It's Gilles again. This morning we arrived in Sousse, Tunisia, which is Ferjani's birth country. This day was at the same time embarrasing and fun for me. Let me explain why. So at noon we went to a little restaurant, and we ordered some traditional dishes. The dish came also with some sort of sauce, named Harissa. Ferjani told us the sauce wasn't that spicy, but I beg to differ. Shortly after our mouths were burning and we got kicked out of the restaurant because we were making too much noise. Later, it was already dark outside, we went to a concert organised by the city. We concluded our trip through North-Africa by going to a bar. There I met a lovely girl from the Netherlands. Her name was Farah and her parents were from Tunisia. First I was too shy to stand up and talk to her but then, my friend Ferjani, who is quite the ladies' man, helped me out. Talking with her was no problem, because we both spoke Dutch. We had a lot of fun in the bar, and during the road trip in general, but time had already come to return home. I arrived home really late but my mom was still awake and awaiting me, and I told her everything with a cup of tea. Then I chatted a bit with my friends about our next road trip we are going to do. Now it's 5 AM and I just finished calling Farah, now I'm going to bed.
I'm back, it's me Elias, the prince of Algeria! I know it has been 2 days since I have posted something on this blog. First let me justify myself, it's not my fault. We spent some time in the mountains. We weren't supposed to stay there for the night but it was getting very dark so we had no other choice then to stay there. It was fun though, we spent some time without any technology, we talked a lot about many different subjects such as women, cars and football, just like normal men would talk about. Another subject was religion, me, Ferjani and Saad love to talk about that. Gilles was very open and comprehensive. He learned a lot of things about the islam that you don't hear often on the news. The night was very cold. That surprised Gilles because during the day it's very hot. The next morning we went back to Saad's family. We left in the afternoon to go to Algeria, my country! I call myself the prince of Algeria, but that is not true. It's accually impossible to be the prince because I don't have any family members here. My father moved to Belgium and my uncles went to France where the majority of the Algerians went after the bad things that happened here, but I don't really want to talk about that. Now we are in my dad's house. He bought it for me and him to stay when we are here.It's pretty big, we have a lot of rooms so everybody has his own room. It's about 10 pm. We are going to eat something in the city.This will be my final entry. I think Gilles is next. It was fun talking to you.
So I have three friends who have North-African origins. Elias
comes from Algeria, Saad was born and raised in Morocco and Ferjani is from
Tunisia. Some time ago we had a meeting together. During this meeting, my 3 friends suggested me to do a road trip with them and visit the countries where my friends are from. The
point of the road trip is for me to understand more of the cultures that are so
different from ours but at the same time equal. First I wasn't so sure about the idea, but after hours of discussion, I finally agreed. I still wasn't really convinced, but I didn't want to disappoint my friends. We deliberated about the date we were going to leave. After a few weeks, it was finally time to leave. We had packed up everything we needed and we met each other on a parking. There we got into Elias' car and we left, in the direction of France. During the trip I realised how much I liked my friends and that we were going to have an amazing time whatsoever. I also deceided to share my experiences of the trip on this blog. I'm feeling really tired now, so I'll finish my part here. I don't know when my next entry will be, but Elias has already proposed to write some entries as well. Anyways, I'm going to sleep now.
It's Elias here! Here is my entry as promised. I'll try to continue where Gilles left off. After we crossed the Spanish border we made a stop in Barcelona. We did that because we wanted to explore the city. Me, Saad and Ferjani have already been to our countries. So we thought why not visit a city where we haven't been yet. Although I'm a Real Madrid fan, Barcelona is more beautiful. The people are nice and the food is amazing. The most beautiful part about Barcelona is the beach and the sea. That is a big reason why I like Barcelona more than Madrid. We didn't stay there for a long time, after 2 days we continued our journey. We stopped a couple of times in Spain, but we only stopped to rest or to pray. We finally arrived in Malaga where we crossed the Mediterranean Sea and we arrived in Tanger but we continued to Agadir, the hometown of Saad. Gilles learned a lot of new things. It was the first North-African country that he had been to. The prayer calls were a bit weird first, but he got used to them. We ate tagine with Saads family. His aunt is an amazing cook, she prepared it perfectly. Gilles thought it was a bit too salty, but he doesn't know what salty is. We Arabs always use a lot of salt! It has been a long day so I'm going to sleep. I don't know who will be next. Good night.
I have a fascinating
story to tell you. So I have three friends who have North-African origins. Elias
comes from Algeria, Saad was born and raised in Morocco and Ferjani is from
Tunisia. They suggested me to organise a road trip with them and visit these
countries. The point of the road trip is for me to understand more of the
cultures that are so different from ours but at the same time equal. First we
passed through France and Spain because we travelled by car and we also wanted
to enjoy the beautiful beaches and views. When we arrived in Tanger (Morocco)
we directly hit the road to Agadir. There we visited Saads family and ate
tagine (its aBerberdish that is named after theearthenwarepot in which it is cooked, it consist of different
vegetables and meat).We ate it with our fingers and Im not really used to
that. It was delicious and kind of healthy because there were a lot of vegetables
in it. It was really salty but I guess its normal to them. Just like most of
Arabic countries, the main religion is the Islam. Every day I could hear the
prayer call, it was beautiful to hear it and seeing all the men there go to the
mosque was amazing. I joined my friends to the mosque and watched them pray,
which seemed a bit weird to me. There was no sound, only the imam could say
things out loud. We spent the next day in the mountains and camped there, I
really enjoyed the amazing view we had on Agadir by night. In Morocco its
usually hot, but at night its very different. I was freezing. The morning
after we went to a hotel and asked if we could shower there, they said yes,
that was very kind of them. After that we said goodbye to Saads family and we
went back on the road.
We were driving to Algeria, Elias country. Elias doesnt have family
there anymore, but he knows the country: every year he goes there with his
father. Algeria is a big independent country and we really wanted to know more
of it, so we visited every city we could. There arent many differences between
Morocco and Algeria, the thing that really got me exited for Algeria was its
past. Algeria and its people had known a lot of hard times, like the civil wars
and the generals who ruled the country in the early 60s. Elias didnt like it
when we talked about those things so we kept quiet.
After 5 days of traveling around in Algeria we arrived in Sousse, Tunisia.
It was awesome. First we went to a restraint and ate like beasts, Ferjani gave
us a special Tunisian sauce called Harissa. He didnt tell us it was very
spicy sauce and we ate the whole tube, it only took a few seconds until we
realized that our mouths were burning. It was like we put torches in our
mouths, when the pain was finally over we wanted to kick Ferjani but instead we
laughed so hard that we got kicked out of the restraint. Those are moments Ill
never forget. My favorite pain is the one I feel in my stomach when I laugh
with these guys. Later that night we went to the beach, there was a concert
organized by the city. There was Middle-Eastern music and we danced till we
couldnt anymore. After that we spent the rest of the night in a local bar and
drank a lot of tea. I saw this lovely girl there. I was looking at her all the
time and Ferjani saw it too. He had my bag and played the wingman for me, he
hooked me up and so I talked to her. Her name is Farah, she was so lovely. She
comes from the Netherlands and her parents are Tunisian, we spoke Dutch so it
wasnt a problem for me to start a conversation with her. The end of the road
trip approached and the time had come fore to go back home. My mother waited
for me to come home, when I arrived she was sitting in the kitchen with two
cups of coffee but I prepared green tea for myself. We talked for the rest of
the evening and told her everything we did, after that she went to sleep. I
stayed in the living, I was video chatting with my friends and were making
plans for another road trip. This time I was going to choose what we would do.
Before I went to sleep I called Farah because I wanted to keep up with her.
This was a journey to never forget, I hope you had as much fun reading my store
as me writing it for you. Thank you for your attention. Good night.
