after 42 hrs (yes 42!!) we are finally here. surrounded by young, tall, skinny and did we say young girls who didn't fly 42 hrs. the sky is a gorgeous blue just like the photos show and the sun is out and about 80 but with a fantastic breeze. the architecture is beautiful with lots of white stucco homes with low roofs and beautiful shuttered windows. the flowers are bright and colorful against the stark white & blue skies.
now, if you are considering a trip to tunisia my very useful tip would be to book your flight all the way through. this will avoid the 42 hour flight that cori and i just took. one suggests that portland to phoenix, phoenix to philly, philly to frankfurt & frankfurt to tunis is not the way to go. now, that being said, i booked this and knew it was going to be rough and even sent the confirmation to cori with the subject title 'it ain't pretty' and even that became an understatement.
pdx to phoenix we slept. phoenix to philly we talked and wrote the ports order for resort (you will LOVE it!!). here is where the trouble began....'minor problem with 3 seats. maintenance is working on it and we will be 15 minutes delayed'. now, i'm sure you all know that it was the longest 15 minutes known to man and to suzi & cori. 15 min turned into 1 hr delay. we then boarded at 9:30 pm (our first flight was at 8:20am) and i proceeded to fall asleep while we started to taxi. there was then an announcement that woke me up and i looked at cori and she said 'did you hear any of that?' i said no since i was wearing my bose noise cancelation head phones. this is what she told me:
-we were taxing for 45 minutes
-maintenance is going to check a problem on the runway
-15 min later 'no, that did not work. we will be heading back to the gate'
then i was awake for the next 4 1/2 hours sitting on the plane (at hour 3 we were offered water) emailing our contacts in tunis saying that we will now, of course, be missing our frankfurt/tunis connection.
upon arrival in frankfurt, we found that us airways is not helpful if they in fact get you to your final destination regardless of time. so, we went to tunis airlines to find they are closed sunday after the one flight for the day leaves. what do 2 girls do with 160lbs of luggage, no flight, no airlines, no food, no sleep, no knowledge of the german language. so we go to luftansa because they have a flight that night. however, they would like us to pay about $1300 each. no no no this is not ok.
so, after 5 hours, several emails and phone calls to the wonderful people at look agency who were able to get us on the luftansa flight we finally relaxed.....sort of. we then waited for the flight to depart at 10:40 pm arriving tunis at 12:30am............YES IT WAS EXHAUSTING.
our hotel is fantastic with the deepest biggest bathtubs with spectacular water pressure that is able to scrub the 42 hours off of us!!
this morning, the presence of god was reconfirmed. i, as many of you know, am NOT a fan of the creepy crawlers. so after 5 hrs of good rest, and a sleep i awoke a bit drowsy but that was soon changed. i went in to the lovely big marble bathroom and put a towel on the floor to then see.... what i and anyone who loves will call a beetle.......because it can't be anything starting with a 'c' . this creature was about 3 1/2" long with very long legs and antennae's. now, as you know, i was afraid to scream for fear of attracting attention. so i slammed the door, ran and put tennis shoes on (and socks) grabbed a trash can and ran back in to see it hadn't moved. that is where god comes in. because, truly i would not have survived it this 'beetle' had moved. i put the trash can upside down and ran back to call housekeeping. now, again, those of you who know, are so proud reading this. because already i was way too close to this creature. housekeeping came and she picked him up and walked out. i had to say, 'excuse me, wait.' and asked her to look in the closet and under the bed.....one needs to be sure!!
welcome to tunisia........it's gorgeous.....stay tuned for more but no more beetles!
