We here in Seattle like to consider ourselves to be a progressive, open-minded bunch. On principle we try and make certain that everyone’s rights are protected and all are free to express themselves.  The other day, while on a walk through a local park, I happily came across this jolly bit of Acceptance-In-Action (neither of [...]

Sometimes I forget that living in a dense urban area means that there will be occasions when I will be forced against my will to interact with people one could best call…, well…, crazy. Today, however, was a friendly reminder that no matter how artfully you practice avoidance, you will not always succeed. I was [...]

Several years ago I stopped giving Christmas gifts.  I had come to see Christmas as a grossly over-commodified purchasing orgy, a holiday of things rather than people, and I simply gave up on it.  This year, a couple days before the 25th I met a woman on the street begging.  It took me a while to convince [...]

It’s been over a month now since I returned to Seattle. A terribly valid question would be – in fact has been nearly every time I’ve run into someone in town – What have you been doing with your time? This question has a Siamese twin that follows with, What are you going to do [...]

I took a little tour of some old stone buildings today. The way things work in Cairo: upon check-in to a hotel the staff present you with a tour-arranger, a cul-de-sac of information who helps set up tours to places throughout the country. Tourism is extremely regulated throughout Egypt: they’ve had some troubles over the [...]

I returned to Sousse this afternoon: I needed to escape the little town where I’d been staying, and I wanted to do some further exploring as well. I had read about some catacombs just outside the Medina, and I was terribly proud of myself after eventually finding them on-foot. This is no trifling matter, and [...]

Mohammed picked us up in his white Land Rover at 9:00. Gen and I piled in and we began heading east, through the Chott el-Jerid, a massive salt-lake that slowly stretches down into the Sahara. The Chott reminded me of the Bonneville Salt Flats outside Salt Lake City in Utah, its gray grains and salt [...]

This little town where I’m staying is, by virtue of being a small town, simultaneously representative and non-representative of Tunisia as a whole. It serves as a microcosm in that the country is mostly composed of small, conservative, rural towns like Enfida. But that is not a complete inventory, for there exist several large cities [...]

When you think of Sidi Bou Said, a wealthy suburb resting on the Mediterranean east of Tunis, think of two things: white and blue. The city’s located on a hill that climbs up and abuts a cliff, looking out eastward over the Sea. it’s a beautiful area of small, winding fieldstone streets over which rise [...]

The Bardo Museum has one of the best collections of ancient Punic and Roman remains from what was the city of Carthage. Tunisia has been warred over and settled by virtually every imaginable tribal group you can name, and the pieces contained in the museum showed a rather interesting melange of influences: Roman, Greek, Phoenican, [...]

Enfida is the mid-sized town that has been my home-base for most of my Tunisian explorations. I arrived here with a lovely traveling companion whose father is from these parts, and whose remaining family appear to be as plentiful as the sand that blows everywhere. These photos are taken at the local beach – Enfida [...]

Regardless of whether or not you’ve ever been to Paris, you’re familiar with Montmartre. In the early part of the 20th Century it was home to a couple artists whose names might ring a bell: Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Theophile Steinlen, amongst others, who made names for themselves and places such [...]