After arriving at my hotel at 2 am, after travelling for almost 24 hours straight, we finally arrived in Tunis. Luke and I passed quickly thought security and met up with Mike, Moustafa, Eman, Nick and Conail all of who had their flights delayed except for Mike and Mohammed (our Tunisian driver, not TIG member) We had a successful opening day with security at the maxium. We went out to dinner with the entire TIG crew who are here plus most of the Youth Caucus, 20 of us in all. Appearantly the restaurant tried to over charge us, so Moustafa made sure that everything was fair, which made the server very angry. There was lots of arguing, but we eventually left. Trevor and I then went back to my hotel room who now had Conail and the newly arrived Damian at it and got a cab.

As we drove, a 15 minute drive turned into a 40 minute drive. Our cab driver was absolutely crazy! He hit and mashed a rat, and was very passionate about a number of topics. Sometimes swirving, sometimes hitting Trevor in the front seat, he went on in French the entire time. Topics ranging from the UN, Isreal/Palestine conflict, to girls and George Bush, he was always very animated, although at times, the conversation was definitely explicit. In the end, we finally got to the hotel and were none the less, very happy to be at the hotel away from him.

Day 2 is tomorrow with the TIG dinner, bring on the problems....

With the build-up to WSIS being so high-stress, I didn't figure out that I was actually exicted to go to Tunis until I was on the ground in Tunis itself. Last Friday I drove out to the airport with Kate, Mike and Jen to get them on their way to Tunis. Taking two cars, we barely had enought space for everything. Mike and Jen had 6 bags checked between them some which were both oversized and overweight, cost a tidy $150.

Once they retrieved their 7 carry on bags from me (I was far away from the checkin as normally people are retricted to only 1 bag each) they somehow managed to get on their plane without insident. How are they always so lucky?

On Sunday, Luke and I went out and checked in, although we were not as lucky. We successfully checked our bags in, but since I was carrying all the laptops (5 in all) the Lufthansa check-in lady, who happened to be the manager (darn, I couldn't complain) said my carry-on was too heavy! I have never had my carry-on bags weighed. So after arguing with her for a while, I gave my bag to Luke, as she refused to give me my boarding pass while it was in my posession. So she threatened me by saying, "Mr. Switzer, I will be at the gate waiting for you and if I see you with that bag, I will take it from you" I couldn't quite understand why she was so angry, but hey, I got on anyway, as she was checking people in in a different line then I was in! HA!

Tomorrow I'll be in Tunis, after we (Luke and I) sit in Frankfurt for a nice 12 hour layover...