But first: We've been writing about our week of vacation in February during Katie's "semana blanca" school break. Wednesday of that week we wrapped up our French experience and headed back to Madrid to get Rich on the plane back to Texas. He left Thursday morning around 11 and we followed him to the airport shortly thereafter :-). Living over here has been nothing if not seizing any opportunity that comes our way :-). Ever since we moved to Spain, we have been looking for opportunities to visit friends of ours who live in Europe - or at least close by. We have friends, William & Joanie, who live in Tunis, Tunisia, with their 4 kids and we were so excited to get to see them. I have known Joanie since I was about 4. :-) They have lived in Tunis for 7 years and lived in France 7 years before that. Surprisingly, it has really worked out that we've seen them fairly consistently through the years in random places - in San Diego while Jason was on a business trip, in Houston while we were on vacation with my family, at our house in Dallas. But we had never gotten to see their world!
Part of our excitement was also the chance to see Africa! Unbelievable when you think about going to a different continent :-). North Africa is definitely distinct from the Africa you typically think of, but it still counts! :-) We were so thankful to be visiting friends and not just venturing out on our own. It is really crazy - the flight was only about 2 hours from Madrid! Tunis is just across the Mediterranean Sea from Italy. In spite of its closeness though, it is definitely another world - for one, everything is in Arabic & French - neither of which we speak :-) So again, nice to be with friends who know both!
William & Joanie were such gracious hosts, even giving us their room to stay in while we were there. Friday morning William (& Michael) took us to the market while Joanie watched Katie & the other kids. It was so nice to experience the city for the first time without having to keep an eye on Katie and we were grateful that they thought of that before we did! 
We went to the food market and the thing that struck me was how beautifully displayed everything was. It was like an art exhibit of beautiful fruit & veggies! The fish were especially interesting because they took care to arrange them in interesting ways - all the fish in this picture have their tails flipped up in exactly the same way which was kind of funny :-).
We also saw swordfish that were tied into arcs by their heads and tails. Very artistic! Another striking thing about the market was the absence of pork. Since Tunisia is an Arabic country, they don't eat pork. It was quite a contrast to Spain where pork is everywhere and in as many different forms as you can imagine :-). They also had a lot of olives since they are also a Mediterranean culture, and the shopkeepers even let us try some before deciding which to buy. After the food market, we also toured the tourist market. It was fun to see the shoes, spices, and pottery.
That afternoon, we went to a park near William & Joanie's house. The kids had a great time playing on and under this huge, ancient tree. Definitely a highlight of the trip for Katie was playing with their kids and they were so nice to include her like they'd known her forever. Their kids are Jonathon, 10, Christina, 8, Michael, 7, & Nathaniel, 2. Katie slept in Christina's room and even exchanged a few e-mails with her after we returned home :-). It worked out well because they were also on break from their school while we were there!That night we went out to enjoy a typical Tunisian meal. Sadly, I can't remember most of the names of the food we ate, but it was all delicious! My favorite was something called Breek (I think) that they typically eat to break their fast after Ramadan. It was fried with an egg and some yummy greens inside. Very delicious! I also enjoyed the mix of peppers, onions, and olive oil that they served with olives and bread. Yum!! Another interesting restaurant tidbit: some of their cafes are men only with no women allowed! Definitely a different world!
2 more differences of Tunisian food from Spanish food:
-- They have spicy food in Tunisia (hooray! :-) ). Joanie sent us home with a yummy spicy sauce called Harissa. It doesn't really change the flavor of the food you put it on, it just gives it extra spice. Probably a handy thing to have around here :-).
-- The meal we enjoyed was also very very inexpensive. Very nice after the sometimes outrageous prices for a meal in Madrid!
Saturday we headed off to do more sight seeing. The ancient city of Carthage is on the edge of the modern city of Tunis, and we went to the ruins of an amphitheater there. Carthage was to a large extent the center of the 1st century Christian church, so it was interesting to hear a little of that history. This amphitheater was the site of the martyrdom of 2 women, Perpetua and Felicity. There is a very interesting article about it here. (seriously, what would we do w/o Wikipedia?? :-) ) In an interesting side note, this picture of Katie & Christina was taken very shortly before Katie fell into a nasty mud puddle and got completely soaking wet and dirty. The rest of the day she wore her (clean) sweater wrapped around her waist as a skirt and her coat on top to disguise the makeshift attire :-). I just figured it was part of our African experience of flexibility :-).
After the amphitheater, we headed to the city of Sidi Bou Sain. Wow. It was really beautiful. I should add here that it had been raining and cold in Tunis for several weeks - but on this Saturday especially, we had beautiful weather!! It was a truly a blessing! We enjoyed seeing the beautiful white houses and the amazing view of the Mediterranean. Katie enjoyed seeing her 1st glimpse of the markets and was very intent on getting some "African shoes" like her friend Frida had brought home from Morocco. So yes, we did come home with some beautiful sparkly "African shoes". :-) 
We enjoyed a yummy doughnut treat (hmmm... I'm really going to have to ask Joanie to remind me of the names of the foods we enjoyed!) Here is Jason & me in front of the Mediterranean - in the only picture of the 3 of us here, the sun was so bright it hurt to look up.... so that picture is not fit for internet consumption :-)
The doors were so beautiful - and reminiscent of the Moorish architecture in Sevilla and the southern part of Spain. Another fun thing we enjoyed in Sidi Bou Sain was getting our hands painted. Kind of like the Tunisian style of a henna tatoo. We felt very North African :-).
Tunisia is an Muslim country, but it is a fairly secular. Though we were still woken each morning by the 6 AM call to prayer going out all over town on a loud speaker, there is some degree of religious freedom there. William is the pastor of the French speaking Protestant church in Tunis and one of the highlights of the weekend was getting to go to church with them. We sang along in English as they sang several familiar songs in French :-). They have a translator available, so we were even able to follow along with William's sermon in French.It was a great trip - I know we say this often, but we really left immediately wondering how & when we could go back :-). It was just so sweet to catch up with William & Joanie, get to know their kids, and see their world. I felt like we could more appreciate their lives b/c we are also expats now - though they have lived out of the States so long that their experience is also very different. It was fun to see the similarities and differences in our lives and countries and to pick their brains for ways to learn from their wisdom & experience.
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