Tunisia 1 - part 1/4 - time to relax

TUNISIA BABY! Yeah!

Well the internet at my home isn't working again - STOOPID Chorus / NTL / UPC or whatever they call themselves - so I am forced to update my blog from work. As if I get any free time at work! So I'll keep this short and basically just explain photies for the most-part. You prefer it short huh?

For those that don't know, Cath and I zipped off to Tunisia for a week in mid-May. The plan was to just somma lie on the beach for the entire trip, soak up the sun and head back refreshed. It turns out that cath and I are not 'lie on the beach' people (I already knew I wasn't) and instead of relaxing, we ended up doing things almost every day, getting to see a bit of the real Tunisia - away from our resort. Twas great!

I've put up a few blog entries for this trip so they might not be in the order in which we did things, but it'll be easier to explain... We've had so many requests to see photos that i just thought I'd put them up and sort out the smaller details later.

After a long sleep to get back in sync, we headed to the beach where we were accosted by Tom, Dick and Harry and a few other locals, all offering us various things. They can spot a newcomer a mile off and allied to the fact that we were still polite enough at this stage to stop when they approached, we were whiter than snow. Very white snow.

We were offered fruit, nuts, trips parachuting or quad biking, despite
actually having no local money at this stage.

We buggered around but the weather wasn't so great so we headed back a bit later and had a good meal at the hotel. Walking around we saw...

The next day we headed to Sousse, one of the four biggest cities in Tunisia, to do some shopping. It has a massive medina where we went shopping - and again we were bugged every three steps. "Come into my shop, no not his shop, my shop. I make good price - better than Asda, Brown Thomas quality. Yes I know that the last shop you looked in has exactly, EXACTLY the same stuff as my shop, but come into mine anyway." Sigh. It was tiring walking aroiund. Still, it was an interesting experience.

Me outside mosque and Cath in medina.

Cath stands at one of the roads just outside the medina.

"Excuse me Sir, I don't think you're supposed to ride your motorbike down the narrow alleys INSIDE the Medin... oh, I see, it's quite the norm... pardon me"

We found a cool place for lunch - upstairs at the top of the town with agreat view. Now despite being pretty poor-looking while we were walking around, it was interesting to note that almost every home had a satellite dish on their roof (click on the pic on the left for a closer look).

After lunch we walked around more, took a few more snaps - including these ones of a falvon on Cath's shoulder - headed to the pool at our hotel before we grabbed some cocktails somewhere.

(Cath and I like these 'caturing the locals doing what they do' shots)

There was just about enough time to head to the marina before we had to be back for supper...

There was a sing and dance job on at a nearby hotel so we went along and watched a bit of samba, ramba and one 'different' version of 'in the jungle'. They should have let me do it...

The next day saw great weather. So after an all over body massage for me and an exfoliation thingy-majigy for Cath...

... we headed off. We'd brought our racquets with us so we got in a few hours of tennis and I made cath run around and she gave me a lesson in how to hit a stunning forehand!

What a cutie-pie!

We swam again and fiddled around with our uber-cool camera, trying to get decent action shots.



Oh ja, this was our hotel room. Every time we came back they folded up our jamies or sheets on top of the beds. They were quite cute.




Hubbly-bubbly and lamb kebabs.

Alan in a fez-tive mood. I'm sorry, sometimes I just can't control myself.



At the beach. what's piqued my interest you ask? Click on the photo.

At another nearby hotel where we went for lunch on our last day, and I swam a bit.

Show me the way to Amarillo...
Random road signs.

Kinsale sevens

The Kinsale rugby sevens tournament is pretty big this side of the world, with quite a few teams coming over from Britain and other countries to play. We even saw the Swedish women's national team play! (They were pretty crap, but kind on the eyes never-the-less)

We went through and caught up with one of Cath's dads old friends too, which killed two birds with one stone.

It was cool - and the day just flew by as we could turn from one field to the next to watch - like a dream come true for me!

We used the experience to try and grab some quality sports puics with our uber-cool wedding camera... There's not much to say about the pics really otherwise...

Thought this kid watching was quite cute...

A women's game:
The women's rugby was top-class - a very high standard.

And the bestest-looking fan there that day!

Cath and Al do tag rugby

TAG BABY

Our tag rugby team - well actually Cath's tag rugby team (i just joined in as a cling-on) was formed by students in her accounting institute that wanted a bit of fun. Everything was paid for them by the sponsor so all we had to do was pitch up and play - pretty cool.

I went along to the first match to watch my lovely wife and got asked to play cos they were short. Secretly, I was of course DYING to get a run! We won, in terrible conditions, and I was asked back.

One match turned into 2, then 3 until there we were, in what was effectively a semi-final, which we won to finish top of our group - and earn a match against the top team from the other pool. Alas, Cath and I were off to Tunisia so we missed the final, which our team lost. Sigh, they must have missed us. Cath and I each scored a try or two over the course of the season, but there were a couple of speedy players in our team that left us (and fortunately the opposition) eating their dust.


Kicking off



Oh captain, my captain

Throwing the dummy...

Getting stuck in

Cath's colleagues playing against us... they were no match...

Yours truly standing around while the others do all the work... again...

God hates Ireland apparently

Now I have to warn you - this may anger you.
Click on link below to see why freedom of speech is not always a good thing.

God hates Ireland

This website was created by the same nutters that demonstrate at funerals of US soldiers or people killed in fires, etc - saying God did this becuase the world sucks. God brought aids because you deserve it, etc, etc.

They're really anti-Catholic and are part of the Westboro Baptist Church, to quote athe website where I found the link "those awesome real world religion trolls".
Check out this youtube video if you want to be disgusted:
Louis Theroux - America’s Most Hated Family on Youtube.


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Coming soon...

Cath and Al hit Tunisia

Cath and Al at tag rugby

Cath and Al at the Kinsale sevens