Fourth of July in Tunisia

Yesterday afternoon, I moved into an apartment with four friends from Yale. The apartment is located in the suburb of Carthage, about a 20-minute ride away from downtown Tunis on the metro-rail, a quaint but efficient streetcar system which crosses the port of Carthage on a bridge of reclaimed land. Tickets in the “first class” section cost about 1 Dinar (75 cents) each way.

Quick geography lesson. Tunisia is located on the northern coast of Africa, between Algeria and Libya, or slightly southwest from Italy. The modern city of Tunis, the country’s capital, is built on the ruins of historical Carthage, once the center of power in the Mediterranean until the Romans sacked it in 146AD. The suburb now known as Carthage is actually at some distance from the city.

The key feature of our apartment is its location. You can walk barefoot to the beach. This picture is taken from the bedroom window...



We spend the evening cleaning a layer of grime and fine beach sand off of everything in the apartment. We had heard earlier that there would be a Fourth of July party at the local Marine’s base, but it turns out the real party was yesterday and today is just for the diplomats. We’re all too exhausted to go anyway. Feeling slightly homesick.