Prepositions

Italians say sitting "on a chair" but standing "in your feet." This seems backwards to me.

My dad’s side of the family is pure Dutch and came from the villages of Garsthizen and Eppenhuizen in the Province of Groningen and the adjacent province of Vriesland. Have fun with the names.

Naturally, I had to take a trip to Amsterdam to get in touch with my heritage.

The two main languages are Dutch and English. Everyone speaks fluent English because no one else in the world cares to learn Dutch. Apparently, I look like a native Netherlander because everyone spoke to me in Dutch or would ask me for directions. Once they found out I was American, the first question they would ask is where my family came from. The second question would be who I voted for. I was taken aback at how much the Europeans knew about American politics.

The hostel I stayed at had mixed rooms, allowing me to talk to a range of people. I talked to travelers from Ireland, Australia, New York, and other parts of the Netherlands. It was fun. The staff was friendly and gave me lots of free fries because my fondness for Heinz ketchup amused them.

Unfortunately, the first half of my trip I went to places where pictures weren’t allowed like the van Gogh museum and Museum of Tortures. Then during the second half an error occurred in my memory card and I couldn’t take any more pictures. You’ll have to deal with text descriptions for the most part.

Tunisia is considered by many to be the Europe of Africa. The standard of living is fairly high, women are equal citizens, environmental concern is starting to grow, etc. It was under French control until recently so the two official languages are Arabic and French. It is a Islamic country and considered part of the Middle East even though it is technically on the African continent.

The Sahara covers a good portion of the southern part of Tunisia. When people think of the Sahara, they think sand but that's only 25% of it.

Vegetation grows out in the desert. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll catch sight of wild camel herds grazing.

Another 25% is the salt lakes.

It stetches on endlessly.

The remaning 50% is mountains.

Of course, you can't forget about the oases. They're pretty important for surviving in the desert. Naturally, cities crop up around the so finding the serene pool of water surrounding by the swaying palm trees and tents of the nomads is pretty rare.

However, the small ones are still filled with life. They're are birds chirping and frogs burbling all around. It's peaceful.

The countryside is beautiful but it's really just much of the same hence why I'll be focusing on other things from now on.

Being in a country where you're unable to communicate with nearly everyone is hard. Often I try to mime things or speak Spanish in the hopes that languages are close enough that my point will get across. I knew this was going to happen but it still depresses me. I feel so isolated.

Cappacino

It's hard to remember that to make a "ch" sound, you write ci or ce. To make a "k" sound, you write ch.

Good God, the Italian youth are into PDA. I should not see people making out in St. Peter's. I'm not even Catholic and it offended me.

Pasta. Pizza. Pasta and pizza everywhere. All so delicious. All so redundant. I miss waffles.