hope that it stops, hope I can survive the rest of the trip, hope the medicines help. So back to file 1 now at 8:30PM. Then the craziness with backspacing over all the blanks, and finally catch up with all this, still coughing in pain, knowing I have to close bathroom door to spare Mamdouh now at 10PM. Well, that just leaves over eight hours' sleep! Take another dose of Drill and Doliprex and night pills and vitamins by 10:07, hoping for a good night's sleep.
MONDAY, 2/9/09: 2:28AM: Horrible time getting to sleep: first tried sitting further and further upright, but still coughed. Finally, in despair, I lay with my head on the mattress, and though every drip possible seemed to drip, I actually felt more comfortable until I finally, who knows when, fell asleep. Then up, peed, coughed, dripped, and crawled back into bed at 2:35AM, hoping to god I feel better when I next wake. Wake about 5:30 and take Drill, a mistake, because I just cough all the more. Then put the light on at 6:21AM and decide to get up and transcribe dream to 6:28, having taken earplugs out to wait for the phone to ring, my nose dripping CONSTANTLY onto my lap, something NEW to worry about with the "cough on short inhale a REAL pain," the "chest pain with each cough," and the increasingly rare "five sneezes in a convulsive row." Now I just have to keep a supply of NAPKINS around me so that I can wipe my nose constantly: do NOT look forward to facing the group at breakfast this morning! Jam a second suppository up gotchwise after having a great deal of trouble getting it out of the aluminum wrapper, and take a swig of Drill and a sachet of Doliprex, part of it hardened on the inside of the glass from last night. Get everything put away and bag out by 7AM just as Mamdouh comes out and says there was SNOW in the mountains last night, and it'll be COLD today---AND that he had exactly my symptoms ten days ago and STILL isn't fully recovered from it. I go down to the dark lobby and pass Rachael, then sit at a separate table with what I think might do me some good for breakfast: mandarin tea, orange juice, yogurt, two pieces of cheese, and a small piece of cake. Frances INSISTS on sitting with me after I'd chased Alonso away, and she's WONDERFUL: suggesting we take boiled eggs and bread with us, since lunch will be late today, and I ask if she wants orange juice and she says yes, but when it's 1.5D I apologize that I don't have my Visa card with me. Manage to get through with only one cough. Joan comes over and says, "Burt is so weak he can barely raise his arms," and I'm silly enough to not recognize Burt as her husband. Frances takes an egg for me after I FIRST take a RAW egg from the cooking bowl, corrected by a smiling waiter to take a hard-boiled egg from the SERVING bowl. Up to the room and put the comestibles into the plastic bag with the Drill, and sit down at 7:30 to type this, hoping at least the bus will be warm: I DID root out my gloves for the day, but sort of wish I'd gotten out my scarf and beret, too. But that can be for this evening. Feel VERY weak at breakfast, hardly able to move, rather like Burt, and is EVERYONE on the trip going to be sick? Frances tells about her first Moroccan doctor costing $100 for a night visit, and then $70 for a second visit, so I guess I got a bargain: I just hope he knew what he was doing! Many ask if I was given an antibiotic, and I say yes, along with three other things they don't want to know about. My nose starts dripping as I sit in my over-warm bedroom at 7:40, not really wanting to get into the day, but happy that the next stop will be for THREE nights. Guess I'll go down now at 7:45 and put in my key and get a decent seat on the bus. AND remember to shift the Neo file to THREE for spare spaces! On bus 7:51. Leave 8:03. At 8:15 turn back because idiotic DAVID forgot to turn in his ROOM key. Leave hotel again at 8:23. Through sun-dappled countryside with distant mountains and spectacular white clouds to Sbeitla at 10:02. Pay my 1D through Mamdouh because guy doesn't have change for my 10D note. Mamdouh talks through wind and my earplugs about how this place isn't even yet a Historical Site, but they're going toward it. Huge place of 7000 people about 300AD, when Diocletian built his arch, and most of it isn't even excavated, though there are some imposing temples, a Christian basilica that is enormous, and lots of rooms have geometric mosaics filling them up. Baths, a very well reconstructed theater, lots of original straight Roman roads with original stones, and great vistas. They want a half hour, I shout "Twenty minutes" and take highlights and get to the arch and ignore salesmen, but thank goodness the woman ushers me back into the Information Office, which I'd missed by a block. Back on bus 10:51 to catch this up by 11:01, warm in the bus, but still coughing a lot and my THROAT is now quite sore, seeming to need something like honeyed tea to soothe it. Everyone back by 11:05, wind-burned and all. Gloves were really great, as was the view from my camera eyepiece, as opposed to the VistaVision screen, that blocks the wind from my eyes. Pictures #311-325, just about right. Hope my cold wasn't made worse. Frances was absolutely zonked out in sleep when I got on the bus. Leave about 11:15. Cactus planted on salty ground frees the ground from salt! Take a swig of Drill at 11:50AM, but it seems to set poorly on my stomach, and my cough doesn't seem to be getting any better. #326 Kasserine Pass and Sbiba Gap Battle Monument, 19-22 February 1943, in honor of all those who fought for freedom, 5/15/06, with an American Unknown Soldier whose plane was found at the airport and whom the United States supports at a cost of $30,000/month, which truly astonished Mamdouh and all of us. 12:15PM shot also includes Tunisia's highest peak, Mt. Chaansi, at 1544 meters. Pee at Hotel Dorra, after "pusching" the door, at 12:46, due to open in two weeks and may be used for future lunches. We finally GOT to lunch at 2:17, exhausted (even eating the roll I took from the breakfast supply didn't seem to sit well with my stomach, so I was very pleased to see a soup bowl set at each place). Decent vegetable soup with bits of chicken and beef, and large lovely glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, which I suspected we would have to pay for, but NOT for 3D! Back to bus at 3:06, feeling somewhat better, helped by the increased heat in the countryside in general. I kept trying to think how to take pictures to capture the shift from trees and fields, to scrub and dirt patches, to spindly trees, with an interlude of WONDERFUL total-patches of purple, yellow, and white flowers that I REALLY wanted to take a picture of, and Mamdouh promised me I could get tomorrow or the next day. He offers to shop for a good cough syrup for all the sickos on the bus, and I say if he finds a BETTER syrup than Drill, he should get it for me, AS WELL AS getting eight more sachets of Doliprex to fill out my prescription requirement. He comes back with Calmatux, four tablespoons a day, at 3:20, for which I pay him 6D for both, as well as repaying the 1D he paid for my photo ticket at Sbeitla, which he forgot until Gaetano reminded him, and then he thanked me profusely. Take second Tavanic at 4PM, hoping this will really kill my bronchial infection. When I coughed after the Calmatux, it seemed to be bringing up junk from far LOWER than the Drill did. We take the obligatory shots of "Camel crossing," and then he tells us the remarkable fact that ANY chemical smell NEAR a week-old camel will KILL it through tachycardia, so their keepers are EXTREMELY careful to keep EVERYONE away from the fragile youngsters, cute as they may be. To Golden Yasmin in Tozeur, as elegant as the first in Sousse, at 4:57, but he'd been given the wrong phone number, so he didn't know our room numbers as we drank our complimentary orange drink (and looked through the L'Oasis bar menu with drinks that essentially run from 8D to 12D, hopefully silencing the INCREDIBLY unpleasant Jerry, who kept asking where he could buy beer. Get key to room 318 and get told that every room is on the same floor! Follow the very sick little woman in black and her husband out to the back, where there are directions to all the rooms, and I follow them into the 300 section, where I turn to the right to 318 and find myself in a SUITE at 5:08PM: separated huge bathroom and large john, a sitting area as large as my bedroom with a chest of drawers with a TV atop, a sofa, a small table and chair, and a window to a side balcony, and then the BEDROOM with two enormous twin beds (with, sadly, very thin pillows) and a marble tabletop in front of an enormous mirror below the brightest lights in the room for my Neo, with the spare pillow from the closet for my piano-bench-type stool in front. The room is frightfully cold, so I put the controls on what I think to be the maximum and open all the doors so that ALL the rooms (two bathroom and two main areas) can be heated to maximum, which the bellboy confirms when he delivers my bag. Mamdouh announces dinner up the staircase at 7:30 tonight. Joan moans, "I guess that's all that'll happen today; riding on a bus that long is VERY tiring," and I reply, "Just dinner." I unpack every single item to 5:41, filling the large marble counter in the bathroom with my panoply of medicaments for my "grippe," and prove that the tiny plastic spoon that came with the Drill bottle isn't anything near as big as a soup spoon. Also the closet with my three articles of "hung" clothing: T-shirt, pink shirt, blue pants; and the three drawers under the TV contain the hardware on the bottom, the clothes in the middle, and the past and current piles in the top drawer. Then sit down and, after having to go to photo 326 to find how the hell to spell Kasserene Pass, finish this up to glorious date at 6:13PM, not even feeling THAT bad, considering how poorly the day started off. Now if only I can get SOME sleep without COUGHING all night, I'll be VERY relieved. Let's put all my placebo-effect wishes into my Calmatux. Oh, and per Rachael's request, I tore out the last four pages of the most difficult sudoku from my book, insisting she also take the solution page, which she didn't want to do, and then observed her happily filling in numbers as we zoomed down the highway toward Tozeur. And what a place it is because of the BRICKS: everything is "required" to be patterned from these distinctive tan bricks: minarets, arches to street entrances, building facades, fences, storefronts, even the wall behind my bed! He promises that the local guide (drat, someone ELSE to pay!) will show us the complete city with a chance to take every picture we could wish in the next few days. It's finally warm enough in the room that I can take off my jacket, but I'm not ready to change into my slippers and CERTAINLY not ready to think of taking a shower, which I MUST do tonight! Get the rest of the itinerary to check the final week's stays: Monday-Wednesday 3 nights in Tozeur, Thursday one night in Douz, Friday-Saturday 2 nights in Djerba, Sunday fly from Djerba to Tunis for one night, and Monday HOME! Now 6:22: time for a puzzle? Yes, and FINISH 12/6 Times FAIRLY easy puzzle by 7:10. Start on a doublecrostic, but leave at 7:29 to be only second at the OAT table. Soup was sour, some veggies were good: artichokes and fennel; but chicken and turkey and potatoes didn't turn me on, so I left to return, shivering, to my room at 7:50, to put on TV for a bit, still damnably coughing! Go back to puzzle now at 8:14PM, hoping, somehow, the place will seem warmer. Finish it at 9:06PM. Finish second, 12/7 puzzle by 9:53PM. Time for bed? Just don't feel like a shower tonight, though the room in fact has gotten warmer. Put in my suppository at 10:35 and try to go to sleep, and again I keep on coughing, but this time in a more controlled way: I can actually CLEAR MY THROAT of phlegm rather than actually coughing, sort of pressing down on my bronchi to squeeze out the squeak-making air. Don't feel I need a built-up pillow, and the doubled blankets, with my flannel shirt, soon feel too warm, but I'm generally comfortable and might actually fall asleep by about 11:30PM.
TUESDAY, 2/10/09: Wake at 2AM with a small dream; wake at 4AM to pee, but get back to sleep fairly easily each time. Then wake at 7:20AM and figure I'll be getting a wake-up call at 7:30, so I put in my first suppository of the day, take my Doliprex and Calmatux, get out my clean shorts and socks (at last!) and get ready for my shower. But the phone still hasn't rung by 7:35, so I type this to 7:38 and decide to take a shower anyway, to let my hair dry before going out into the cold for breakfast. Take good controllable shower until 7:58AM, and still by 8:01AM there's no wake-up call. Did they miss me? Is it even later? It actually comes at 8:01:20! Simply lie back to dry off and mope and feel sorry for myself until 8:20AM. Dress in pink shirt and blue pants and leave to breakfast at 8:30AM. Everyone very solicitous: I wish they'd stop. Joan's husband is getting a doctor today. I have a large doughy fritter, from which I spill quantities of powdered sugar onto my blue pants. The "orange juice" is simply an abomination in a land famous for oranges. I take two cups of tea, some tasty soft yellow cheese, and decide I've had enough, taking two tangerines along with my boiled egg in a bag with my Calmatux (for two or three swallows during the day) and Tavanic (which I want to make sure I have at 4PM), having taken a second Doliprex right after breakfast, since I don't want to take IT along. Leave the room in fairly good order at 9:15 and get out toward the bus. Put in my key and note I'm in room 318. Bus leaves at 9:34. Mamdouh states that "the Australian flu has been going around Tunisia for the last 3-4 weeks." LOTS of pictures of train at Metlaoui 10:44-10:58 for Steve. Sit and sudoku to departure at 11:30, announced, and 11:54, actual. Back at 1:40 with FABULOUS pictures of mountainsides, mud-stream waterfalls, flowers, phosphate mining (with cars full of 75% pure phosphate that has to be shipped to Sfax for removal of the 25% remaining sand, which he says should really be done HERE, to help the 25% unemployment rate), and the train and tunnels. Bus leaves at 1:49, and Mamdouh passes out our names in Arabic characters. [3:45 carriages, dinner at 7:30, tomorrow wake-up at 7AM. Give $2 to Sarbeek guide, $2 to Jeep driver, and today's guide 1D/person (but he actually doesn't show up, and I don't give the tree-climber more, as some others do, because the 6D he got from Mamdouh seems more than enough for less than six minutes' climbing. Bring e-ticket to dinner for final arrangements.] To hotel at 2:40, quick lunch of good well-fried beef, decent cream of vegetable soup that only needed more cream, butter, vegetables, salt, and pepper. Back to room at 3:05 and lie down and cough and rest. Leave at 3:50 for brick-making, not the greatest program to 4:40, when I take my Tavanik a bit late, and then a carriage ride through "the Oasis," primarily owned by the town's oldest and richest families, to see the top layer of 375,000 palms, the middle layer of peach, tangerine, almond, and other fruit trees, and a bottom layer of flowers. #418 ruined-by-rain dates at 5:25 on way out. To bus at 5:40, not willing to take a half-hour for more shopping, but sit on the bus and talk with Frances and do sudoku until the bus returns to the hotel at 6:24. Search everything for my e-ticket, take Doliprex, put things away, sense NOW that the room is actually somewhat OVERhot, and watch a bit of TV until 7PM, encouraged by the Senate's approval of a bail-out package, until they mention that it's NOT the same as the Congress-passed bail-out package, and they'll have to be cobbled together and voted on AGAIN!!! HOW STUPID IS THAT???? Type this to 7:13, recharging batteries, and starting on the 12/14 Times puzzle. Leave for dinner 7:36PM, still not among the last, and try BOTH soups, poor, take a bit of beef, not bad, and an actual GOOD pumpkin casserole, but I'm just not HUNGRY, and think possibly sugar, as in desserts, is NOT what I need to clear my bronchi, so I simply leave with two MORE tangerines, getting back to finish this at 8:08PM and get to my real love: PUZZLES! Finish 12/14 Times puzzle by 8:37PM. Finish the total nonsense of the 12/21 acrostic by 10:10PM, having worked fruitlessly on the 12/20 puzzle an unknown length of time. So now GOT to get to BED! Bed at 10:24PM, having shoved a suppository up and undressed completely for bed for the first time in three or four days. Cough a few times but seem to fall asleep comfortably quite quickly.
WEDNESDAY, 2/11/09: 12:18AM: [Start file 2 at this very day-beginning.] Think I hear the phone ring just after midnight, put on the light to see that it's 12:10AM, and then remember I had a dream and transcribe that. Then go get my earplugs, which I'd thought I wouldn't need, but I find I'm preoccupied by hearing the heating system switch on and off now that I've put the temperature down below the maximum and it's not getting quite as hot in here as it had before. And now use my slippers to pee at 12:21AM. Pee at 4:07, take Calmatux, and immediately cough. Record dream. Phone rings at 7:01AM, waking me from a dream in which I'm NOT in the same place as I was last night and have "left" my flight itinerary where it'll be difficult to retrieve. Relieved to realize it's all right here in Tozeur. Still coughing; nose dry, throat sore, still feeling tired, still no real feelings of appetite or hunger. Now it's Wednesday: in FIVE days I'll be HOME---still recovering from whatever illness I've picked up HERE. Trip to villages today should be interesting, however. Suppository, Doliprex, wash face and hands, feel TIRED! Dress quickly and get out to breakfast LATE at 7:50AM. Mamdouh did NOT get my flight itinerary, but he picked it up, did it, and gave it back to me at breakfast. Couple not going, many sick, cereal and tea not bad, yogurt palatable, cheese less so. Back to room at 8:08 to put lots of things away and take my forgotten morning pills, pee, and leave room at 8:22AM. SUVs go at 8:37, Alonso sadly in front of mine, Janna in back at first, but Alonso so turns me off that I put in earplugs and at the first stop insist that I get in back to be farthest from him. But it IS cramped and bumpy in back. Get to Chebika at 9:48 for ruins walk until 10:39, taking lots of pictures and finally springing 5D for about a pound of mica crystal. Find car at 10:44. To old town at 11:13: Tamarza, then to Mides for steep canyon and desert-bug scurrying in my movie. Stop for lunch in country house with ridiculous dining table set in the direct sun, but Alonso, Frances, maybe a few others, and I eat inside, not having wine, but I taste it at the end and it's not very good, either the red or the white. I take a large shit in clean bathroom to 1:20, and eat to 1:45. Then have an orange, a date, and mint tea to 2:12. Into car at 2:23, visiting a nomad family "who can't stand living in the city," and I insist that Alonso take his turn in the back of the car. Leave at 2:53 for a wild ride through the desert for the Star Wars set, refurbished only three months ago, just before about a hundred French students arrive to take over the place. Leave at 3:45, and to hotel at 4:25, arranging to meet at 7:30 for dinner. Into room to take Tavanic at 4:30, Doliprex at 4:31, and wash mica: was it somehow TREATED to look better in the sunlight? Back to 12/20 puzzle at 4:44 and FINISH it at 5:36, doing much better than I'd hoped, getting "palazzopants" and "Agnes Grey" for the impossible answers. At 6:14 finish the 12/21 Sunday puzzle, made easy with the central column of "HO"s. Then, feeling tired, lie down at 6:21, and get up and ready to leave room at 7:27 to be delayed getting 28.16D for $20, so bus leaves at 7:33. To the restaurant that rips off a 10D meal for 15D for a meat "briq," a tough camel steak that tastes oddly like ostrich, and finally an orange, to which Gaetano recites his mother's mantra: "Orange is gold in the morning, silver at lunch, and lead in the evening." Can't prove it by me, I don't think. Amazed that he recovered from complete inanition yesterday to a spirited description of Sicilian Mafiosi at dinner. Finish at 9:13, pile into the bus, prepared to get wakened at 7AM tomorrow and expect to be packed and out by 8:30. To room at 9:23 to look again at my cleaned mica, and catch this up-to-date at 9:40, not being able to resist getting out another set of puzzles. Start 12/27 at 9:44PM. Finish at 10:22PM, definitely time to stick something up my ass and get to bed. Bed at 10:34PM. Cough exactly once, start a very leisurely Actualism, and seem to fall asleep within five minutes easily and comfortably.
THURSDAY, 2/12/09: 4:07AM: Wake thinking it must be nearly 7AM, debating taking a shower, but at least think I might have to take a crap. This two-week trip, only two-thirds finished, is beginning to feel like FOREVER! Take Doliprex, figuring to finish up much of medicine today and tomorrow. Type dream. Back to bed 4:25AM. 6:40AM: In an orgy of energy I get up, shower without washing my hair, powder, deodorize, and suppository by the 7AM wake-up call, which finally comes at 7:07, when I am well into packing. Bag packed completely by 7:20, everything else goes into shoulder bag. I think I coughed only TWICE this entire morning! And I can't believe the ENERGY I have, which must be in GREAT contrast to the energy I DIDN'T have when I had my bronchial infection and the sleeplessness that came from nights of coughing. Now I have to tolerate those who are NOW in the position I was in two or three days ago! Amazing how much MORE noise I hear now of carts being trundled past my windows than I remember from my first two days here! Now I only have to put luggage out at 7:22AM. Still QUITE cold out, and sun is JUST lighting tops of the sides of the rooms out my window. At 7:27 a cutie knocks on my door to make sure I have only ONE bag to be taken. "Now I have something to be taken care of inside---." But, sadly, now I feel a bit tired (though maybe it's just because I've done everything I have to do and have just to go to breakfast, for which I'm not yet hungry), so maybe my enthusiasm has burnt out my candle-flame already. Leave for breakfast at 7:30AM. Omelet for first time in ages (eggs with cheese, only additive available), two rolls, two cups of vervain tea, and nice chat with Rachael and avoidance of Alonso and Jerry, whom I actually told about my "zone." He'd probably be the first to look for it! Back at 8 with stuffy nose and prepare for two tangerines and a puzzle. Get to lobby at 8:20AM. Leave 8:35, just behind Frances, for whom I open another bottle, but next to STINKY Jerry. Mamdouh chews us out about taking too much water, which we should have been paying for, but which he's GIVING us, and after announcing TWO school visits (which give me the shivers) says ("I can't tell you the reason until I get the rage out of my voice") that we are NOT going to the schools, possibly because of our reputation as the "sick bus." [He later tells us they had the nerve of QUADRUPLING the agreed-upon price!] Take to #532 of the Chott at 9:25AM. Alonso wins a palm-wood box for having the most OAT/GCT trips: 14. Frances and I tied at 11. At steam-water to 10:33, being told that guys undressed for their swim just after I left. [Bag comes 12:45PM.] Today happens to be Thursday market in Douz. To market 11:32-12:15. To bus 12:16 after #563. 12:22 finish 1/4 crossword. Bus goes 12:25. [1PM lunch, 3PM wedding, then camels. Tomorrow wake-up 6:30, leave 8AM for Djerba.] To Sun Palm Hotel at 12:30 for greeting drink and key to room 121. Type this to 12:58, tiring. Puzzle frustration to 1:07, then around long way to dining room for same-old-same-old soup, decent salad, particularly cabbage, and then a sort of sausage that tastes worse with each bite, cooked carrots inferior to the raw carrots of the salad, and rice of no character. I leave quickly, Alonso sitting next to me. Back to type this to 1:38, not knowing whether to be tired or puzzled. Look at only two words of the solution to finish 1/4/09 acrostic by 2:42PM, having had SIX definitions definitely off, only EIGHT right, and the remaining TEN completely unknown before I got clues from the solution. Could NOT have done it ANY other way, however---except to have given up, which there was no reason to do. Type this at 2:45, not really looking forward to us "participating" in the wedding this afternoon before riding camels in the desert. Give up and take last Tavanic at 2:50PM, no way to take it and water along for the afternoon. Wedding to 3:41, much picture-taking, many ululations from women marrying Gaetano and Crista. Onto camel 4:01 and off at 4:49: what is there to say: I worry about falling off, worry about camel stumbling, worry about next ones coming too close and literally trying to lift my foot off. I fear falling off, lifting legs to ease crotch pain, hoping it'll be over. The produced "threat" of the nomad prince riding up on his horse, then demanding 5D to let it be ridden. Give 2D tip to disgruntled young driver. [7PM dinner, Mamdouh in room 107.] To room at 5:07, TIRED. TV to 5:24. Do 1/11 crossword to 7:03, looking at one space for solution. Turn heat on at 7:20; it finally works. Dinner awful, back at 7:56, just not hungry. 8:42 finish 1/18 acrostic. Finish 1/18 puzzle 9:31. 9:49 take penultimate suppository and go to bed at 9:50.
FRIDAY, 2/13/09: 1:25AM: wake, pee TWICE, finish Calmatux, type non-memory of prior dream. Wake-up call at 6:32 after three other wakings. Ready at 6:56AM, type to 7:02AM to date, ready (ugh!) for breakfast. Bag out in COLD DIM air of 7:06AM, a dove cooing VERY loudly in the courtyard. Four last breakfasts! 7:34AM: Breakfast even skimpier than usual: hot chocolate, no awful juice, one orange, one fritter with regular (not powdered) sugar, and one thin crepe with honey. None of the "hot" liquids were hot. Alonso ordered eggs and got hard-boiled eggs with leopard spots inside the shell, which I excused as being burns from the cooking pot. Would that it were so. Glenda (FINALLY got her name!) just goes ON and ON in that ingratiatingly "pity poor me" voice, even when I give NO evidence of LISTENING to her. And that sick smile, even when she says she's tired of smiling when she doesn't feel like smiling. Janna is comatose, sitting and staring at her box of tissues. Elsie is more chipper, talking about her self-cooked tour to the caves south of Tours in France with some group. Rachael is sitting in the dark lobby all by herself, having always finished breakfast before the others start. Mamdouh stops me to give me an OAT form for 75D, LESS than I told him I spent! Will have to go with doctor's form. Not to mention all the money I spent on syrups and medicines NOT covered by the doctor and supplied by Mamdouh! Puzzles running low when I return to them at 7:40AM---well, maybe I should just go to the bus! Type on bus 7:45, leave 8:03. SNOWING in Tunis. #579 Douz to Djerba 8:29AM, road built in 1997. #580 Tamezret 9:20. 10AM Mamdouh left his ID card in Tamezret; bus returns for it. Off at 10:16. Leave Star Wars set in Matmata at 10:36. Not really much there. To Mareth 11:30, stop 11:32 at Mareth Line Military Museum, which I choose not to enter, but take two pictures. Do sudoku, leave 12:08 to ferry town at 12:44. BOTH ferries re-dock at 1:15, and we leave 1:30. Dock at 1:45, on larger, faster ferry. To Essofra Restaurant for lunch [Tomorrow wake-up 7:30, leave 9AM.] 2:15-3:25, actually good: spicy tasty soup, bulgar-based lamb dish that's edible, and a pear, a bergamot, and an orange (shared with Gaetano) for dessert. Crista forgets her PURSE at table and has to go back! To Synagogue 3:45-4:20, very sunny, not at all old looking. Mamdouh announces his room as 35 (mine is 34). 7PM dinner. Get to room at 4:55 and try to unpack as much as I can before my bag comes at 5:05, when I shit to 5:20 to great relief from last suppository, depositing such a great turd that it takes over five flushes to get it down. Put on TV to look at the plane crash that killed 53 in Buffalo. Stop now at 5:34 to puzzle. DO 1/3 puzzle by 6:12! Dinner 7:20-8:12, having soup, salad, meats, desserts, some chat, not the worst. 8:33: finish LAST Sunday crossword! 9:33 quit trying to start the 1/31 Saturday puzzle. Tired and ready for tomorrow. NO more suppositories! HARDLY any coughing! NEW room to get used to. 7:30 wake-up tomorrow. Bed at 9:48PM, and sleep almost immediately. 11:40PM: Wake with dream and a cough. Record former. 11:51PM: Have a pee and the final Doliprex. Goodbye to the flu for good?
SATURDAY, 2/14/09: 3:30AM: Type dream. Pee. Portions of that enormous turd are still visible just inside the coils of the toilet: I wish I could be sure that the toilet was CLEAR when I used it last night, and it WAS my turd, or was it something left over from before, as CLEARLY there is something left over NOW? 6:12AM: Lengthy dream about Michael B. Take Valium at 6:30AM. Wake-up call at 7:35AM. Tired. Decide on $40 tip for Ridha: $3-4/day for 12 days, and $100 tip for Mamdouh, $7-10/day for 12 days. Leave for breakfast 8:05AM. Great chat with Frances, by far the best choice as a dining companion. Leave at 8:45, pass Mamdouh knocking on his door for Gaetano, and type this to 8:48, ready to wash hands from tangerine juice and leave. Leave on bus 9:15. [6:30 meet in bar tonight.] Go to Pottery Topfer, in Guellala, 9:45-10:30; I take a few photos and mainly sit outside, brooding. To Houmt Essouk shops 10:56 (jewelry) to 11:30. I sit in sun on step, bored. Free to roam to 12:45. I walk through markets, with SOME fish, since boats have been forbidden to go out due to high winds for the last five days, to 12, and then sit on public bench to watch taxis being pushed by manually to save gas. No one particularly sexy or on the make passes. What a BORE! 12:44 board bus. Bus goes at 12:51 to Elysses Caravel for lunch 1-1:42, decent meat and cheese briques to start, edible veggies, and even a few spoons of couscous and carrots with 3-4 glasses of Haut Mortag red wine, and even a mackerel-family (they say) fish that I filet neatly and that tastes good with spices on the skin. Take photos, the crew takes one of me with them, and they entertain with bagpipe and drum and clapping and dancing, and I feel reasonably good in spite of myself. 2:25 finds us, finally, after Mamdouh asks two sources, at Al Jezira Shopping Mall, where I spend 1.2D on a good chocolate bar. Tomorrow flight 003 from Djerba 9:30 to Tunis 10:30AM; phone wakes us at 6:30 to leave at 8AM with all of group to say goodbye. Back to room at 3:08. I fuss with things, trying more puzzles fruitlessly, down to the final three, and at 3:48 lie down. 5:24 try to shit and manage to excrete nothing. 5:36, put $100 in envelope for Mamdouh, but of course typing this reminds me that we'll see him tomorrow, with bus driver, too. Finish this to 5:50, counting 48 hours to 5:50PM Monday, just before noon in NYC, or about 54 hours to home! How can I count the seconds? Take another Valium? I think not. Puzzles for a few more minutes? 6:14: Really getting NOWHERE with them: just put them away and try to Google them when I get home! Family VERY noisy above me. To bar at 6:24PM. Crista and husband booed by me at 6:42, though Mamdouh hastens to add that he said we should gather between 6:30-6:40, and I do NOT bother to say that they did NOT arrive by 6:40. Everyone hates me. Half-hour of bullshit to 7:04, when I say, "I treasure the tour guide because when he speaks to you, YOU are the center of his attention; he's listening and responding only to YOU, and that's great." We leave for Restaurant Haroun, have three glasses of red Haut Mornag, good large fish, GOOD talk with Gaetano, and exchange cards with him as he teaches each year at an upstate New Jersey college, though his next date is April, 2010. We leave at 9:30, LATE, signing up for the e-mail list, and I ride back stoned to room at 9:54, making sure Mamdouh'll be around tomorrow morning for his envelope. Have a BIG shit! At 10:09 I type to 10:14PM to catch up, with barely eight hours of sleep to get before wake-up at 6:30 and departure at 8AM, when we all say goodbye to each other and nine of us go to the airport for Tunis, while the other four go south to Tataouine. Undress and take Valium at 10:20 and bed at 10:26PM.
SUNDAY, 2/15/09: 4:48AM: ENDLESS sex dreams! 6:28AM: Get VERY little into Actualism and fall asleep. Then phone rings in middle of a tumultuous dream. Type dream to 6:34AM. 6:50AM: I'm so late already, I just take a melatonin, shit, wash face, and start dressing! 7:02AM: Unpack dop kit to put Valium into shoulder bag. 7:28AM: Everyone's eating at tables alone this morning: I drop Mamdouh's envelope off with a smile, and he thanks me, and I pat Ridka on the shoulder and say I'll see him later. Order an omelet and THINK (but probably not) someone who was after me takes it, but I'm OK with only a roll and butter and apricot preserves and a glass of half Tang and half lemon juice for my pills. No more obligatory meals with ANY of the group! Put magazines and puzzles into shoulder bag to occupy airport time, and also have these files to proofread. Rachael is sitting in the lobby even AS I go in to breakfast! Have to brush my teeth this afternoon. Frances comes to my table and says how much she enjoyed my company on the trip, and I say I wish I could be continuing on to Tataouine (partly true) and that I hope she has a good trip. Jerry stops by Joan's table and wishes SHE could come along on the continuation, since he so much liked her company, and, no surprise, he says not one word to me. My bag is gone from the door, my room is empty except for my Neo and the newly risen sun streaming into the room, and I'm only slightly concerned about a runny bowel movement this morning. Don't need any other problems before NYC! May even lie down for a moment now at 7:34AM. 7:43: Shit AGAIN, but not quite with panic---yet. Leave room at 7:51AM. I get Frances's seat on the bus at 8AM, everyone standing in the entryway waving goodbye to the nine of us. To the airport at 8:31. Check in 8:37, insisting on a "gauche" window seat even though he gives me 17F to start with; I end with 17A. No seats at closed gate, so I sit in smoky coffee shop while others stand. Sudoku to 8:56. They TAKE the white card we've come through the country with---hope that's OK! Board at 9:20, chasing guy from MY window, then wiping it clean. Off at 9:31, propjet bumping into the air, taking #665 of Gabes at 9:40, other mostly orchards and some dry areas and villages, with snow in the distance that's impossible to take a picture of. Down over the city, taking Hotel Africa as we land at 10:27AM. Off plane at 9:31, 9 degrees Centigrade, onto bus, and stand in lobby at 10:49. Our guy comes but somehow our bus doesn't. I find a place to sit while others continue to stand. Rachael tries to switch her flight, but they delay her until our bus leaves at 11:06, so she has to take a cab to catch up with us in the hotel lobby at 11:20, where they wait for a bit for our rooms, Janna joining me in sitting down, and to room 906 at 11:38, taking my own bag. I unload stuff for today and tomorrow, and the bellboy comes in to put stuff into minibar. Then I tear everything apart looking for the inked schedule Mamdouh made for us, finally finding it at 11:57, verifying that we have a 2:30AM wake-up call. So for eight hours' sleep, that means going to bed before 6:30PM tonight, just about six hours from now. Joan asks if I've "checked out the city to see what to do this afternoon," and I say simply, "I'm going to sleep." Finished New York magazine at the Djerba airport, which I gave to Joan, and get well into the 2/2 New Yorker during all this morning's waits. Now at 12:08PM I don't really know what to do! Try TV. Watch, switching channels, to 12:57. Lie down; think; brood. 1:08PM: DAMMIT: Just MUST go find some small lunch to get rid of my last 10D note! 2:11PM: Holy CRAP! Walk down "this side" of the street, nothing much. Cross to the outside restaurants, and find that the big, crowded one [Panorama] outside ALSO has an enormous inside space. Walk in to see ices and cakes and drinks for small amounts. Toward the back are cold and hot dishes, and I see a "Hamburger Plat" for 6.5D. How big could it be? I ask what it is, and she shows me a small patty, saying it's also with salad. I say OK and she says I have to pay for it in front. Go to the front, say "Hamburger Plat," and she says "Hamburger Plat?" and I say, as usual, "Si," and she rings me up a chit for 6.5D. Take it to the girl, who smiles, and takes a while serving six or seven others and comes up with TWO patties, on which she puts two pieces of cheese (which I'd fantasized asking for, but assumed it was too late, since the supplement for fromage was .7D), and then the guy asks what I want on it: what I think is catsup (but of course is blazing-hot harissa) and mayonnaise. Take both, then say yes to all the salads: two lettuces, fennel, cabbage hearts, olives, and a load of French fries. AND she plunks four small buns onto the tray itself. Incredible. She's about to add a knife and fork to the tray to which she's added a napkin when I show her I have them already. She smiles, and I'm complete! Take it upstairs and find a table right at the edge of the balcony, looking down at the diners downstairs and bits of those eating on the street. Two guys next to me order a very pale cheese pizza, which one guy can't stand, and goes away for a long time and comes back with what I assume everyone else has: what seems to be schwerma. I eat and eat, and figure I won't have ANYTHING for dinner: this can surely last me until 6PM! Some partially attractive guys, but I don't see any reason to remain on the street, so I cross to Hotel Africa, make doubly sure my room 906 wake-up is at 2:30AM, and get upstairs to finish typing this at 2:19, wondering how I'm going to stay AWAKE with all this food on my stomach (and in my teeth). Sudoku to 3:55PM, eyes closing. Finish 2/2 New Yorker at 5:04PM. Take evening pills at 5:17PM and decide to take a shower, just to DO something. Turn up heat in room, too. Out at 5:50, having discovered a SORE at the front of my foreskin, just below the head. What is THIS now?? Put on antibiotic powder, brought for just this purpose. Finish the last of the Drill, the last of ALL flu medications. 5:58: Powder, deodor, and manage to lose two PILLBOXES, maybe at breakfast this morning? Prepare to brush teeth while watching TV. 6:25PM: Take Ambien and whole melatonin; pee; everything ready for bed. Bed 6:29PM. Asleep easily; phone rings at 7:38PM mysteriously. Disturbed, unremembered dream. Back to sleep instantly.
MONDAY, 2/16/09: 12:49AM: Wake and wonder what time it is. Type dream in this file by mistake. Monday has begun. Pee, and take Valium to 12:54AM. Lie and think about all the things to do before I leave: (1) get the name of my lunch place across the street, 2) pack for the two flights, 3) have breakfast) and the things to do when I get back to NYC: (1) call Dr. Chin for many problems: a) cock-sore, b) Avodart skipping, c) flu remnants; 2) check status of a) Nepal/Bhutan trip, b) Britain trip with Ken, c) Labrador trip with Steve; 3) catch up with mail, 4) see dentist, 5) unpack. Get up at 2:27AM and type the stuff above, ready for 2:30AM wake-up call. 2:34AM: Take 1/2 melatonin. Blow nose, pee, wash face, get wake-up call at 2:38AM. Pack everything by 2:55 and am ready to leave, putting Neo on file 3 for protection. I actually got junk on it twice! 4:30AM: Total ineptitude! Bag out 2:59. Get into elevator and helpful bellboy says "the restaurant" is on one, not zero. I get off, and Elsie and Janna are eating coffee and rolls and strawberry juice. I have the same, joined by the other two couples. They say Rachael and Alonso are leaving on later flights. Janna and Elsie ate at Elsie's friend's house until 10PM! I have three rolls and two cups of coffee and three glasses of juice until 3:21AM. Bus is empty down the street as I go out to find that I had lunch at the Panorama, and it IS raining ever so slightly. We're all ready in the lobby at 3:28, but no one else is. Bags come down on a trolley at 3:31. I sit in the dark for a few minutes until it's clear nothing's about to happen, so I go to the back and move a lamp toward a chair, turn it on, and start sudoku at 3:45. Finally onto bus at 3:59, my bag loading, and we're off at 4:01, still in light rain. Five cops wave us through red lights on the main street. To airport at 4:12, and three porters take over three trolleys and practically FORCE a tip of 1D, at which he bitches until I push past him. Check in at 4:18, AGAIN having to switch from a LEFT window seat to a RIGHT window seat, this time 6F, which should surely be IN FRONT of the wing. Boarding time is 5:45. Look around for signs for gate 50, but there's nothing of the sort. Ask someone, and they say it's downstairs. Go downstairs, look around, and they say it's upstairs. Go back up and finally see a tiny door with "Departs" flashing for the first six flights, but when I stand at the door, two police-types at nearby chairs point to their watches and shake their heads as I shrug my shoulders in complete unknowingness. Sit down and finish typing the end of note 7, going to the last, which just happens to be note 8, at 4:40AM, everyone sitting next to me clearing their throats and wondering about schedules. They say the gates will be open in a few minutes. Yeah, and we've been up for two hours and twenty minutes already! Fill out card, then through security at 4:50AM. Pee, to gate 50 at 5:02. Sudoku. Photo of empty lounge. Board 5:45, AT engine, but at 6:05AM risk moving to empty seat one up, just at the announcement that we'll be moving in ten minutes, the skies are clear to Rome, and the flight will be one hour. I type this to 6:09, hoping for the best, camera at the ready. Move back at 6:15, still pitch-black outside. Sudoku to 6:22. Off at 6:24. Sun appears above clouds at 6:49, with a GREEN SPOT to the right of where I THOUGHT it was coming up, but a second later it came up RIGHT THERE. Clouds remain gray; we steer right between Sicily and Sardinia, so there's no land until I see a dim river-mouth appear just before landing at 7:20 [56-minute flight, from announced 1:30 time]. We had only red orange juice and four tiny chocolate-chip cookies. Off plane down nonmoving stairs at 7:32, and onto COLD bus. Onto transit line in terminal at 7:47 for security---why they do security when we just got off a plane is still a mystery. Look for Alitalia flight 608 leaving at 9:55AM and find nothing on boards. Look and look, and finally go into a "Help Center." He looks at me as if I'm crazy and points down the hall to "Information." I start down hall, don't see anything like "Information," and stop at "Customs" to ask for help. She really tries: looks at her computer, looks at the boards, back to the computer to tell us that it's associated with a Delta flight that's leaving from gates C26/27: "It's easy: just go up the moving stairs, to the right, and you'll find the gate." Show up at the gate and the surly blonde behind the desk asks why we came here: this is Delta and we're going Alitalia, which is elsewhere. I simply say, "We can only go step by step." She tries her computer and finally says we should go to G32, which is Alitalia. Jenna and Elsie have been following me, followed closely by Joan and her husband, and finally Crista and her husband join the queue, though Joan isn't supposed to leave for Atlanta until 1PM or later. I ask for my seat by the right window in row 14, but she says the plane HAS no row 14, so I get 15G; she assures me that G IS a window seat. It damn well better be! Copy down the information that flight AZ7614 boards at 9:45 and leaves at 10:25, which is only a half-hour after our "scheduled" departure. Let's hope it works out. Joan and her husband hope their luggage-tag change works. Get my boarding pass and then go through the usual list of security questions. They seem to process the others behind me as I sit and finish this to 8:41, time just passing---though I remarked to Elsie that I've signed up on my usual "screaming baby" flight. Cool in the waiting area, but it feels comfortable. I'm not coughing much, thank goodness, though I can still feel the phlegm in my lungs. Beginning to be the tiniest bit hungry, too. Decide to proofread file 1 starting at 8:45AM to 9:26, all kinds of announcements going past in English through my earplugs. Pee 9:39. Board 9:45---NO window at seat! Appeal to stewardess in rear, who lets me sit until everyone boards, and last seat remains untaken at 10:13! I scrape away at crud on window, but it doesn't do much good. Flight announced as taking 8:37. Move back 10:26. Off at 10:43. Flight DL149. Lots of pictures of coastal towns on Riviera and FANTASTIC Alpes Maritimes covered with snow, with one GREAT peak standing out against the Mediterranean. GOOD chicken breast lunch (WHAT a way to compare Tunisian food: the PLANE food was MUCH better!) after a free tonic (plus gin is $7!). Have a Chardonnay with lunch. Magazine puzzles to 1:47, mostly cloudy below, but we're over the Atlantic by now, I guess. One hour to halfway point. Catch up with this by 2:02PM and start proofing file 2. Finish at 2:49PM, having had a couple REAL jolts that the pilot said were caused by sudden temperature changes, and will the stewardesses please sit down. Thank goodness the bumps don't last long. Decide to start proofing file 4 at 2:51PM to 2:58. Now to file 8. Finish at 3:15, and the flight has really gotten uncomfortable: we seemed doomed to fly at JUST the tops of the clouds, sometimes in, sometimes out, bouncing madly back and forth. Now I realize I get the worst of it because I'm in the last row, but it's STILL not very comfortable! So now everything's proofread to this point! Let's see: off at 10:43, now 3:17; that's four hours and thirty-four minutes, more than HALF the eight hours and thirty-seven predicted minutes. Just four hours to go, then an hour to get home: five hours is 300 minutes! Now to New York magazine. 4:35 finish 2/9 New York magazine; 2:45 to go. 5:18 pee and start watching Labrador under ice from the window. 6:45 pizza snack, and may have taken a picture of Boston. Land at 7:14, said to be one degree Centigrade, but it feels warmer than that. Plane docks at 7:23, off plane 7:31, walk and walk to a short passport line, through at 7:41, and pee at 7:43. Follow lower-level signs to taxis and find them under a portico leaving off and taking on passengers, and get a Sikh at 7:47, who drives me quickly home by 8:30 for a very thanked-for $41 on a $36+ fare. Weigh stuff to 8:46, and take down nine telephone calls: 1) ad, 2) Carolyn, 3) Anthony Gray, 4) OAT on Nepal, 5) Piri on index, 6) Piri for e-mail, 7) Spartacus, 8) CVS for prescription, and 9) OAT on Nepal again. Call them at 8:51-9 (still on Tunisian time) to find they want to start on 4/4, not 4/2, OK with me. Talk to Spartacus 9-9:33, make my Met request 9:34-9:36, go through 15 e-mails by 9:47, and call Piri 9:47-9:57, Games Group on Sunday. Call Bill Petersen when Ken calls to make me make sure Edgardo doesn't overlap important dates in Wales, and pick up the four Times by 10:21. Quickly scan the mail to 11, have an unfrozen Healthy Heart dinner 11:05-11:40, and then put the sheets on the bed and lower the shade on the darkening outside around 6PM local time, and j/o from 12-12:35, not that great, and get to bed at 12:53, or 6:53PM local time.
TUNISIA SUMMARY PAGE
MON,2/2/09: Fly JFK to Milan 6:52PM-8:05AM [7:17 flight].
TUE,2/3/09: Fly Milan to Tunis 11:18AM-12:53PM [1:35 flight]. Mamdouh greets us at Hotel Africa. Get cash at a bank. Buy water. Sudoku. Lose earplugs. Dinner at Hotel Africa buffet, not very good. Seemingly not-bad group.
WED,2/4/09: Vie Parisienne on TV. Breakfast in hotel. Bus to Sidi Bou Said on the Gulf of Tunis; buy a bombolini; to Carthage for Antonin Baths, buy a book, to American Cemetery for Rachael's great-uncle's grave. Jewish home-hosted lunch good. Walk various neighborhoods and elaborate shops in covered medina. Bardo Museum long visit. Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul. Tired. Dinner at elegant Dar El Geld, not that great. Somewhat interesting group. Sudoku; bed.
THU,2/5/09: Bus to Testour, then Dougga for enormous ruins and lunch at Dougga Hotel, cough getting worse. Hotel for sudoku and puzzles. Bed without dinner.
FRI,2/6/09: Good omelet breakfast. Guy warns about missing Casuarine Causeway at Cape Bon. Beni Rhier for closed weaving shop. Nabuel for biggest pot and information brochures. Hammamet and coast and Mitterand's brother's castle. To Mamdouh's mom's house for teas and hazelnuts. Lunch on Ali's farm with charming daughters. Sousse medina and ribat. Dinner in Sousse Palace Hotel. Feel awful.
SAT,2/7/09: El Djem for mosaics in House of Africa; amphitheater; junk shop. No lunch, then tea and cookies at Tunisian husband-European wife house. No dinner.
SUN,2/8/09: Taking Cipro for cough, good omelet breakfast. To Kairouan to climb to top of information kiosk, to mausoleum, then Golden Yasmin Hotel La Kasbah for a peckish lunch, feeling worse, so I don't join tour to carpet weaving, medina, and bidet-plumbing shop. Call doctor for $35 cash and get four prescriptions: Tanavic, Drill, Ozothine suppository, and Doliprex for $35. No dinner, but have lots of oranges and tangerines. Bed at 10PM, exhausted.
MON,2/9/09: Cough all night and nose drips. Small breakfast with Frances. Bus to cold, windy Sbeitla, wonderful ruins; Kasserine Pass and Sbiba Gap Battle Monument. Lunch at local Gafsa restaurant. Golden Yasmin Hotel in Tozeur, the brick-pattern city. Little dinner and chest slightly improving with medicines.
TUE,2/10/09: Bus to Metlaoui Red Lizard Train through Seldja Gorge phosphate mines. Decent lunch in hotel, then to brickmaking and a carriage ride through "The Oasis" for trees and dates. Light dinner, tangerines, more puzzles. Cough.
WED,2/11/09: OK breakfast, SUVs to Chebika ruins, buy a mica crystal in the canyon, To Tamaghza and Mides, lunch in a country house, then to Lariguett for Star Wars sets. Lots of puzzles; local Tozeur restaurant for dinner; bed 10.
THU,2/12/09: Shower at last, more energy. Omelet and two tangerines. Across Chott El Jerid salt flats to Douz for market, Sun Palm Hotel for lunch, then to "wedding" and camel ride, more puzzles, TV, awful dinner, bed at 9:50PM.
FRI,2/13/09: Bus Douz to Djerba via Tamesret, Star Wars cantina in Matmata for troglodyte caves, the Mareth Line Military Museum (which I sit out), and ferry to Djerba for lunch at Essofra Restaurant, actually good. To historic El Ghriba synagogue dating from 6th century BC, dinner in hotel, more puzzles.
SAT,2/14/09: Breakfast in hotel, to Pottery Topfer in Guellala, then to Houmt Essouk shops for jewelry, walk markets, bus to lunch on Elysses Caravel, good with Haut Mortag red wine, with "pirate" entertainment on ship. Buy chocolate at Al Jezira Shopping Mall. More puzzles, deliver tips. Dinner in Restaurant Haroun, good talk with Gaetano who teaches in New Jersey in April, 2010. Back to room plotzed from wine. Have a big shit and take a Valium and bed 10:26PM.
SUN, 2/15/09: Good final breakfast, some of group continues south to Tataouine, fly Djerba to Tunis 9:31-10:27AM [:56] to Hotel Africa. Lunch at Panorama and shower and take last of flu medications. Bed at 6:29PM and sleep well.
MON, 2/16/09: Up at 2:27AM after almost eight hours in bed. Light breakfast, to airport at 4:12 and fly Tunis to Milan 6:24-7:20 [:56], and have trouble finding connecting flight. Fly Milan-JFK 10:43AM-7:14PM [8:31], or 1:14PM EST. Make phone calls, look at mail and e-mails, and get to bed at 12:53AM European time, or 6:53PM New York time. It takes a long time to recover from the sickness of the trip and the ensuing exhaustion.