Tunisa and onward to Germany

At last, a normal US English keyboard, now I can communicate with the outside world again...

Tunisia was fantastic, (keyboard excepted), and Fiona and I had a really good time. I was expecting that the 6 days we were spending in Tunisia would just be a chance to catch up on some rest and relaxation, but we managed to cram in a whole lot of stuff into that time.

Later in the week Fiona suggested that we take a 2-day tour to the Sahara Desert as we would probably not get a better opportunity to do so anytime soon, so we paid our money and at 5:30am on Thursday morning we boarded a coach for our adventure. Our first stop was at the historic roman amphitheatre at El Jem where we had a whirlwind tour of the ancient site, which is in surprisingly good condition. Next, after lunch, we headed further south to the land of the Berber people, who live in homes built into the ground, (as made famous in 'Star Wars'), and had a look around a real live family home in the rocks. After another short drive, we went for a camel ride in Douze, the gateway to the Sahara, complete with headscarves and Arabic dress. This was a highlight of the tour as the desert scenery was very spectacular during our 1-hour circuit amongst the dunes, ruins and palm trees. The sand was amazingly fine and I am still finding it in all sorts of places...!

That night we stayed in a 5-star luxury hotel in the Town of Touzer in the far southwestern corner of Tunisia, which again was a very spectacular place set amid a desert oasis. Although we only spent a single evening there it is definitely somewhere I would like to return to at some point, the architecture was very distinctive and the scenery very pleasing. Next morning started at 4:30am (!!!) and we were off on a 4-wheel drive trip into the desert landscape by 5:30am, just in time to watch the sunrise. First stop was a desert canyon and hot spring which was stunning, and then a slightly impressive waterfall, which seemed sadly lacking in water, not really surprising as we were in the desert. After that we had a horse carriage ride through the heart of the Touzer oasis which was informative and quite relaxing, (apart from the equine smell..!). With a few stops for lunch and bathroom breaks, and a stop off at the 4th holiest city in Islam, (Kairouan) to look at the mosque, we headed back to our hotel in the North of Tunisia. If anyone ever gets the chance to visit Tunisia and do this sort of excursion, I thoroughly recommend it, Tunisia is a country of many contrasts, both culturally and geographically, and our 2-day tour gave us a good taste of the country.

Like our 'horror' transfer from San Francisco via Frankfurt to Tunisia, our return flight was at the ungodly hour of 3:30am. Having only finished our Saharan tour at 5:00pm that afternoon, and having been up at 4:30am that morning, it was going to be another arduous trip to get back to Frankfurt. Fortunately it was a little less eventful than the outward leg, and we arrived at Frankfurt airport having been travelling for 26 hours in total.

It was good to see the happy smiling face of our good friend Yates waiting for us at the airport, and after a swift and painless transfer from the airport to our apartments, we crashed for a good 3-4 hours to try and catch up with our sleep. The apartments are awesome... We have a separate kitchen and living area, a TV with 30 odd channels, (including BBC World so that we can catch up on world events in English), and a small but creatively laid out bathroom. We also have the most comfortable bed since leaving home and it's good to know that we will be staying here for another 4 weeks.

Later that afternoon we located the local supermarket, brought the most essential of provisions, (beer, pretzels and other lesser items), and then decided to head towards the river in central Frankfurt which is only about 25 mins walk from our apartments. There we found the specially laid on World Cup 2006 'Fan Fest' Area which stretched along both sides of the rive for quite a distance and includes a giant floating TV screen which will be showing most of the games. There is also a whole strip of bars and cafes set right up on the riverbank offering food from around the world, along with small cultural activities and displays. Even though this was the first evening that the place had been open to the public, the buzz and excitement of being somewhere special was beginning to build. Yates and I worked out the complicated beer glass methodology, that allows you to roam freely around the whole Fan Fest area whilst openly drinking beer and then being able to reuse that glass at other bars along the way... How very civilized... We also indulged in our first German Sausage experience which was very tasty. Thank god that most of the Germans speak good English, and as none of us speaks any German, buying stuff would be very difficult...!!

Yesterday, Yates contacted his friend Eric who lives in the suburbs of Frankfurt in Bad Homberg who invited us over for a 'Grill Party', or BBQ. This gave us a chance to test out our understanding of the Frankfurt rail system and ticket buying process which we did very sucessfully. On our way out to Eric's we stopped off in the centre of town for a look around and a spot of Lunch. We also got the chance to go to the top of the Main Tower, which offers commanding views across the whole city for 200m above the ground. We arrived Eric & Heathers home and was introduced to all the many family members, including their 4 kids and various friends. It was great to spend some time relaxing in the garden with a beer or 3, chatting about football, New Zealand and travel with some great people. When the meat was ready we had a stunning and sumptuous meal at the table and again enjoying the great company, good wine and interesting conversation. Eric & Heather, and their family are lovely people and I truely hope we get to meet up with them again.

At around 9:45pm we headed back to Frankfurt with the intention of watching a special World Cup themed light show that was to be projected onto the skyscrapers of downtown. The crush of people trying to get to the south bank, which offered the best vantage point, was amazing, it must have taken us 25 minutes to cross a 100m bridge..!! When the show finally started it was spectacular to see the buildings lit up, but the content was actually quite disappointing, (2 out of 10...), maybe because we could not see everything or because it was all in German, or it seemed to go on and on and on...!!! All in all it was interesting, but maybe I have been spoilt in the past with light shows and this one did not live up to expectations.

Today is Monday here in Germany and also happens to be a public holiday, so we are having a lazy day around the apartments, catching up on washing and other chores. Later we will head into town to find the ticket service centre to see if it's open and whether we can score some more tickets... Only 5 days now until the first game kicks off, and like ourselves, the whole of Germany seems to be getting excited. We have a large New Zealand flag with us that we will take with us to all the games, so if you spot a NZ flag in the crowd it will most likely be us...!!