Cruise - Day 6 - Tunis

Today we arrive in Tunis.  Upon buying our cruise tickets, Jens was very excited because he has never been to Africa.  Well technically the Canary Islands are part of the Africa continent but the islands belong to the country of Spain.  But you know what I mean: that huge mass of land we all know as Africa – that Africa.  This will be my second time.  I was in Egypt about 80 years ago.  I’ve received 2 post cards (maybe 3) from friends who have been to Tunis so I know it’s a vacation destination.  Our neighbor who took care of our mailbox said we will love the cruise but they didn’t care for Tunis. 

 Everybody doen’t like something.  But nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.  Especially if they’ve tried the whipped fat frosting cakes that they serve in the buffet.  

We talked about Tunis and how exciting it could be.  Maybe too exciting - so we thought we would just get on one of the excursion buses that depart from and return directly to the ship.  We would just enjoy the city of Tunis from the big bus windows.  But when we found out that we were going to have to deal our passports out and be controlled and checked, we changed our minds.

The Danes have recently been bombing the hell out of the neighboring Islamic country, Libya, as part of the effort to remove Gaddafi from power.  And muslims around the world would love to see the Danes die for the newspaper drawings they published a few years back.  So Jens decided to keep his passport in his own hands and not have to be the one to pay the price for the evil doings of his country.

I had a scary enough experience when my middle east tour which started in Jordan got me special unwanted attention so I’m not willing to confuse any crazy psycho religious nut or  taunt any anti- American authority with my American passport and I stayed on board as well.  What were we thinking when we signed onto this Italian kindergarten tug boat!?

(See! Right there – one of the borrowed words I was telling you about in the last blog.  Kindergarten – it’s a German word.)

Ok - so way outside of port we could see that Tunis, whether friendly or not, was making Napoli look more and more like paradise.  We now changed our minds and just decided to stay on board and take it easy.  We ate a little bit of breakfast and lunch.  If it had been great food like I have been hearing about these cruise ships over the last many many years – it would have been great.  But it certainly was not the food that kept us on board.   

 

Ali Baba and his 40 fanatics greeted our ship with some heavy boom boom boom sounds accompanied by a very sad flat sounding horn, tambourines they export to Napoli and a few camel road apples.

I teased myself with the thought of just going down to the tourist office/shops and see what kind of special prices they had for a friend like me.  My god!  What am I thinking!!  I must be sea sick.  Have I had too much sun.  I snapped out of it and went back to the room for a few Zzzzz’s

 

Later in the late afternoon we were in the cigar lounge have a smoke and strong coffee and there we talked to a guy in a wheel chair.  I notice him yesterday.  He smiled at me and Jens.  He at one end of the lounge and we at the other.  He seemed as though he wanted to talk with us. But we didn’t talk because we were on our way out shortly after he came in.  So we just smiled and nodded as we got up to leave. I was wondering if he was gay.  I was wondering why I was wondering if he was gay.  Man that is one strong coffee.  

 

So today in the cigar lounge, the wheel chair dude was there and he started talking to us.  He had us pegged from the moment he saw us yesterday.  After a bit of talking it was clear.  We were all friends of Dorothy.  He was from the south of France and asked us if we were enjoying our cruise.  NO! came a speedy answer from our mouths.  This was his second time on this cruise.  He didn’t want to go.  He was here with his parents, his sister and his partner of many years.  He’s been on a number of cruises and he begged his family to choose another ship but they insisted on this one.  He had his favorite ships and told us what the difference were among them.  He recommended Atlantis to us and told us which other ships are gay friendly.  We didn’t want a gay cruise. We just wanted a nice ordinary peaceful, quite, calm cruise with interesting destinations.  We didn’t even stop to think of wanting good food – that’s a given – or so we thought.  Atlantis is sailing this summer and we have vacation now and we just wanted to do a normal cruise we told him.  He told us of the other ships that were not gay but have a lot of gay passengers so they do special events for those that are interested.  We talked about the food. He said, “Oh, well if it’s good food you want, then for sure you have chosen the wrong ship.”  “No kidding”,  I said.

 

On the menu for tonight:

Over cooked pasta and you guessed it – risotto del la yesterday.

 

Tonight’s entertainment was dedicated to Michael Jackson.  Jens doesn’t know his music at all and I was never a big fan but of course you just can’t escape Jackson’s songs.  Almost all of us grew up with him whether you like him or not.  The show was good and entertaining.  They had a Michael Jackson impersonator which I must say was very very good.  At the end of the show he jumped off the stage and the light came up and the entire audience was scream like crazy snapping pictures and I really think that for a moment they had forgotten that it was an impersonator – and he wasn’t even white – ha ha.

But now I get it.  Now I understand the draw of the Las Vegas impersonator shows.  It’s almost real and I’m sure it really is real for some.  I’m gonna go see my favorites now.  Barbara, Liza, Dolly,  well…. just as soon as they die that is.