DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Tunisia is just full of beautiful neighborhoods. This neighborhood is called Berges du Lac -- it a newly developing neighborhood right near the airport. In fact, I actually captured a plane landing at the airport, flying right over the lake at sunset. 

 

I love this neighborhood because it has an amazing view of the strangely shaped mountain that is the backdrop of Tunis. And, watching sunset on the lake was absolutely stunning! The lake was dabbled with thousands of little blots of blue and orange, from the water and the sunset. 

 

Berges du Lac is one of the more upscale neighborhoods in Tunis, that is now home to the American embassy (although non-essential employees are still not allowed to return to Tunis). It is also home to one of my major research sites -- the Mediterranean Schoo of Business (MSB), which has been very welcoming and accomodating to me during my time here.

 

One of the striking things about the Berges neighborhoods (there is Lac 1 and Lac 2) is that both are full of contruction -- these are clearly new neighborhoods, and they are certainly being built without the charm and attention to detail that the old colonial neighborhoods have downtown. Instead, buildings are built to take up the whole block, and they are very square and impersonal. It is not actually very pleasant to walk around down there, if not on the corniche. Clearly, these neighborhoods are built in part for those with cars in mind -- one good thing, however, is the fact that this means that there are both sidewalks and places to park. 

 

In the vast (vast!) majority of Tunis, and where I live (La Marsa) there is one space that runs parallel to the road -- in the middle of the day, that space can be considered a parking space (and there is no sidewalk, us pedestrians must walk in the street or on the grass), and then at night, once everyone has gone home, there is a sidewalk. Really, these so-called "side walks" are ambiguous in nature, they are not raised inches off the ground like in the US, rather they are about 1-2 cenimeters off the ground, so they really are like parking spots during the day. 

 

Luckily, Berges du Lac neighborhood has discovered the joy of a proper sidewalk!

 

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.