Daytrip from Hell

Here’s some free advice for our Jewish friends who want to remain incognito in a Muslim country: Tell your kids not to belt out endless loud choruses of “David Melech Y’Israel” while walking through crowded neighborhoods. Just trying to help.

And some more advice for families doing the resort thing: No matter how interesting planned excursions sound, ask yourself whether you really want to be in the sweltering sun with your children who will absolutely hate being at _________ [fill in the blank] instead of by the pool.

Our blank was filled in by the area around the capital, Tunis, to see both Carthage and Sidi Bou Said. I really wanted to see Carthage because of its central role in the history of the region. Before the Greeks and Romans did their thing, Carthage was at one pont the most important city of the Phoenecian (modern-day Lebanon) empire. If you think you find that boring, trying telling it to two young boys, one of whom had a bad tummy-ache after a 1.5 hour bus ride and the other who didn't heed the "don't pick up and throw big rocks around the historically protected site" instructions. (I had images of Chevy Chase knocking down Stonehenge with his car in the vastly under-rated European Vacation - I just can't get left, indeed.) Our tour guide was a young woman who sounded like Kim Carnes with laryngitis and for whom English was her fourth language. Learned a whole lot from her. Oh yeah, also push a stroller through this area and have it be, say, 90 degrees and extremely windy. Let's move on.

With its white buildings with beautiful blue doors and shutters and panaromic hilltop views of the Med, Sidi Bou Said has the reputation as the prettiest town in Tunisia. Might be. I was mostly focused on pushing a stroller with 80 pounds of children up a half-mile long steep grade and when I caught my breath found myself in the middle of an endless strip of tourist-trap shops selling expensive junk. Bargaining in Arab souks has its routine charm - you look around, they give you the "best" price until you faux-walk away a couple times, the price gets cut massively, and you're done. That's fun about once or so. Sometimes you just want to buy that authentic Maghreb bongo drum without taking 10 minutes to save 5 dinar.

All in, the excursion took 7 hours (Tunis on a straight shot was 1 hour from the resort) and we will certainly never do anything like it again.

The epilogue to all this running around stings as well. Just a mere six hours (one way) south of Hammamet is the tiny town of Tatouine. You've got that right Star Wars fans! You now probably (vaguely) recall that George Lucas filmed the scenes of Anakin Skywalker's family ranch in southern Tunisia and the planet was named after the town. (Technically, the filming took place in nearby Matmata, but whatever.) I'm sure if I would have asked nicely, Tracy would've let me run out for 13 hours to check it out.