Making up for the fact that public transport in Tunisia is slow, crowded and without much system - and therefore not really an option when moving about with a young child - are the many cheap taxis that constantly cruise the roads of Tunis. Normally, the only thing you have to do is to walk to the nearest bigger street and wave the first taxi that comes along. Normally, we don't have to wait much longer than five, ten minutes - and often much shorter - when going anywhere. Today, however, is different. After quite a long wait, and seeing that the streets are lined with others waiting for taxis as well, so that any empty cab would already be taken before it reaches us anyway, we decide to try our luck a little bit down the road. The situation doesn't improve, so we walk all the way down to the main road. Luckily, Rihanna Gaga is in a walking mood: we don't have to carry her, but she walks by herself, holding either her mother's or my hand while a noisy throng of smelly cars and mopeds pass by. With sidewalks often either non-existent or blocked by parking cars (in fact, the only really good looking sidewalk is a three kilometer stretch in front of the President's Palace in Carthage on which no one is allowed to walk), one often has to walk on the road itself here in Tunisia and Rihanna Gaga knows that when that's the case, she has to hold our hands.
When we arrive to the main road leading from Gammarth to La Marsa and beyond, the situation is not any better: lots of people waiting and no empty taxis. So we walk on to the centre of La Marsa - where there are more taxis dropping off and picking up people. A taxi stops in front of me and I hail him. The driver nods and I walk to the car while his previous passenger pays him. Rihanna Gaga and her mother take a bit longer and both a couple and a girl run past them to take the taxi themselves. The driver tells them that he's already taken and we enter the cab, while the others complain that 'those French' always get a special treatment. It doesn't matter. We've finally got our cab and we're on our way, driving through heavy traffic to La Goulette, a pleasant district a but further up the coast famous for its seafood restaurants. I'm not sure why it's so busy, but it might have to do with the fact that tomorrow is an Islamic holiday, since t
he only other time it was this busy - when Rihanna Gaga and I were going to the airport to travel to France - it was also an Islamic holiday.
We're going to La Spigola, an Italian restaurant. La Goulette was founded by Sicilians and there still are heaps of Italian restaurants, but La Spigola is supposedly the best of the lot - and since we are told so by Italians, we're ready to believe that. We're meeting up with friends: an Italian-El Salvadorean couple with a daughter of Rihanna Gaga's age that we often have playdates with because Rihanna Gaga and their daughter get along so well. Rihanna Gaga is really excited that we're going to see her friend today: meeting friends has become really important for her lately. She always speaks about all the friends she has at her daycare and she loves bringing little gifts when we go to visit some of her other friends. Today she has made a drawing for this particular friend.
La Spigola looks exactly like you would expect an Italian seafood restaurant to look: dark brown wooden furniture and walls, with the latter covered in naval parafernalia and pictures of La Goulette as it used to be when the majority of its inhabitants were still Sicilians. Rihanna Gaga and her friend play on the floor with the drawing Rihanna Gaga made and some animal toys that she brought along. The drawing is covered in stickers, that the two little girls start taking off to put them on the floor, on the chairs and on basically anything that they can put it on - repeatedly, until the stickers don't stick any longer.
Meanwhile, we chat with their parents, drink beer and enjoy the food - which is, indeed, exceptionally good. I have a pasta frutti di mare which tastes heavenly. While normally in Tunisia the frutti di mare looks suspiciously much as if it comes from a frozen pack bought in the supermarket, here it's clearly all fresh: mostly juicy calamari and shrimps. Rihanna Gaga comes along every once in a while to put some spaghetti into her mouth, or some vegetables, shrimps or pieces of fish that she gets from her mother. Then, she's off again to run around with her friend - this is not the kind of place where that would be considered a problem: the waiters laugh and pat the girls on their heads and the other customers are equally amused by them. After finishing our excellent lunch, we walk to the nearby seaside, where both girls manage to get themselves thoroughly dirty by rolling around in the sand and walking into the sea while fully clothed.
When we arrive to the main road leading from Gammarth to La Marsa and beyond, the situation is not any better: lots of people waiting and no empty taxis. So we walk on to the centre of La Marsa - where there are more taxis dropping off and picking up people. A taxi stops in front of me and I hail him. The driver nods and I walk to the car while his previous passenger pays him. Rihanna Gaga and her mother take a bit longer and both a couple and a girl run past them to take the taxi themselves. The driver tells them that he's already taken and we enter the cab, while the others complain that 'those French' always get a special treatment. It doesn't matter. We've finally got our cab and we're on our way, driving through heavy traffic to La Goulette, a pleasant district a but further up the coast famous for its seafood restaurants. I'm not sure why it's so busy, but it might have to do with the fact that tomorrow is an Islamic holiday, since t
We're going to La Spigola, an Italian restaurant. La Goulette was founded by Sicilians and there still are heaps of Italian restaurants, but La Spigola is supposedly the best of the lot - and since we are told so by Italians, we're ready to believe that. We're meeting up with friends: an Italian-El Salvadorean couple with a daughter of Rihanna Gaga's age that we often have playdates with because Rihanna Gaga and their daughter get along so well. Rihanna Gaga is really excited that we're going to see her friend today: meeting friends has become really important for her lately. She always speaks about all the friends she has at her daycare and she loves bringing little gifts when we go to visit some of her other friends. Today she has made a drawing for this particular friend.
La Spigola looks exactly like you would expect an Italian seafood restaurant to look: dark brown wooden furniture and walls, with the latter covered in naval parafernalia and pictures of La Goulette as it used to be when the majority of its inhabitants were still Sicilians. Rihanna Gaga and her friend play on the floor with the drawing Rihanna Gaga made and some animal toys that she brought along. The drawing is covered in stickers, that the two little girls start taking off to put them on the floor, on the chairs and on basically anything that they can put it on - repeatedly, until the stickers don't stick any longer.
Meanwhile, we chat with their parents, drink beer and enjoy the food - which is, indeed, exceptionally good. I have a pasta frutti di mare which tastes heavenly. While normally in Tunisia the frutti di mare looks suspiciously much as if it comes from a frozen pack bought in the supermarket, here it's clearly all fresh: mostly juicy calamari and shrimps. Rihanna Gaga comes along every once in a while to put some spaghetti into her mouth, or some vegetables, shrimps or pieces of fish that she gets from her mother. Then, she's off again to run around with her friend - this is not the kind of place where that would be considered a problem: the waiters laugh and pat the girls on their heads and the other customers are equally amused by them. After finishing our excellent lunch, we walk to the nearby seaside, where both girls manage to get themselves thoroughly dirty by rolling around in the sand and walking into the sea while fully clothed.
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