Aslam,

  Randal picked up our rental car and headed out of town vaguely knowing how to get to El Jem, our first destination.  Some of the road signs made sense and some were like those old Visa commercials where the couple trades their camera for a donkey.   Of course if I’d paid any attention at all during the half-dozen years of French classes we’d have been much better off.  French is the second language of Tunisia.  But folks are friendly and helpful and everyone tells us how safe this country is, so we picked up a man standing along the road and drove him from El Jem to his destination just before Sfax.   Sfax is a fairly large town with an airport but it took us a while to find this (read as any) hotel.  When we had set out for El Jem we didn’t know our final stop for the day so had no hotel plan.  Tomorrow we are heading down the coast for the island of De Jerba to see el Ghriba, the oldest synagogue in Africa.  As it’s will be Saturday we might not see much.  But maybe Sunday morning. 

  Here are a few photos from our stop at one of several mosaic workshops and the coliseum in El Jem.  I’m too pooped to write more.

Ru

Storks nest on power lines where perches had been added so nests could be built.  There were about 2 dozen in a row.

We opted for the local road rather than highway….

Our first of many mosaic workshop stops

Women working at a glass mosaic with a modern motif

El Jem Roman Coliseum; not Disney, but real

“I’d like to give the world a Coke” are the lyrics, aren’t they?