Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

Rik Panganiban's Prepcom Photos

Rik Panganiban of CONGO has put together a nice photo gallery of pictures he took at the recent WSIS Prepcom meeting in Hammamet, Tunisia. He got some nice pictures of the meeting halls and members of the civil society delegation, including some funny pictures of me. -andy

One Last Night in Hammamet

Following the final plenary, we left the meeting hall and spent some time hanging out in the medina plaza amongst a group of several hundred delegates who were enjoying the marvelous evening weather. Ralf Bendrath and Karen Banks had invited me to join a bunch of people heading to Hammamet for dinner. Though at first I was up for the idea, I became somewhat wishy-washy as I felt a severe headache and dehydration begin to overtake me. But thanks to some successful guilt-ridden peer pressure, namely from the likes of Ralf and Christine Wenzel of the Heinrich Boll Foundation and Marouen Mraihi of TakingITGlobal Tunisia, I soon caved and agreed to join them.

A large group of us headed out of Yasmine Medina one last time and hailed a group of taxis to take us the 19 kilometers into town. Traffic was rather heavy as people from all over the Hammamet region came into the city for a night on the town. Eventually, the taxi dropped us off several blocks from the Medina, where we met up with some of the others, while Ralf and his colleagues went back to their hotel to change clothes. The rest of us walked over to Sidi Bou Hdid, the oceanside café where I’d enjoyed mint tea and a shisha when I first arrived in Hammamet.

We grabbed a couple of tables and settled in for a while. Eventually, we grew to a posse of around 20 people, spread out over three or four tables, drinking our various fruit juices, teas and sodas as we finally began to wind down from the summit. As our hunger pangs advanced to hunger pains, we decided to go to Les Trois Moutons, a well-known seafood and couscous restaurant a few blocks from the Medina. As some of the group still hadn’t arrived at the café, we staggered ourselves, heading over to the restaurant in groups of 10 or so people.

Les Trois Moutons was a cozy, classy place, with impeccably dressed waiters showing off the fresh catch of the day. We gorged ourselves on classic Tunisian mezze plates, including tuna, harissa, olives and French bread. I ordered the couscous special, which featured a combination of chicken and lamb; it was a two-person order, so I split it with Norbert Klein. Some of the group, including colleagues from the Philippines and Mozambique, had never had couscous before, so they decided to give it a whirl, while others went for steaks or fish. Bertrand de la Chapelle managed to pick out an excellent Tunisian Muscat wine, which we ended up polishing off and requiring another bottle in short order.

We hung out at the restaurant until midnight, taking advantage of the short time we had left to spend with each other. Ralf, Christine and Christoph had to leave for the airport by 1am for a pre-dawn flight, while others were being recruited by Marouenfor a late-night shisha. As tempted as I was to enjoy one last puff before returning to my usual non-smoking self, I needed to get up in less than six hours to catch my shuttle bus to the airport. It was so difficult to say goodbye, given the rollercoaster of events we’d all gone through over the last 96 hours, particularly since yesterday afternoon. Most likely, I wouldn’t see any of them again until February in Geneva; until then, we’d just have to continue our work and our friendships online.

By the time I returned to the hotel, it was nearly 1am; our taxi had gotten stuck in a traffic jam in Hammamet’s night club neighborhood. The strip felt more like Miami Beach than Tunisia, with hundreds of young people in tight, skimpy clothes cruising the road and queuing at the clubs. I felt as if we were cruising as well, as the taxi driver turned on his radio and started blasting a Black Eyed Peas song. So very, very un-Tunisian. Or perhaps not.

Work Concludes at the Prepcom

Late into the evening this past Saturday, government delegations wrapped up work at the first preparatory meeting, or prepcom, for the November 2005 World Summit on the Information Society. The final document produced by the governments has no major surprises in it. The governments agreed to work towards reaching a solution on outstanding issues related to Internet governance and funding mechasims to bridge the digital divide. They also agreed not to re-open any of the decisions made during the previous summit in Geneva last December; rather, they would work towards identifying actionable strategies to implement these previous decisions. The next Prepcom will take place in Geneva for seven working days, starting February 17 early next year.

The WSIS Secretariate has published a press release summarizing the results of the Prepcom; additionally, you can download the final document released at the end of the Prepcom.... -andy

Final Civil Society Plenary: Reflection, Exhaustion Win the Day

As the government plenary went into overtime Saturday night, civil society met for the last time at 6pm, hoping to tie up loose ends. Amir Barmaki of Iran chaired the meeting, which was attended by around 30 people. Compared to previous plenaries, it was calm and relatively orderly. It took several attempts for Amir to get audience members to comply with his request to stick with the agenda; rather, they tried to return to the previous debate over the human rights caucus speech. Eventually, Amir was able to get the group to focus on discussing a proposal for several taskforces to review civil society’s rules and procedures, in order to avoid having a similar debacle rear its ugly head in future prepcoms. These groups would publish reports on the matter early this autumn, then circulate them online for a month to collect comments and suggestions. They would then publish a final set of rules and procedures prior to the second Prepcom, scheduled for Geneva in February 2002.

Speakers for the audience were generally supportive, offering constructive criticisms to improve the proposed review process. Speakers representing Tunisian, Sub-Saharan African, and international NGOs all acknowledged the lamentable situation that had occurred over the previous 24 hours, stating that we must all make a concerted effort to rebuild trust and understanding amongst each other.

The plenary came to a close at 7:30pm, at which point the organizers of the Prepcom were expected to hold a press conference announcing the contents of their final report. But the press conference was pushed back to 8:30; it seemed pretty clear that the governments were going to have a long night ahead of them…. -andy

Governments Work on Draft Decision for Prepcom

Right now, representatives from more than 100 governments are meeting in plenary session at the WSIS Prepcom to complete a draft document outlining the decisions taken by them during this week's meeting. Prepcom President Karklins joked earlier that he hoped they could work hard so they could enjoy some of Tunisia's beautiful beaches later today, since tomorrow's forecast wasn't looking very positive.

Karklins is now speaking about how the final document must focus on practical, procedural matters for the two future Prepcoms, during which more substantive issues such as Internet governance and financing mechanisms will be addressed. The plenary is scheduled for a lunch break in about 20 minutes, then will reconvene at 3pm.

Tunisian Human Rights Activist Allowed to Speak at WSIS Prepcom

In a very dramatic turn of evetns this morning, Souhayr Belhassen of the Tunisian Human Rights League was given permission from the president of the WSIS Prepcom to speak in the governmental plenary on behalf of civil society. Other Tunisian representatives had tried to block her from participating, causing a major disruption in yesterday's sessions. Earlier today, civil society held another meeting to address the situation; while the meeting was much more orderly than yesterday's, it was apparent there was no chance of reaching an accord. Then, the governments announced they would invite Belhassen to speak in the plenary, despite the opposition by Tunisian representatives attending the civil society meetings.

The president noted the extraordinary circumstances of the situation, and allowed the representative speak during time specially alloted to her, not taking the time from the 15 minutes alloted to civil society. Other Tunisian and African groups, which had opposed her speech, were also given time to speak; in the end they simply read the same remarks that had been prepared for her, minus language they perceived as criticizing the Tunisian government.

Below is the text of her remarks, translated into English.

Civil Society statement on human rights
PrepCom1, WSIS second phase, Hammamet June 26 2004

I am Souhayr Belhassen, Vice-President of the International Federation for
Human Rights and Vice-President of the Tunisian League for Human Rights.

At the beginning of this WSIS second phase, civil society organizations
present in Hammamet wish to express their objectives and their working
priorities in view of the Tunis Summit in 2005.

At a time where the foundations of international human rights law are being
challenged by newly adopted laws and measures, everywhere in the world, in
the name of a fight against terrorism, it was important that the
Declaration of principles adopted in Geneva in 2003 makes reference to the
fundamental principles of universality and indivisibility of all human
rights, to the right to development, and specially reaffirms the necessary
respect of the integrality of Article 19 of the UDHR on freedom of
expression, of information and of communication.

This second phase must go beyond that. Indeed, we intend that it clarifies
these principles by also reaffirming the fundamental principle of non
discrimination, the necessity to respect international labor standards, and
the recognition that a true security can only be reached with measures
entirely compatible with internationally recognized human rights, not least
the right to privacy. In addition, we cannot accept that the Declaration of
principles admits that the rule of law is supposed to «reflect national
realities» rather than being in coherence with the legally binding
obligations of States according to the international human rights treaties
they have ratified.

The Tunis phase will focus on Internet governance and infrastructure
financing issues. We will take part in this work, making sure that its
results ensure the promotion of the effective implementation of the whole
set of human rights, and do not derogate from them.

Without effective implementation, the principles would indeed stay without
substance. We request that WSIS allow for these principles to be translated
into an information and communication society serving human rights. To this
end, we wish that the Summit define precise indicators allowing to evaluate
the realization of this objective and set up an international mechanism for
their assessment on this ground, at the local, regional and international
level.

Finally, we are entirely conscious of the fundamental importance of holding
WSIS here and for the people of all the global South countries, and we thus
wish its success. However, we wish to reaffirm that it is the duty of the
two host countries of the Summit to show exemplarity, especially in the
realization of freedom of expression, of information, of communication, as
well as of freedom of association and the right to privacy.

Paralysis at Tonight's Civil Society Meeting

This evening’s content and themes meeting of the civil society caucus degenerated into chaos, as some Tunisian and African NGO representatives overwhelmed the session, preventing chairs Karen Banks and Steve Buckley from leading a discussion on tomorrow’s various civil society speeches to the government plenary. With probably seven or eight Tunisians for every non-Tunisian in the room, they demanded that civil society take an immediate vote on whether language critical of the Tunisian government would be excised from the human rights caucus text.

The Tunisians, who did not participate in the human rights caucus session in which the language was drafted, demanded the right to overrule the text criticizing the Tunisian government, as well as change the speaker to someone they felt represented their view. They argued that a “vote” had been taken earlier in the afternoon during the previous civil society meeting -- rather, it was their supporters shouting acclamation -- and no consistent translation was offered to allow participants to make an informed decision.

For nearly two hours, the audience of nearly 100 people were completely deadlocked, with the Tunisians blocking calls for a discussion proposing that two people – one of their choosing and one chosen by the human rights caucus – be given time to speak tomorrow during the government plenary. On numerous occasions, Karen Banks was shouted down by Tunisian representatives, saying she wasn’t the legitimate chair of the meeting and that the chair that had presided over the chaotic afternoon session return to that position.

Eventually, Renate Bloem arrived, having come back from a meeting with government delegates, and implored the group to attempt to arrive at consensus. She said that if the session continued to be held hostage, it would become impossible for civil society to craft the speeches on other issues that need to be addressed during tomorrow’s plenary.

By this time it was just before 8pm, and the translators were off the clock and left the room. This made it impossible to continue the debate with adequate translation, and it was decided that a plenary to discuss the human rights issue would be convened first thing tomorrow morning so that the Content and Themes group could have an adequate amount of time tonight to plan tomorrow’s other speeches.

Transcript of George Christiansen's Civil Society Statement

Statement to the Plenary Session on Prepcom 1, WSIS Phase 2, Hammammet, 25 June 2004 - presented by George Christensen, AMARC-Africa

Civil society organisations, participating in the World Summit on the
Information Society believe a just and equitable information society must
be people-centred, based on respect for fundamental human rights and giving
priority to the reduction of poverty and the implementation of sustainable
development.

During the Geneva phase of the Summit, civil society organisations played a
full and active role. Despite significant constraints on dialogue and
communication within the process itself, civil society organisations
contributed extensively and with good effect.

At the completion of the Geneva Summit we can acknowledge three outcomes:
two intergovernmental documents the Declaration of Principles and the Plan
of Action, and one civil society document a declaration titled "Shaping
Information Societies for Human Needs" that was presented to governments at
the final plenary in Geneva.

Although there are several points on which the civil society position is
different from that of the governments we propose the Declaration of
Principles should not be re-opened.

They key principles in the intergovernmental Declaration - on sustainable
development and the millennium development goals, and on human rights and
freedom of expression - should form the measures against which actions in
the second phase are judged.

On the other hand, the Plan of Action, is not a document we can accept to
work with. It was hastily drafted in the final stages of the Geneva Summit,
with little input from civil society. In certain important respects it is
in contradiction with the Declaration of principles and it does not
adequately provide a basis for action and implementation.

We recommend this be reviewed to establish a new and measurable basis for
action.

As we commence the second phase of the World Summit on the Information
Society we would like to re-state our commitment to the priorities set out
in the civil society declaration presented in Geneva copies are available
here today.

We also wish to remind government that the role of civil society is not
simply one of assisting with implementation but also of observation,
monitoring and holding of governments to account. During the second phase
of the Summit we will continue to provide a constructive but critical input
to the process. We ask for the best conditions to do so in the firm belief
that our contribution will assist in achieving a better outcome.

Victoria Cabrera-Balleza's Civil Society Statement

Here is the second of three civil society statements read this morning to the Prepcom plenary. -andy

Victoria Cabrera-Balleza
ISIS International Manila

Statement to WSIS PrepCom Plenary
June 25, 2004

At the conclusion of the first phase of this World Summit the
international community agreed a vision and objectives, in the
Declaration of Principles, which are framed around the Millennium
Development Goals and other internationally agreed objectives for
sustainable development. In doing so the Geneva Summit committed to the
challenge of creating an information and communications environment
oriented towards the achievement of a world free of poverty and hunger.

In 2005 the Tunis Summit will coincide with the first five-year review
of international progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.
Governments and multilateral institutions will measure the results of
the WSIS process on the basis of its contribution to the achievement of
universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and women's
empowerment, reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal
health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and ensuring
environmental sustainability and development of global partnerships for
development.

These are key targets against which action and implementation must be
measured.

We all acknowledge that ICTs can make a contribution to poverty
alleviation and the realization of all human rights, including the right
to development, health, education, and information thereby enabling
developing countries to participate as equal partners in the global
information and communication society. But our efforts are largely
failing and the so-called 'digital-divide' is in fact expanding.

The model that relies primarily on international private investment to
achieve those goals is not working. Markets only provide services for
those who can afford them; governments are unable to correct market
failures due to imposed constraints including external debt and IMF
conditionalities that limit their investments in infrastructure;
investment agreements constrain the delivery of public services and
intellectual property regimes make technology transfers unaffordable.

These contradictions have been most obviously exposed in the case of
efforts to reduce mortality from HIV/AIDS where the basic right of
patients to life has been restricted by international trade rules to
protect the intellectual property of manufacturers of the medicines
vital for effective treatment.

Despite these failures, the Action Plan agreed in Geneva, relies to a
large extent on a false logic. It assumes that investment in information
and communication technology products, services and applications, will
by itself contribute to the achievement of development goals. It
assumes, that setting targets for rolling out the ICT infrastructure,
will automatically lead to alleviation of poverty.

Civil society has a different perspective on the priorities for action
needed to achieve the development goals and objectives set out in the
Declaration of Principles.

We believe policies and investment must be effective from the ground-up.

People and communities must themselves be enabled to take action to
improve their lives and conditions. Civil society initiatives and
community-driven development projects must be supported and encouraged
through improvements to the policy and regulatory environment for access
to information and to the means of communications and through investment
in traditional as well as new communication technologies.

WSIS II can be of enormous help in identifying the national and
international obstacles and the action which is needed to address them.

Full Text of Ralf Bendrath's Speech to Prepcom Plenary

Below is the official text that Ralf Bendrath presented to the Prepcom plenary on behalf of the civil society caucus.

Ralf Bendrath, Heinrich Böll Foundation

Statement to the PrepCom Plenary on behalf of the Civil Society plenary

25 June 2004

Dear friends,

The first phase of this summit was a major step forward in developing a
multi-stakeholder process on the global level. For the first time civil
society and others have participated in such a way.

We have worked very hard to use this opportunity in a constructive
manner. By doing so, we also have been reminding you of how a true
vision of a human-centred, just and inclusive information society could
and should look like.

We have to move on in this direction. Governments can not address these
issues alone. Any mechanism that does not closely associate civil
society and other stakeholders is not only unacceptable in principle, it
is also doomed to fail.

You all have acknowledged this. The importance of civil society
participation is evoked routinely by governments and in official WSIS
statements.

What we demand now is that the multi-stakeholder process is not just a
nice phrase, but becomes true reality.

This seems to be the case for the working groups on internet governance
and finance, where we have heard about and experienced very promising
approaches.

We insist that it also becomes a reality for the rest of the summit
process.

We are not convinced yet:

- The speaking time given to Civil Society reveals the ironic asymmetry
between the importance theoretically given to us and the actual reality.
Our speaking slots only amount to 2.7 per cent of the total plenary
time!

- In order to have meaningful discussion among all stakeholders, we need
to be able to speak to the points at the time they are raised. This is
not the case right now, though we already had this modality during the
Geneva phase!

- It is still not clear how we can contribute to the implementation of
the action plan with our knowledge and our experiences.

- Meaningful participation also needs to address the large part of civil
society that can not come to Tunis or Geneva. At this PrepCom, we do not
even have an internet broadcast as in phase one.

We want to make very clear that our further participation is depending
on some conditions:

- We insist that we don't fall back behind the highest levels of
inclusiveness and participation from the first phase. Instead, we even
want to improve them.

- All thematic and regional meetings have to be fully open to all
interested parties.

- Whatever Political Declaration is to be adopted in Tunis, appropriate
mechanisms have to guarantee that civil society is truly involved in any
drafting process and supported in commenting and proposing amendments in
a timely manner.

- We need modalities to ensure meaningful civil society consultation and
cooperation on all areas of the stock-taking exercises and the
implementation of the action plan.

- There must be a creative use of ICTs to ensure civil society
participation from all over the world. We have a lot of experience with
this from our own work.

- We were happy to hear about the participation fund yesterday. However,
we insist that the funding is used in a transparent manner, according to
the actual needs and with meaningful participation of already
established civil society structures on this.

To summarize:

We are not willing to play an alibi role or lend our legitimacy to a
process that excludes us from true meaningful participation. The summit
can only be a summit of successes if there is substantive progress in
our participation.

Videos of Civil Society Plenary on Human Rights

Just in case my blog entry didn't capture the chaos from earlier today, here are some videos of the civil society plenary in which Tunisian human rights activists fought with other Tunisian representatives over the human rights caucus document that was supposed to be delivered to the WSIS prepcom plenary.

http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/video/plenary.hr1.avi

http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/video/plenary.hr2.avi

http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/video/plenary.hr3.avi

Establishing a WSIS Conversation on Telecenters

This afternoon I hosted an informal gathering to discuss the possibility of forming an interdisciplinary telecenter taskforce within civil society’s WSIS-related activities. The session started with some confusion, as the room for the event changed three times on the illuminated signs advertising its location. Despite these initial difficulties, we had representatives from civil society, government and the private sector, hailing from France, Canada, Bangladesh, Guinea-Conakry, Taiwan, Denmark and the United States.

In the meeting, I gave a brief overview of discussions that had occurred at the Community Technology Centers Network (CTCNet) conference in Seattle two weeks ago. Given the interdisciplinary nature of telecenters, working in fields ranging from Internet access and education to content and human rights, their interests are spread out amongst the current working groups within civil society; therefore, some of the overarching goals of the telecenter movement might accidentally fall through the cracks, as different groups work to identify their particular work priorities.

We therefore decided to create a discussion list over the course of the next several weeks, allowing people ample time to join the list prior to the start of discussion. Discussions would occur in English, French and Spanish, utilizing translation software to assist the conversation. We would try to identify potential stakeholders within governments, civil society, the private sector, international agencies and donors with an interest in promoting successful, sustainable telecenters as a tool for reaching the Millennium Development Goals. The group would then brainstorm to identify specific projects that could serve the WSIS process, such as an international thematic conference; identifying networks of telecenters at the local, national and regional level in order to forge greater connections between them; collecting and disseminating case studies that demonstrate the rich diversity of telecenters, including programs run by libraries and community networks; and sharing of best practices and telecenter tools, translated for cultural and linguistic appropriateness.

Over the remaining time here at the Prepcom, I’ll continue having conversations with people on this issue; then in the coming weeks we’ll be able to start organizing more formal discussions via the Internet. Please stay tuned for a formal announcement on the launch of the discussion list and how to participate.

Civil Society Must not be an Alibi for Governments

Ralf Bendrath of the Heinrich Boll Foundation served as one of civil society’s speakers during today’s first plenary, immediately prior to the lunch break. Bendrath said that the Geneva stage of WSIS was “a major step forward in developing a multi-stakeholder process.” Governments cannot address ICT challenges alone, he noted; mechanisms must involve civil society if they are to succeed. “Governments routinely acknowledge civil society…. We demand that a multi-stakeholder approach becomes a reality.” Bendrath noted that a multi-stakeholder process is working in regards to efforts surrounding the issues of Internet governance and financing mechanisms, but it hasn’t worked well in other areas.

Additionally, Bendrath pointed out that civil society, with only 15 minutes to speak today and tomorrow, is thus given the equivalent of only 2.7 percent of total plenary time. Plus, their speaking slot is separated from the actual periods of debate. “We need to be able to speak to the point [of a particular issue] at the time they are raised,” he said. Bendrath also noted that only a small number of civil society representatives are participating here in person, leaving most of the community without an active voice.

Bendrath laid out a series of civil society’s concerns. He said that governments must not fall back from previous levels of civil society participation. Regional meetings must be open to all interest parties. Mechanisms must guarantee that civil society is involved in the drafting and amending process. There must be modalities for civil society involvement in implementing the action plan. There should be creative use of ICTs for civil society members around the world to participate. Bendrath also said that civil society was happy to hear about Tunisia’s offer to contribute 400,000 dinars for a civil society participation fund; however, the funds must be used in transparent manner.

“We are not willing to play an alibi role,” he said in his conclusion. “The summit can only be a success if there is substantive civil society involvement.”

Caucus Chaos over Human Rights

Following the suspension of the plenary session, civil society delegates met in the Didon Theatre to try to solve the impasse that had been reached over the human rights caucus statement. Saida Agrebi of Tunisia said the statement should say that all participating countries respect human rights rather than singling out Tunisia, and emphasized the need for an African to represent the caucus during the plenary. Other Tunisians concurred, with many of them dominating the first half of the discussion.

Ambassador Karklins, president of the Prepcom, then arrived and asked the group to resolve its differences. “We will give 15 minutes speaking time for NGOs. We cannot intervene in the decisionmaking process of NGOs, and we can give you time to sort out your internal questions, and I would ask Renate [Bloem] as your coordinator to give me a list of speakers at 12:40pm. The list should contain name, organization they represent, and speakers for their part should follow closely the rules of procedure… So therefore I will be very attentively following your intervention… and if I see that rules of procedure aren’t [followed] … I will intervene.”

Several speakers then noted that there is “extreme mistrust” between certain elements within the civil society family in terms of their position regarding the Tunisian government and human rights, and that it may be necessary to present both views, given them each time during the plenary speaking slot. Others suggested that the divide that exists within civil society should be acknowledged in the plenary for the sake of openness.

Rikke Frank Joergensen, co-chair of the human rights caucus, defended the process to date. “We followed the procedure that we’ve followed from the first phase of the summit,” she noted. She said that issues were discussed in yesterday’s civil society plenary, then people were invited to stay afterwards to help draft language. “The drafting group then decided on four speakers… including two African speakers, one on economic development and a woman from Tunisia on human rights.” Regarding the statement, she said it is consistent with statements the caucus had released in the past, and there is precedent to note any human rights issues in the host country, as had been the case in Geneva when there were problems with certain groups being allowed to speak and protest.

In the end, it appeared to be decided that there would be one speaker, a woman from Africa, who would leave out the language singling out Tunisia. There was no actual vote; while one was attempted, the Tunisian delegation overwhelmed the room with shouting and clapping. Additionally, the attempt at a vote was conducted without consistent translation into English, which meant many delegates were unable to participate or follow the proceedings.

As delegates left the room, a number of shouting matches broke out. The representative from the Tunisian Human Rights League called the apparent decision “a scandal,” with others shouting their opinion back and forth.

But the question still remains open; when civil society representatives spoke during the late morning plenary, just before lunch, the human rights caucus did not present their remarks, because it was clear that no democratic consensus had been reached on the issue. They will continue the debate later today, and hopefully strike some kind of agreement so they may present first thing tomorrow morning during the plenary session.

Prepcom Plenary Suspended Over Human Rights Dispute

Proceedings at the Prepcom have been suspended because some representatives from Tunisian civil society have objected to a Tunisian human rights activist who was scheduled to speak on behalf of the human rights caucus, as well as to some of the content in their presentation emphasizing the need to respect human rights, privacy and freedom of expression during the Tunis phase of WSIS. Sources say the objecting representatives from within Tunisian civil society complained to the Tunisian government minister in attendance at the Prepcom, who in turn objected to the president of the Prepcom. The agenda of the Prepcom has been suspended for 45 minutes. The dispute remains unresolved. Civil society representatives have scheduled an emergency meeting, which shall begin in a few minutes. More information soon.

Presentations by Intl Agencies, Private Sector - Then Meeting Suspended

The second morning of the WSIS Prepcom in Tunisia began with presentations from representatives of international agencies and the private sector, to be followed by civil society. Various international agencies discussed their priorities for the Tunis phase of WSIS, some offering to host thematic meetings on issues outlined in the plan of action. For example, UNCTAD and OECD stated they are going to host two thematic meetings between now and the Tunis summit in November 2005. First, they will co-host a meeting on ICT indicators and statistics, for monitoring ICT development around the world and help foster informed ICT policymaking; this event has been proposed for February 2005 in Geneva. Second, they outlined plans for an event to address the impact of ICTs on economic development, and exploring best practices for the use of ICTs to raise economic competitiveness of developing countries.

A representative from the private sector then noted their priorities and objectives for the Tunis phase of WSIS. Priorities:

- Observers should be able to attend all WSIS-related meetings to provide meaningful input to government delegates.

- Rules should allow observers to intervene in all meetings.

- transparency and timely distribution of information for documents, meetings and other resources.

Objectives:

- Negotiations during the Prepcoms should focus on unresolved issues, particularly financing mechanisms and Internet governance. Governments should from renegotiating issues that were resolved during the Geneva phase of WSIS.

- Assessment, evaluation and benchmarking of the WSIS Plan of Action should be focus of the Tunis summit.

- Thematic meetings should focus on key themes outlined in the Plan of Action. The meetings should not be used to open previously resolved issues.

At this point in the plenary, Ambassador Karklins suspended presentations for three minutes and called upon bureau representatives from the private sector and civil society to the podium for three minutes. After 15 minutes had elapsed, Karklins suddenly suspending the proceedings for 45 minutes and called for a meeting of the entire bureau. I hope to have more information soon.

An Evening of Work, Food and Music

Following the end of yesterday's plenary sessions, civil society hosted a meeting to discuss drafting the presentations it will give to the full plenary Saturday morning. Karen Banks and Steve Buckley moderated the session, outlining a series of themes they thought should be presented. For the next hour and a half, they took comments and questions from over a dozen members of the audience. Some offered suggestions to recognize cultural diversity, the role of youth in bridging the digital divide, and reiterating the importance of a commitment to human rights and free expression. Several participants argued the 15-minute speaking slot available to civil society on both Friday and Saturday was highly insufficient, and should press for more time in subsequent prepcoms. Additionally, the heated exchange that had occurred amongst Tunisian activists in the human rights caucus meeting earlier in the day spilled out again, provoking passionate arguments on several occasions.

Following the meeting, representatives from several of the caucuses went off to draft language for the presentations, while most of the group joined government and other delegates at the official welcome reception in the medina's plaza. Several hundred participants mingled amongst the rows of cocktail snacks and bartenders, while a group of young Tunisians wearing elaborate Thousand and One Nights costumes posed for pictures with attendees. On stage, a pair of male guitarists performing Django Reinhardt-like ditties dueled with an all-women Tunisian women's ensemble. The women were excellent performers and helped set the atmosphere, but the men, despite their talents, seemed a bit out of place considering the location....

Lamenting My Shameful Monolingualism

If there's one lesson I've learned so far here at the WSIS prepcom in Tunisia is that I really, really regret not maintaining and nuturing my French skills from high school. As an official UN event, the prepcom has simultaneous translations in the official languages of the UN -- English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Russian. But in reality, much of the one-on-one and small group conversations are taking place in French, Frenglish (a French-English melange) or Frengrabic (yes, a blend of French, English and Arabic). Many of the participants are quite fluent in French, and I've had several situations where a group of us would simply speak in the language we're most comfortable speaking, then assume the rest of the group knew enough French and English to get through the conversation. For example, in conversations I've had with delegates from Tunisia, France and Cameroon, we've just spoken in our language of choice and hoped for the best.

At some times I've actually been surprised that I've been able to get the gist of these conversations in French, but when this has happened, I've obviously given off some kind of misleading nonverbal signals suggesting my comprehension is stronger than it actually is, which then leads to a ramping up of French in the conversation. Then I am lost, absolument.

Nonetheless, it's really amazing being among so many people who are bilingual, trilingual, quadrilingual, polyglots to the Nth degree. The president of the Prepcom, a native Latvian speaker, flows between English, French and Russian without blinking, for example. And of course, it really makes me sad that American schools don't require students to start learning a second language in early primary school. What a lost opportunity.

So as soon as I step off the plane in Boston, next stop, Berlitz -- I really need a refresher course... -andy

Telecenters Discussion this Friday in Hammamet

Tomorrow I'll be hosting a discussion on the role of telecenters, community technology centers, libraries and other public access points to the Internet, in the World Summit on the Information Society. The issue of telecenters hasn't received much focus in the process so far, so I've been exploring whether delegates here in Tunisia would be interested in forming some kind of working group on the subject that would be a part of civil society's contribution to WSIS.

If you're in Hammamet, our meeting will take place at 2pm tomorrow in room A6 here at the Medina conference center. Hope to see some of you there; otherwise, I'll also post a summary here on my blog.... -andy

A Raucous Caucus

A brief, but large, video clip of the end of the Human Rights Caucus, in which a volatile debate broke out amongst human rights activists and others from Tunisia. Ralf Bendrath has also written a very good summary of the meeting.

Morning Plenary: An Elephant Parade of Speeches

Ambassador Janis Karklins of Latvia, newly-elected president of the Prepcoms for the Tunis phase of WSIS, was the first to speak during the during the first plenary session. “I would like to extend my profound gratitude to the govt of Tunisia for its warm hospitality. Conditions of work here are excellent and certainly stimulate fruitful debate and meaningful outcomes.” He paid tribute to Adama Samasekou, who chaired the first phase of Prepcoms for Geneva, then led a vote to adopt the proposed agenda for the three days of meetings.

Most of the morning was spent with countries giving brief statements reiterating their support for the WSIS, as well as outlining any financial contributions they’re making to the process. The session wrapped up just after 1pm, and is about to start again for the 3pm plenary, which is running a few minutes late. Ambassador Karklins has been banging the gavel for about five minutes, and is just getting the audience's attention.

Phlogging at the Prepcom

Rather than fill my blog's homepage with large photos, I've started to post some pictures to my photo blog at phlog.net. You can access them by clicking the previous hyperlink, or from the list of photos included on the left column of my blog's homepage. So far I've posted some pics of Renate Bloem, Bruno Oudet and myself. Enjoy.. -ac

Self Portrait: Andy at the Prepcom

Here's a picture of me blogging from the balcony of the plenary session.

Panorama of Prepcom Plenary Session

Here's a panorama photo of the Prepcom plenary session. It's also available as a much larger jpeg file or as a panoramic Quicktime VR file.

Prepcom Opening Ceremony

At the Yasmine Hammamet Medina in Tunisia this morning, Mr. Utsumi of the International Telecommunications Union opened the first preparatory meeting (prepcom) of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society. He said we should now move beyond making declarations and embrace real action to bridge the digital divide. “I now call on governments, private sector and civil society to find common ground.” The representative of the Swiss government discussed a range of issues, including the role of civil society in the WSIS process. He said that he felt civil society’s contributions have helped stimulate ideas amongst governments, and reiterated the importance of civil society participating throughout the process.

The Tunisian government representative then welcomed the plenary audience on behalf of Tunisian President Ben Ali. “I am convinced that the complimentary of the summit process, with its first phase in Geneva and the second phase in Tunis… will strengthen the bonds of international solidarity,” he said. He then went on to reaffirm the importance of civil society and the private sector participating in the process. He added that civil society should “intensify” their participation in the process, saying they are “an essential element” for the establishment of the information society. As part of the Tunisian government’s support of civil society participation, he called for a permanent UN fund for financing the participation of civil society in the WSIS process. He then said the Tunisian government would contribute 400,000 dinars (USD $320,000) to help facilitate the participation of civil society representatives from the developing world, particularly groups representing youth, women and the disabled. He said these groups would also receive free space to display their activities at the Tunis summit. Similarly, he offered free space for small private sector companies interested in presenting at the summit.

Journalism Rights Brouhaha

It took less than an hour for the first argument to erupt over press freedoms to break out during the morning civil society plenary. Steve Buckley of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) gave an overview of yesterday’s media caucus breakout session, and summarized a letter the group has submitted to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking for guarantees that press freedoms will be protected during the Tunis phase of WSIS. Then, a Mr. Achour from Tunisia’s Doctors Without Borders stood up and gave a monologue on how he knew of no journalists who have been put on trial in Tunisia, and said the media caucus had been plotting in secret meetings. Immediately, Buckley then stood up and started to distribute documentation to people in the audience countering Achour’s arguments.

The Tunisian chair of the plenary called for a point of order, as did Renate Bloem, but Achour kept talking. Eventually, Rik Panganiban intervened and said that this plenary is solely for reviewing the caucus meetings from yesterday, and not for debating. The chairwomen then invited Achour to participate in the scheduled media caucus and human rights caucus, open to all attendees, in which he could feel free to debate the issue. Interestingly, Buckley’s call for openness and press freedoms were then reaffirmed by the Swiss government representative during his opening remarks of the Prepcom plenary, going on right now.

Janis Karklins and the Lella Baya House Band

Late last night, civil society representatives had the opportunity to chat with Ambassador Janis Karklins of Latvia, who has been nominated to become president of the Prepcom of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society. Karklins, who literally arrived at the Lella Baya Hotel five minutes prior to the meeting at 10:30pm, quickly joined the group of 15 civil society representatives, hosted by Renate Bloem of CONGO. Sitting outside by the pool as a rather obnoxious dance band performed 100 meters away for a throng of gyrating Spanish tourists, Karklins described the basic procedures that had been adopted unanimously by the Prepcom bureau in Geneva. As the dance music throbbed in the background, the group asked questions on a variety of issues, including press freedoms during the Tunis phase, ensuring adequate speaking time for civil society representatives, human rights in the hot country and various procedural issues. Because of the extraordinarily loud music vibrating everyone to the bone, sometimes it was rather difficult to hear what was said; nonetheless, civil society representatives seemed to appreciate the 45 minutes he gave to the group at such a late hour.

UNDP Previews Financial Mechanisms Taskforce

Shoji Nishimoto, Assistant Administrator and Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy, brief ed civil society members on a new UNDP taskforce which will discuss financing mechanisms for bridging the digital divide between developed and developing nations. The taskforce, yet to be formed, will feature representatives from government, civil society and the private sector, who will identify successful strategies for funding sustainable, replicable models to bridge the divide. Nishimoto said the UNDP will seek nominations for experts with experience in implementing funding programs and digital divide initiatives, including programs that have creatively addressed the divide from various perspectives, including infrastructure, education, content, etc.

Nishimoto expects the taskforce to be constituted by the end of July, with work commencing immediately via the Internet and occasional in-person meetings. Mark Malloch Brown, director of UNDP, has asked Nishimoto to report the findings of the taskforce by this December, in order to allow for time to review the report prior to the second Prepcom meeting, expected to be in Geneva early in 2005. Nishimoto predicted around 17 or 18 taskforce members; there will also likely be a mechanism for non-members of this taskforce to submit opinions on the subject via the Internet

Civil Society Content and Themes Plenary

The next plenary session focused on civil society’s work in the WSIS process in terms of generating content for official WSIS documents and activities. Renate Bloem opened the session noting that during the first prepcom meeting of the first round of WSIS, civil society was “totally excluded.” Complaints about this eventually led to the establishment of an official WSIS civil society bureau that would have a legitimate seat at the table, and would be able to submit input on various relevant topics by civil society organizations. During the second prepcom, civil society representatives divided themselves into various working groups on themes such as human rights, gender, Internet governance, etc, but this was limited to those people who were physically represented at the meeting, meaning that some potential topics might have fallen through the cracks.

“The idea of establishing a civil society bureau was a very, very good one, but we must make sure the process is as democratic and legitimate as possible,” she said. Over the next day, civil society groups will have to decide who amongst them will want to speak during two 15-minute time slots in the plenaries this Friday and Saturday morning.

Next, a representative from the civil society content and themes group offered more details on the process. These self-selected working groups were based upon various common interests and geographic regions. The groups would then develop positions on relevant Internet issues and submit them to the content and themes group, whose task it would be to develop the ideas into a unified position document representing all of civil society participating in WSIS. During the first round of WSIS, he said, civil society groups felt that their ideas weren’t being taken seriously, though almost half of the ideas suggested by civil society ended up making it into the official documents. Still, he said, this needs improvement, and we should push to re-open the issue so more of the positions of civil society get accepted by the participating governments.

Governments, he said, clearly have unfinished business to do regarding Internet governance and the financing of digital divide initiatives, but that should not stop us from advocating our ideas and trying to get them included in the final WSIS documents. The WSIS plan of action, he said, needs more specifics. Civil society should also hold governments accountable to what they’ve promised to do throught this process. Last, civil society must make sure that governments take human rights seriously; in particular, he cited the Tunisian government’s evolving policies as an important barometer for seeing if governments address the issue in ways that are satisfactory to civil society.

The final speaker was Bertrand de la Chapelle, who gave a demonstration of the website www.wsis-online.net. A community platform for civil society activists, the website is intended to be used by groups so they can coordinate their WSIS-related activities. The site allows users to create event listings, working groups, organizational and personal profiles, etc, all sorted by particular civil society interests. The website’s database then allows users to sort people and organizations based on these interests so they can identify each other and hopefully partner with each other to meet civil society goals.

Opening of the Civil Society Event

This morning at the Hammamet Medina, Civil Societybegan a day-long meeting regarding the WSIS prepcom meeting, which will officially open tomorrow morning. After opening comments from Renate Bloem, she then welcomed Charles Geiger of the WSIS Executive Secretariate.Geiger explained the history of the UN’s interest in hosting world summits. “Each summit creates their own rules,” he said. “This summit is special because it has two phases. On the first summit the governments decided on the rules of procedure…. A world summit is basically an intergovernmental summit, while businesses, international organizations and civil society act as observers.”

“The origins of this summit was that the Tunisian government proposed the summit at a meeting of the ITU in Minnesota in 1998…. It was then brought into the UN system, and there was a resolution that was the basis of this becoming a UN summit. They said the first phase would take place in Geneva in 2003, and the second phase would be in Tunisia in 2005.”

“There were two breakthroughs at WSIS. You were able to create civil society bureaus so you could speak with one voice. Plus there were joint bureau meetings in which civil society and business were invited to meet with governments. Governments don’t like to do new things, but once they do, they probably will continue.” Geiger said he couldn’t guarantee it would happen in this phase as well, but hoped it would, perhaps starting with a joint bureau meeting this Friday at 6pm.

“At the first summit we had two declarations, so the question now comes, what is left for phase two?” he said. “Here I can only make guesses, since I cannot speak for the governments. There is unfinished business on… Internet governance and financing mechanisms [for a digital divide fund].”

Geiger said there would probably be a second prepcom in Geneva next February, followed by a third prepcom in the late summer, either in Geneva or Tunis. There will also be regional meetings in Brazil, in Ghana in February and one hosted by the Arab League. He also noted that he expects the ITU to announce tomorrow the availability of UN funds to support the WSIS process, since WSIS to date has been an unfunded mandate and supported by various public and private sources.

Hammamet: Tunisia, Disney or Vegas?

For once, I managed to wake up before 8am; I must be finally adjusting to the time zone. After breakfast I finished packing my things and checked out of the hotel, ready to head to Hammamet for the rest of the week. I needed to catch a taxi to take me to the louage station – louages are shared minibus taxis that take people all over Tunisia. According to the woman at the front desk of the hotel, catching a louage would be faster than taking the bus, as long as I didn’t find myself being the first passenger in a particular taxi – otherwise, I’d have to wait until the taxi would leave, and sometimes that longer than you’d like it to be.

I went outside to hail a taxi; the first one stopped and said he’d charge me 10 dinars for the ride to the louage station, which was absolutely ludicrous, since it shouldn’t cost more than two dinars. I waved him off and grabbed the next one, who was decent enough to not try to rob me and turned on his meter as soon as I got inside the front seat next to him.

We weaved through Tunis to the south side of town until reaching the louage station. As soon as I stepped out on the curb an attendant asked where I was going.

“À Hammamet,” I replied.

“Les billets sont là-bas,” he said, pointing to the ticket agent.

When I got to the agent I noticed a sign posting the fares to various destinations. Just below Hammamet was Hammamet Sud – perfect, since I was actually going to a new resort and business complex called Yasmine Hammamet, about 10 miles south of Hammamet proper. I paid the four dinar fare and was immediately directed to a waiting louage that had only one seat available. As soon as my bags were in the trunk and I was in the seat, the louage was on its way, no waiting necessary.

The louage took the highway east out of Tunis towards Cap Bon, the peninsula that’s home to Hammamet and a collection of popular beach resorts. As we sped down the highway, I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake about not going to Kairouan yesterday, The louage was faster than I expected, not making stops along the way, so maybe I could have gotten there in less than three hours. Perhaps there’d be time on Saturday after the meetings wrap up; we’d just have to wait and see.

We rode along for about 50 minutes, listening to Tunisian pop music without anyone saying a word, except to answer their mobile phones, which kept going off every five or 10 minutes. Soon enough, we arrived in Hammamet Sud, and before I could get my bags out of the trunk, they’d already hailed me a cab to take me the rest of the way to Yasmine Hammamet. The taxi ride was probably no more than 10 minutes, and cost three dinars. As we pulled into Yasmine, I felt like we were entering a gated community. Leaving the highway, we drove along a wide boulevard with fresh asphalt, lined with palm trees on each side. We passed one resort hotel after another.

Then, we arrived at my hotel, the Lella Baya. Quite literally a postmodern sandcastle, the Lella Baya is an enormous structure, designed to look like castles made out of brown and white sand. Inside, the décor was so over the top it probably would have made Walt Disney blush; an Aladdin fantasy come to life, with huge vaulted Moorish ceilings and columns, once again made to look like sand. It took a while for me to get checked in; it was well before noon and technically they weren’t supposed to let you check until the afternoon. But after 15 minutes or so, my bags disappeared; a few minutes later I was whisked away to the third floor, where I found the bags waiting on my bed.

I had a little time before heading over to the conference center, so I took a quick walk down to the beach, right behind the hotel. The beach was jammed with Spanish and Italian tourists, lounging under thatched-roof umbrellas. I was caught somewhat off-guard when I realized some of the women were bathing topless; not a big surprise if this had been a beach in France or Spain, but it seemed both odd and awkward that they were doing it in an Arab country.

After my walk I went back into the hotel to find out where the conference center was. The man behind the front desk told me to go to the shop to get a map, and the shop keep was happy to charge my five dinars for the privilege to look at a map and find out. This was somewhat irritating because Yasmine Hammamet is so new, it’s not given much attention in the guidebooks, so there was no other way for me to look at a map than to buy one from the hotel. It seems they could have at least had one I could glance at with the concierge or something.

As it turns out, the conference center was in the medina, five minutes’ walk south from the hotel. I step outside onto the sweltering pavement – it was pushing 35 degrees Celsius today – and prayed I wouldn’t be a sweaty mess by the time I got there. A few minutes past the hotel I discovered Carthage World, an amusement park with a variety of rides, none of which seemed to be running at the moment. The entrance of the park was marked by two life-sized mannequins of war elephants; a pair of security guards smoked their cigarettes below the tusks, relaxing in the pachyderm shade. Beyond the elephants were other mannequins, mostly of Arab sailors and pirates – though the pirates were sporting Caribbean pirate garb rather than North African corsair accoutrements. The strangest thing about the park was that its logo was the ancient Punic symbol for children I’d seen at the Sanctuary of Tophet – the same symbol used to mark the place of children that had apparently been sacrificed in the names of Baal Hammon and Tanit.

Soon, I arrived at the medina – not a medina in the traditional sense of the word, though. Yasmine’s medina is brand-spanking new, a complex of restaurants, casinos, shops and conference space that would be my home for the next few days. The kitschiness of the place was breathtaking. It wasn’t even parallel to Disney – this was Vegas, baby, no doubt about it. In fact, the architect who built the Yasmine medina appeared to have done a PhD dissertation in the transformation of Vegas in the 1980s and 1990s: the developers of Circus Circus and the Mirage would have been proud of the medina.

I entered the medina through the southern side, not sure if I was supposed to have gone through the northern entrance, since it was labeled CASINO in huge letters (as opposed to UN CONFERENCE, which would have caught my eye). I passed a swanky café full of beautiful Tunisians having a late morning shisha and coffee. Weaving through the complex, I eventually saw the first evidence that the UN was having a meeting here: a map showing where you could go to pick up your badges for the event. I followed the map but discovered that they weren’t set up yet for accrediting people or handing out badges. In fact, most of the activity in the medina seemed to be geared towards putting on final coats of paint and sanding down any rough edges on doorways.

Along the way I stumbled upon a small post office. I’d be carrying around a batch of postcards that needed stamps, so I went inside to by some. The man working there spoke English, so I requested four stamps that would get my postcard to America.

“Where in USA are you from?” he asked.

“I live in Boston, but I grew up in Florida, near Disney World.”

“Welcome to our Disney World,” he said. “Hammamet is the best place in all of Tunisia. Have you been here before?”

“No, this is my first time, though I’ve traveled to other parts of North Africa and the Middle East.”

“Please enjoy Tunisia,” he said. “But maybe not Algerie, n’est ce pas?”

“Not this time,” I said. “Some day, Algeria and Libya, but now just Tunisie.”

Exploring the rest of the medina to get a feel for where the conference activities would be, I bumped into Renate Bloem and Rik Panganiban of CONGO, which promotes the interests of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the United Nations. Renate is one of the leaders of civil society’s representation at the UN summit, so it was nice to finally meet her in person. Eventually, they had to leave for another appointment, but Rik pointed me in the direction of the cybercafe, where I was able to settle down for a while and catch up on some work.

Later in the afternoon, since there weren’t any official events going on yet, I decided to catch a taxi to old Hammamet so I could visit its medina – a real medina, at least in comparison to Yasmine’s medina. It was a 15-minute drive to Hammamet, following the coast in a clockwise curve along the peninsula. Stepping out of the taxi, I was greeted by another sand castle – this one, at least, had been first built in the ninth century, and served as a military and commercial stronghold for over a thousand years. The Hammamet medina was a beautiful sight – a sandstone fortress on the outside with whitewashed houses on the inside. Sure, this was tourist central, but at least it wasn’t built for the tourists – it was one of the main reasons they came here in the first place.

The taxi had dropped me off at the northwest corner of the medina, right next to a wide, sandy beach. Rather than head directly to the medina, I crossed over the beach to enjoy the view of Hammamet Bay, filled with fishing boats and Tunisian kids swimming. Across the bay, I could see Hammamet Sud; further to the left, you could just make out Yasmine Hammamet, only because you could spot people parasailing along a small strip of waterfront.

Returning to the northwest corner of the medina, I discovered a charming café called the Sidi Bou Hsid. One of the best locations for an oceanfront café I’d ever seen, it had marvelous things to look at on three sides: the ocean, the walls of the medieval medina, and whitewashed, domed houses that looked like they were straight out of Star Wars (which they very well might have been since the Star Wars flicks were filmed all over Tunisia). Ordering a mint tea and a bottle of water, I sat down at the café under a tall umbrella, watching the fishing boats go by. This really was a charming place.

Leaving the café, I entered the medina from the northern side and went for a long walk, getting lost in its myriad alleyways and impasses. The medina was in marvelous condition, much more so than the Tunis medina, with everything freshly whitewashed; not a crumbling building in sight. Most of the medina on this end of the complex was jammed with souvenir shops, fairly similar to what I’d seen in Tunis. But within a few blocks you were able to reach its residential areas, where kids played football and happy cats snoozed on doorsteps. (The cats here also seemed healthier than the ones in Tunis; none of them were skinny, they were clean, and many wore collars.) The medina was also much less chaotic than Tunis; I’d actually enjoyed the chaos back in the capital, but the peacefulness of this place was very refreshing.

Eventually I came out of the medina on the southern side, then backtracked through part of the walled city until I found an exit on the eastern side. I went to look for a café in the newer part of town but couldn’t find anything that struck a chord with me, so I returned to the oceanside café that I first visited an hour or so earlier, and settled in over a tall glass of Diet Coke and my Lonely Planet guide, whose Tunisian History section I reread for the fourth or fifth time. The sun was getting low in the sky, causing the light to dance on the water . Many of the day-tripping tourists began to leave as locals replaced them in the café. At one point I spotted a young girl who was selling sprigs of jasmine tied into miniature bouquets – Tunisian men traditionally tuck them behind one ear. I asked if I could take a picture, and she said yes, so I snapped a few shots of her before dutifully buying some jasmine for one dinar, which she showed me to tuck it behind my left ear.

By now it was after 6pm, and I was tempted to head back to the hotel. But given the dearth of choices for dinner there, I decided I’d take advantage of my time in Hammamet and get a bite to eat in the neighborhood. Crossing the road from the medina, I found an Italian café that was full of locals, so I settled in for a Boga (Tunisian ginger ale) and a small pizza. I thought I’d ordered a vegetarian pizza, but it came with meat on it – include what I’m pretty sure was ham, another Tunisian surprise. Fortunately, a cute little cat found his way below my table and began to nuzzle against my leg. He stayed with me for the next 45 minutes as I ate my pizza and not-so-discreetly passed him my ham, to the delight of the Tunisian children sitting at the tables around me.

After dinner, I figured it was time to go back to the hotel. Rather than take a taxi back, I took the Hammamet Toy Train, which is similar to the car-trains you see pulling people around at Disney’s parking lot, or inside theme parks. Each car of the train was decorated like Thomas the Tank Engine and was painted pink. For two and a half dinars, I got to sit with a bunch of German tourists as we zoomed at 40 kilometers per hour down the highway in what was essentially a convoy of glorified golf carts.

And now it’s 9pm back at the hotel. Most of the guests are crowded around giant-screened TVs in the atrium watching Euro 2004 football matches. I’m sitting outside by the pool with my laptop, while an Arabic-language version of The Chicken Dance plays in the background. Only in Yasmine Hammamet.

Lost in the Medina

I really, really intended to get up early this morning, but once again my jetlag got the better of me. Despite the fact I set my alarm for 6:30am, I had to drag myself out of bed just before 9am – not a good start. My plan had been to get up and catch a shared taxi to Kairouan, three hours to the self. According to genealogy research I’ve done, the name Carvin, originally spelled Karawan, descends from a family of rabbis who taught at Kairouan’s Talmudic college in the 11th century.

Of course, I don’t have any family tree written down to prove any of this, but I’d always wanted to visit Kairouan just to check out the place, in case my ancestors once called it home. But as I had breakfast and though about it, the whole idea of traveling three hours each way just to visit for only a couple of hours didn’t seem worth it. Of course, I may end up regretting this decision, but I know I’ll be back to Tunisia at least once or twice in the next couple of years because of the World Summit on the Information Society, So next time I’m here, I’ll plan to go there at least on an overnight excursion rather than making a grueling day trip from Tunis.

With that decision settled, I decided I’d spend the day getting to know the Tunis medina a little better. There was a lot to see hidden in the souks and alleyways – I just needed the better part of a day to do it. Leaving the hotel around 10am, I walked west down Avenue Bourguiba and paid a brief visit to the Catholic cathedral of Tunis. The cathedral was constructed by the French in the late 1800s on the previous location of a much smaller church. Because the land was rather swampy at the time, they had to sink nearly 2400 Norwegian fir tree trunks to build a stable foundation. The interior of the church is rather modest by cathedral standards, but its use of Moorish arches in the vaulting gives it an exotic touch. High above the altar there’s a mosaic of Abraham blessing representatives of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, appropriate given Tunisia’s relatively good history of religious tolerance.

Continuing west through the French Gate, I entered the medina and visited several shops on my way to the Great Mosque. Almost every shop owner called out to me, trying to get me to come inside. Oddly enough, almost of none of them thought I spoke English – instead they called out to me in Italian. On several occasions I played along, saying I was either Mexican, Norwegian and Scottish, depending on my mood. Only when I said I was Scottish did I seem to get a reaction – “Ah, whisky!” they all seemed to reply with a huge grin on their faces.

Of all the shops, I particularly liked Hanout Arab, which specialized in traditional Berber crafts. Compared to most of the shops along the main drag, Hanout Arab offered fair fixed prices with no pressure from the owners, so I was free to browse at my leisure. Perhaps I’d come back later in the afternoon and do some shopping; better do it later rather than drag around a bag of souvenirs all day.

Soon I arrived at the eastern entrance of the Great Mosque. It’s open for tourists a few hours each morning, so I wanted to visit before it closed for noon prayers. Coming upstairs to pay the entrance fee, a guide immediately latched on to me and offered to give me a tour of the place. I politely declined, but then he offered to take me on a quick visit to Koranic school and a terrace with a view of the Mosque. Since good views of the mosque were hard to come by, I decided to play along, even though it might cost a few dinars.

“Okay, but no shopping,” I said to him.

“Okay, not shopping,” he replied.

First, though, I spent a few minutes in the courtyard of the mosque, watching a group of men renovating the inner perimeter. Most of the courtyard was blocked off by the construction, which was disappointing, but I still had a nice view of the mosque’s beautiful 19th century minaret. Since I wasn’t able to explore any further, there wasn’t much point staying any longer, so I told the guide I was ready to go to visit the terrace. We walked south along the edge of the mosque; I had to walk briskly to keep up with the guy. Eventually he arrived at a carpet shop and went inside. I stood outside.

“Wait,” I said. “No shopping, remember?”

“Yes, yes, no shopping,” he replied. “Up.” He immediately bolted inside and up a staircase; I begrudgingly followed. Indeed, given the pace he was going, there was little chance I’d get to see any of the carpets inside, so I breathed a sigh of relief and went up several flights of stairs.

Soon I found myself looking at the Tunis medina from above, a forest of white buildings, sparse patches of green, with minarets in every direction. Immediately to my north, I could see the Great Mosque, making out its courtyard and interior prayer rooms based on the position of the minaret. Immediately I was glad I’d gone with this guy, since the view of the minaret from inside the courtyard simply hadn’t done it justice. I wandered the terrace, split on three different levels with tiled arches in between, appreciating the 360-degree view. It’s too bad the call to prayer was at least a couple of hours away; I couldn’t imagine a better spot for appreciating it.

As we left the terrace, I made sure I led the way downstairs, in case the guide wanted to come up with an excuse to stop and see the carpets.

“You see carpets, yes?” he asked just as my foot reached the door.

“I would like to see the medressa now,” I replied.

“Okay, okay, we go to medressa,” he said, looking resigned to the fact he wouldn’t be getting a commission this morning.

Soon he overtook my pace, and once again I had to struggle to keep up with him. Since he knew I didn’t have the patience for carpet shopping, he probably wanted to get this gig over with as quickly as possible. Weaving through the souk, we soon reached the entrance to the Slimania medressa, constructed by the Ottoman governor Ali Pasha in the mid-1700s. Because the Koranic school was now owned by a local medical college, some of the rooms were open to the public.

“I like this medressa because it is named Slimania, and my name is Suleiman,” he said as we entered.

Inside the courtyard, I had a flashback to the great mosque of Cordoba, with its series of bi-colored arches simulating a palm grove. The medressa was much smaller, much more sublime, but the courtyard arches were just as effective. We then visited the main room of the medressa, where Koranic scholars taught young students for over two centuries. Its interior was much more reminiscent of an Ottoman mosque, quite appropriate given its Turkish origins. The walls were covered with intricate Iznik tiles, while several small windows with colored glass created an illusion of a spectrum bouncing off the ceiling. A group of French tourists were inside, contemplating the room, while in the corner, an attendant sat reading the newspaper classifieds, smoking a tall shisha water pipe. Suleiman stood to the side while I explored the interior, attempting to take a few photos of the relatively dark room with my digital camera. I even managed to take a picture of the attendant, lost in his newspaper and water pipe; Suleiman gave me a devious smirk.

Back in the main courtyard, a cat had appeared, and was drinking from a puddle of water. Suleiman and I both made clicking noises with our tongues simultaneously, attempting to get the cat’s attention. Briefly it looked up at me and gave me a look as if to say, “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Leaving the medressa, I made a pre-emptive strike and began thanking Suleiman for the brief tour. If I paused much longer, undoubtedly he would have asked me to go to a carpet shop. But my attempt didn’t seem to make a difference.

“But my father, my old father, he has a very nice bizz-ee-ness,” he said with a heartbroken expression, stretching out the word “business” for what felt like an eternity.

“I am sure it is a very nice business, but I am not interested,” I replied.

“Then you pay me trente dinar” he said sternly.

“Thirty dinars? No way,” I replied swiftly, struggling to suppress my laughter. “I’m not going to pay you 25 bucks for a 30-minute tour. In Sousse or Kairouan I could hire a guide all day for half that price.”

“Vignt dinar,” he replied tersely, lowering his offer by a third, but still within the realm of the absurd.

“Harem alek!” I replied to him in Arabic – shame on you! -- using one of the few phrases I knew by heart. I reached into my pocked and pulled out all the small change I had, amounting to around four or five dinars. He shook his head, clicked his tongue knowing the bargaining was over, and walked away. I guess I’d known it would have ended that way, but it could have been a lot worse. At least the carpet shop with the nice terrace wasn’t the shop owned by his father – that would have certainly been a hell of a lot harder to escape with my wallet intact.

Now that Suleiman and I had gone our separate ways, I weaved through the souk until I found, Café Chaoechin, where I’d stopped for a mint tea, shisha and Whitey Bulger a couple of days ago. It wasn’t too busy, so I had a better selection of seats this time, so I settled into a comfortable corner and took out my stack of postcards, ordering an espresso from the waiter. The coffee arrived as I started my second postcard; it was no more than a tablespoon of espresso, but it had enough coffee in it to power at least three cups of American coffee. It was a peaceful place to spend an hour, huddled over my postcards and feeling the caffeine coursing its way through my veins.

Soon it was the middle of lunchtime, and I decided to get a quick bite at el Madhaoui, an alleyway diner next to the Great Mosque. Even though it’s located at what has to be primo real estate for a restaurant, the diner offered some of the best prices in the neighborhood. For four dinars, I had a rotisserie chicken platter with olives, salad, fries, French bread, most of it swimming in fiery red harissa sauce, and a large bottle of water. The chicken was nice and moist, though the fries were pretty much what you’d expect at any greasy spoon along a US interstate.

Following lunch, I set out on a long walking tour of the medina. Even though I’d hiked around the walled city numerous times in the last three days, I’d only managed to see a fraction of it, so I wanted to go off the beaten track and see some sights that most tourists miss. I started by heading south on Rue Tourbet el-Bey, the Street of the Governor’s Tomb, in search of the mausoleum where the Ottoman rulers of Tunis were buried. The first several blocks of the street were typically touristy like much of the central medina, but the further I walked from the central area, the more residential it became. Soon there were no souvenir shops – only whitewashed homes, carpentry shops, kids on bicycles, and cats wandering around with their young kittens.

Cats seemed to be everywhere; look under a car and you were bound to find two or three of them napping in the shade. At one point I saw a cat cleaning itself near a door, so I crouched down and put out my hand to say hello. Suddenly three other cats came out of nowhere and started to mark a perimeter around me. They were scruffy little fellows, but they were very friendly. (In fact, as I write this, I’m sitting at a café near the center of the medina, and three kittens are playing in a shoe rack across the way in a souvenir shop. They sure look like they’re having a good time.)

Eventually, I reached the entrance to the Tourbet el-Bay, the Ottoman mausoleum. It was very similar to the turbe in Istanbul, where many sultans and viziers are buried. This one, though, was dedicated to a dynasty of rulers and their advisors rather than just a single ruler and his family, so the mausoleum was quite large, spread out over four or five rooms. Each room was filled with a couple dozen marble sarcophagi, each marked by a tombstone and a marble post, topped with a rendition of the deceased’s official hat. Some of them had turbans, others fezzes, and on many of them you could count off the tassels hanging from the fez to guess how important they were.

Leaving the tomb, I backtracked a couple of blocks and turned left on Rue de la Juges, following it towards the southwestern gate of the medina. This area was dedicated to the local blacksmiths, who were busy at work using arc welders to fuse metal rods together. When the medina was constructed, the mosque was put at its center, then various souks were laid out, each dedicated to a particular trade. The closer you were to the mosque, the more honorable your profession was. Given the fact that the blacksmiths were as far away from the mosque without being outside the gate, they must have not been held in the highest regard.

I now headed back to the center of the medina, following Rue de la Juges until it met Rue Tourbet el-Bey. Walking north, I soon reached house #33, where the famous historian Ibn Khaldun was born in 1332. Unfortunately the house wasn’t open to the public, so I continued following the street until I reached the mosque, then kept heading north to a part of the medina I hadn’t visited yet. Again, I reached a very residential neighborhood just blocks from where all the tourist action was. It was a quiet neighborhood, with mostly houses and a few shops. I tried stopping at a couple small museums along the route, but unfortunately they were all closed in the early afternoon. Near the Tunis City Museum, I heard some squeaky meows coming from a courtyard. In the center of the courtyard, two little kittens, probably no more than a couple of weeks old, were frolicking around, crawling over each other, matting their coat with the mud from their paws. I went over to say hello; at first they didn’t know what to make of me, but eventually they started crawling over each other to get to my hand, meowing and squeaking contently.

I returned to the Great Mosque and headed east towards the French Gate. I stopped for a few minutes at Hanout Arab, the Berber crafts shop, and bought a wrought-iron kebab skewer rack to hang in my kitchen. I continued east until reaching the gate, where a mass of 50 or 60 elderly French tourists were being given a history lesson by their guide. I paused and shuttered for a moment, then maneuvered around them until reaching a shady café in Nouvelle Ville. Ordering a fresh lemonade and a bottle of water, I settled in to write some more postcards. The situation worked out quite well until 20 minutes later, a PA system near the French Gate started blasting The Macarena in Arabic. A little French toddler at the table next to me got up and started dancing, falling on his rear end a few times. I’m not absolutely positive, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard The Macarena in the local language of almost every country I’ve visited since 1996, when I distinctly remember hearing it in Hindi at a restaurant in New Delhi’s Connaught Place. Perhaps I didn’t catch it on trips to Iceland or Cambodia, but otherwise The Macarena seems to be the glue that binds the universe of world music together.

“Pour le festival ce soir,” the waiter said to me as I paid my bill.

“Comment?” I replied, not knowing what he was referring to.

“La musique, là-bas,” he replied, pointing to the PA system across the plaza. Apparently there was going to be some kind of block party later this evening.

“Ah, un festival,” I said. “Heyyyyyy, Macarena.”

Venturing towards the hotel, I paused for a while at a crafts cooperative that supposedly had a good collection of Tunisian wares at reasonable prices. Indeed, they had a marvelous collection of ceramics and glass, but none of it seemed particularly easy to bring home without taking a bit of a gamble. So I returned to the hotel, where I took a quick shower, left behind my newly acquired skewer display, and grabbed my laptop, in search of a café. For the last couple of nights I’d found myself staying up later that I would have liked due to all the journaling I was doing, so I thought I’d get a head start rather than saving it all for after dinner.

Initially I planned to stop at a café along Avenue Bourguiba in Nouvelle Ville so I wouldn’t have to venture to far with my laptop, but the sun was now low enough in the sky to render most of the café umbrellas useless, making it next to impossible to see my laptop’s screen. Eventually, I found myself in the heart of the medina, just a few meters east of the Great Mosque, pounding away at my keyboard while drinking mint tea, occasionally puffing a shisha, and watching a gaggle of kittens playing in a shoe rack. Apart from a couple of locals who came over to find out if I was somehow connecting to the Internet (I wasn’t – no Wi-Fi in the medina as far as I could tell), I managed to spent a few hours sipping my tea and getting a lot of writing done.

At one point, someone tapped me on my shoulder; I turned around to find a middle-aged man smoking a shisha with his friend. He started to speak to me in French, but he could see the blank look on my face, so he switched to broken English.

“Your machine… Your ordinateur… Is it connected by satellite?” he asked.

“To the Internet?” I replied. “No, I wish it were connected. Right now I am just writing.”

“But if you wanted, it could connect by satellite?”

“Not by satellite,” I said. “But it can be wireless – just not very far, about 50 meters.”

“That is still very good,” he continued, “but here in the souk, you cannot get your mobile to work because of the ceiling. Are you a journalist?”

“No, I am just writing for myself,” I explained. “I do it as a souvenir, you could say, then I put the stories on the Internet.”

“Oh, that is very nice,” he replied. “Can you take photos with your machine?”

“No, I have to use a camera, but then I can put the photos on my computer, then on the Internet. “ I then opened up a Web browser and showed him the photo gallery of Stockholm that I was designing.

“Very beautiful!” he said. “Are you Swedish?”

“No, I am from Boston, in the USA, but I was in Sweden recently.”

“And you will put Tunisia photos on the Internet , yes?”

“I hope so, when I go back to America.”

“Well you are most welcome,” he said with a big smile on his face.

I chatted with him and his friend for another 10 minutes until they were joined by a third friend. Meanwhile, one of the waiters at the café became curious and wanted to see pictures of Tunis on my camera. I turned on the camera and started to browse through the pictures. The most recent batch were of those kittens I met while hiking around the north of the medina, and he seemed to think it was very funny that I came all the way to Tunisia and spent my time taking pictures of cats.

By 7pm my computer’s battery was nearly dead, and the three kittens playing in the shoe rack had fallen asleep cuddled around their mother. I packed up my things and said goodbye to my neighbors at the café, then decided to walk over to Dar el-Jeld, one of the best restaurants in Tunis, to treat myself to a nice meal. I walked through the souk as many of the shops were shutting down for the evening. In one shop, the owner and his friends were putting on an impromptu concert, banging on doumbeks and tambourines.

I arrived a few minutes later at Dar el-Jeld and discovered a group of rather large men wearing suits and ear pieces standing in front of the front door. They did not seem interested in moving when I showed interest in going inside. It appeared that a Tunisian VIP must be eating inside, so I was tourista non grata for the time being. Not sure how long I’d have to wait to get inside, I decided it would be a lot easier if I just visited one of the many restaurants in Nouvelle Ville.

I backtracked through the souks until reaching the French Gate. I could hear fast-paced drumming emanating from the plaza, and a large crowd of several hundred people had formed. I remembered that there was going to be some kind of festival this evening, so I decided to check it out. The music was incredibly loud; it sounded like a dozen drummers were playing. I weaved through the crowd to take a look at the musicians, who were hidden by the crowd due to the fact the stage was at street level. When I got to the front, I saw a barricaded space with a lone DJ spinning his turntables. So much for experiencing traditional Tunisian drumming.

I walked along the avenue through enormous crowds that had assembled along its many cafes. Tunis had one of the most intense café cultures I’ve experienced. Mediterranean weather combined with an Arab love of coffee, tea and sweets made for a perfect combination for outdoor café life. Hundreds upon hundreds of chairs were set out front of the cafes, with barely a free seat available. The locals had found a comfortable spot and were settled in for the night.

Not far past the cathedral I took a left off the avenue to compare two restaurants, Le Carthage and L’Orient Tunis. The first restaurant was a well-known couscous place, while the other served a range of Tunisian dishes with an Andalusian twist. L’Orient appeared to have better atmosphere, so I decided to go there, even though I was leaning towards getting more couscous. The restaurant was decorated rather intensely, with ceramic plates and swords covering every inch of available wall space. As I sat down I discovered they had a TV on, which for a moment took away from the atmosphere, but then I realized they were getting ready to watch England play Croatia in the Euro 2004 football tournament.

Soon a small crowd formed, including most of the restaurant staff, staring upward at the TV, commenting on every kick and every penalty. I watched the first half of the game enjoying a bowl of lamb couscous; it was very tasty but not as good as the couscous I’d had the night before. I also got to try my first Tunisian beer – very cheap and very good.

After dinner, I walked back to the hotel, past many cafes in which the entire clientele were staring upward at a 45 degree angle, straining to watch the football match on TVs suspended from the ceiling. Meanwhile, the outdoor café crowds had gotten even thicker, with large groups of people lounging around waiting for a table to open. I stopped at a dessert shop to get a scoop of hazelnut ice cream and stroll along the avenue. It was a nice way to wrap up my stay in Tunis; I’ll certainly look forward to returning here, hopefully soon….

Carthage and Sidi Bou Said

I intended to get up bright an early this morning, setting my clock to 6:30am so I could get a fresh start exploring the ruins of Carthage before it got too hot outside. But jetlag got the better of me, and I find myself struggling to get out of bed at 8:15am. A long shower helped snap me out of my timezone-induced trance, so eventually I wandered down to the hotel restaurant for a breakfast of French bread, fig jam, honey, olives and eggs. I sat out on the hotel’s small balcony; the temperature was still pleasant, the sun warming my back.

After breakfast I grabbed my small backpack and walked half a kilometer east on Avenue Bourguiba until reaching the TGM commuter rail station. Buying the ticket from the gate agent, I boarded the train, which was filling up quickly. The train didn’t have air conditioning, and it felt like a steam room as we waited for it to leave the station. Fortunately, once the train departed, there was sufficient breeze coming through the windows to prevent me from melting prior to my arrival at Carthage.

“Try not to be too disappointed with Carthage,” several people had warned me over the years. Once the superpower of the southern Mediterranean, Carthage was a city-state of 300,000 people, and a constant thorn in the side of the Romans, as anyone who knows the story of Hannibal trouncing over the Alps with his army of war elephants will tell you. But as the Punic Wars piled up, the Romans eventually got the upper hand. “Carthage must be destroyed,” Cato the Elder used to say at the end of every speech he gave at the Roman senate. He eventually got his wish – during the last Punic War, the Romans laid waste to Carthage, burning much of it to the ground.

The Romans built a new city at Carthage, one that would soon become the regional capital of Africa Proconsularis (the name stuck, and was eventually applied to the entire continent). But as the centuries passed, Carthage and the surrounding area was torn back and forth between the Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Vandals, Arabs, Ottoman Turks and French, until the independent nation of Tunisia was born 50 years ago. The colonial tussling didn’t give Carthage much of a chance to age gracefully, so most of the city’s ancient buildings have vanished, leaving merely a hint of what use to be. Try not to be too disappointed, I thought to myself again. I mean, it’s Carthage for crying out loud….

The train headed northeast of Tunis, across Lake Tunis and through some of the capital’s wealthiest suburbs. I wasn’t exactly sure where to get off the train – the ruins of Carthage were spread out over several kilometers, and I didn’t know if I had to get off at the station closest to the centrally-located Carthage Museum to buy tickets, or if I could get them at one end of the site and work my way north from there. I decided to take my chances with the latter option, exiting the train at Carthage Salammbo station.

I had my handy guide book with me, a bookmark protecting the page with a map of Carthage in it, but at first I couldn’t reconcile what was in the book with what I was seeing around me. Essentially, I’d expected the area around Carthage to look like a typical ancient-world archeological site – an arid, open space with ruins of various quality scattered across the plain or hillside. Instead, I found myself plopped into a prosperous residential neighborhood. Whitewashed villas lined the streets, with kids riding bicycles and old men taking their dogs out for a walk. Carthage must be destroyed -- and replaced by suburbia.

Putting more faith in my map, I walked about 10 minutes until I reached a long white wall with a metal gate in the middle. I entered the gate and was relieved to find a man selling tickets that would be good at all of Carthage’s scattered sites for the rest of the day. My first stop was the Sanctuary of Tophet, a site whose modest collection of ruins are surpassed by their disturbing ancient purpose.

Back in classical times, the Greeks and Romans liked to paint their southern neighbors as barbarians; of the various stories they told about the Carthaginians, perhaps the one that cut to the bone the most was the idea that they practiced child sacrifice. Several writers in the ancient world made reference to the idea, but these folks were also pro-Roman or pro-Greek historians, so for centuries it was difficult to know how much credence to lend to the rumors.

Then about 80 years ago a group of amateur archeologists started to investigate where the local villagers were getting their hands on gravestone-like stellae that they were selling to tourists. After some digging around they discovered the Sanctuary of Tophet, a Carthaginian ceremonial site for worshipping the Phoenician gods Baal Hammon and Tanit. Tophet is ancient Hebrew for “place of burning” – the Torah even makes reference to an altar called Tophet, where people “burn to death their little sons and daughters.” Indeed, as the archeologists dug up the site, they found thousands more of those gravestone-like stellae, accompanied by little urns. In the end, they unearthed approximately 20,000 urns , each containing the ashes of a child. The discovery seemed to confirm the ancient stories of child sacrifice. But some experts still question whether the children were actually sacrificed, or if the site had some kind of holy significance for memorializing stillborn infants or children who died of natural causes . We may never know the answer, I suppose.

Entering the site, I felt like I was actually exploring the foundation of an old villa. The sanctuary was rather small, not much larger than a housing plot, and it was overgrown with trees and shrubs. In the center of the site were rows upon rows of stellae that had been dug up and planted back into the ground like a cemetery. Towards the left and right, steps led downward about 15 feet below the current street level to pits containing more stellae. As far as I could tell I was the only person there; it was just me and hundreds of these creepy little gravestones, each marked with a stick-figure symbol of a child.

I climbed out of one of the pits and began to explore the second one. To the far end of the pit, a young Frenchwoman was standing with a sketch pad, scratching out a quick drawing of one of the stellae. I didn’t want to disturb her so I went to the other side of the pit, sitting on a bench under a shade tree with a view of some of the stellae. They really did look like little gravestones, with simplistic images that seemed like kids got to design them themselves before, well…

Fortunately, there wasn’t much to do here for more than 10 minutes, and I was beginning to get a little spooked by the place. So I hit the road and started walking northwest through another residential neighborhood until reaching a pretty little lake that spilled out into the Gulf of Tunis, adjacent to a runoff pond. Amazingly, this water was once the lifeblood of Phoenicia’s Carthaginian empire – it was the ancient port of Carthage. More than two thousand years ago, this lake was a round harbor that supported the Carthaginian naval fleet, while the runoff pond was the merchant port. The naval harbor was actually built up as a coliseum-like fort: more than 200 ships could sail inside and dock along the perimeter for repairs or restocking. There was even dry-dock space above each mooring, so boats could be hauled out of the water for major repairs.

After the Romans sacked Carthage, Scipio turned the middle of the naval port into landfill and built a forum with two temples on it. Today the island in the middle of the lake is home to a small museum, but mostly it seems to be used by elderly fisherman. It’s amazing what a couple of millennia can do to a perfectly good port.

Leaving the Punic ports behind me, I soon reached the Paleo-Christian Museum, a small complex dedicated to Carthage’s early Christian history. As I walked inside I was greeted by the ticket agent, who looked as if he hadn’t seen a visitor all week. He immediately latched on to me and started talking excitedly in French, describing the various urns and amphorae and marble heads in the collection. I feebly tried to explain to him that I didn’t speak much French, but that didn’t seem to register with him, so I just listened politely while looking at the displays, occasionally picking up one out of every 10 or 15 words: basilica, horse, Greek, mosaic, wine. The collection wasn’t particularly impressive – all the best pieces were carted off to the Bardo Museum in Tunis – but outside you could still explore the foundations of the Byzantine-era Basilica of Carthagenna . The museum worker continued to explain the centuries of Christian history to me, but my French seemed to get worse as I understood less and less of what he said, occasionally distracted by wondering to myself if Cartagena in Colombia was named after Carthage.

After departing the museum, I walked about 20 minutes uphill to the top of Byrsa, the ancient acropolis of Carthage. Today, Bursa Hill is the Hollywood Hills of Tunis – a collection of ritzy villas and the occasional foreign ambassadors residence. Just a few blocks away, towards the Gulf of Tunis, was actually the residence of the Tunisian president. It was amazing to think that this swanky neighborhood was once the heart and soul of Carthage.

Reaching the top of the hill, I found myself standing before a giant French cathedral, an enormous sandstone consolation prize from Tunisia’s former colonial masters. Dedicated to a French king who was killed along the beach here during the Fourth Crusade, the cathedral is now L’Acropolium, a cultural center used for art shows and concerts. Just past the building I found the entrance to the Carthage Museum. I showed my ticket to an attendant who was playing with a dusty little kitten that looked like a miniature version of my tuxedo cat Dizzy, then crossed a giant plaza with an incredible view of the Gulf of Tunis and the capital city, 17 kilometers away. The plaza was marked by several shattered columns around the edges, but was otherwise barren. I soon realized I was standing in the middle of Carthage’s Forum. The entire summit of the acropolis was once covered in temples, libraries and government buildings. Today there is essentially nothing left, except the ghost-like shape of each building’s foundation.

Towards the center of the summit was the museum itself – two floors of mosaics, statues, jugs, jars and jewelry. The museum offered some useful reconstructions of what Carthage once looked like – I sure needed the help, because the remaining ruins just weren’t doing the civilization justice. There was also a foreign VIP being given a tour in English while a small security detail protected him from toppling statues or marauding sarcophagi. He looked somewhat familiar but I couldn’t place him; clearly a European government official. I would have taken a picture of him but his secret service-like guards kept giving me the evil eye. To make things even more awkward , his tour guide kept taking him to displays I was already looking at, and the security detail would nudge me out of the way so he could get a better look.

Leaving the acropolis behind me, I walked another 15 minutes to the north until reaching a site of Roman villas. As far as ruins go, these villas at least felt like ruins to me: you could make out actual buildings and colonnades, scattered across many acres. One villa remained in excellent condition; outside the house there was a large mosaic in a courtyard, with a pool of water adjacent to it.

By now it was approaching 1pm, and I was running low on water and energy. I’d applied sunscreen at least twice, but I felt as if my skin would soon peel off my forehead. Even though there were a few more sites to explore, the fact that I didn’t have a car made the idea of reaching them somewhat unappealing. Instead, I decided to wrap up my visit to Carthage and track down a taxi to take me a few miles north to the whitewashed city of Sidi Bou Said.

The same people who said I’d be disappointed in Carthage also told me that I wouldn’t be disappointed in Sidi Bou Said. They were absolutely right. As soon as the taxi reached the outskirts of town and started driving up the hillside, I realized I’d found a gem of a town. Reminiscent of the White Towns of Andalusian Spain, but with a spectacular ocean view, Sidi Bou Said was probably created in a conspiracy by the postcard industry. Everywhere you looked, you’d see charming old white houses perfectly trimmed with blue, fronted by cobblestone streets. I knew I’d enjoy my visit here. Each courtyard seemed to be overflowing with flowers and colorful plants, an explosion of magnolias, bougainvilleas, azaleas.

The taxi dropped me off at Place Sidi Bou Said, a quaint little plaza surrounded by souvenir shops and cafes. The main café, Café de Nattes, sat atop a steep white staircase, affording its patrons the best people watching spot in town. I thought about stopping there for a glass of tea, but it seemed like the type of place that served only drinks, and I was soon going to get desperate for lunch. I walked the length of the old town – really no more than 10 minutes in each direction, scouting out the various restaurants. All of them had their own particular charms, so it was largely a matter of what type of menu and price range I was seeking. Eventually I selected Le Chargui, sitting above its large courtyard on a small rooftop terrace. Below me, in the center of the courtyard, sat a group of Japanese tourists who were surrounded by a family of cats, each waiting for another morsel to fall to the ground.

I relaxed at the restaurant next to a Spanish family, drinking a 1.5 liter bottle of water and a ginger ale, just in case I still felt dehydrated. Strangely, my dehydration had given me false hunger pains, so after drinking all that water I didn’t see as hungry any more. Rather than getting a full lunch, I got a mixed Tunisian salad, which consisted of tuna, olives, diced onions and tomatoes, in a light oil and vinegar dressing.

After lunch, I stopped at a souvenir vendor to buy some postcards, then walked back to the main plaza and climbed the steps up to Café de Nattes. Ordering a glass of mint tea with pine nuts, I settled in to write my postcards, then realized I didn’t have any pens in my backpack. Normally I carried plenty of them in my backpack, but since I’d needed to shove the bag into my suitcase so I wouldn’t surpass the airline baggage allowance, I’d unpacked it of everything, including those pens. So there I sat at the café, tea and postcards in hand, unable to get the waiter’s attention to borrow a pen from him. I decided it must be fate: how could I possibly sit there huddled over my table writing postcards, when I had one of the best views in Tunisia below me?

Once I’d finished my tea, I backtracked across the square until reaching Dar el-Annabi, an 18th century mansion that was open to the public. For three dinars I was able to explore this charming home, built around an Andalusian-style courtyard. Several of the rooms were humorously decorated with wax figures sporting traditional Tunisian costumes. But otherwise the house was fascinating, with lavishly decorated guest rooms and parlors. In the back of the house I saw a sign pointing to stairs leading to the rooftop terrace. I climbed half way and found myself with a wonderful view of the Sidi Bou Said Mosque. On the opposite side of the mansion was yet another terrace, one floor above, jammed with at least 40 Italian tourists. The tour buses had arrived in Sidi Bou Said. I’d almost forgotten about them – quite a surprise considering how many I saw yesterday at the Bardo Museum. I got comfortable on the terrace, happily enjoying the view until the horde of tourists departed. I then crossed through an upper level of bedrooms to reach the stairway to the next terrace. The views of the surrounding area improved from this angle, giving me a better angle of Tunis in the distance.

Fortunately, I’d managed to take most of the pictures I’d wanted to from the terrace when I realized my camera’s batteries were now dead. I even had a batch of new batteries, but they were back at the hotel. First no pens, then no batteries: images of Tony Soprano’s high-school football coach started dancing in my head, screaming “You are not prepared! You are not prepared!” The problem was easily resolved when I walked back to the plaza and found a shop selling batteries for six dinars a batch – a little more than what I’d pay in the US, but it was one-third of what I got stuck paying in Iceland a few weeks ago.

I found a quiet place to sit and change my batteries – a cobblestone side street. I lost track of what was going on around me while I tried to put my batteries in the camera, until I realized a middle-aged Tunisian woman had just walked by and rubbed my head, messing up my hair. I looked up and she had a big smile on her face. “Bonjour!” she bellowed before walking away towards her house.

With my new camera batteries in place, I walked down the main road until reaching the top of the cliffs facing the Gulf of Tunis. Below me was an amazing view of the Mediterranean. Emerald water turned to azure blue as the water deepened in the distance. To the right was a distant hillside, topped with more villas and steep cliffs, while below I could see the marina and a crowded beach. Further afield was the Gulf of Tunis, with the Cap Bon peninsula jutting out towards the north.

I could have spent the rest of the afternoon sitting there, sketchpad in hand, but unfortunately I’d stumbled upon the Tunisian equivalent of Lovers’ Lane; there were probably a dozen young couples having an good time away from prying relatives’ eyes, and I felt like a third wheel (or perhaps a 25th wheel) sitting there in the middle of it. Not too far away, though, was a spot with an equally good view, but with drinks to boot – Café Sidi Chabaane. With a view that probably launched a thousand marriage proposals, the café was perhaps the most picturesque establishment in town. Finding a shady spot with an unobstructed view of the gulf and cliffs below, I ordered a mint tea and a shisha, then spent the next 90 minutes reading my guidebook and staring out at the sea. Apart from a few itinerant ants that managed to crawl up my leg and bite me, it was the perfect setting for a lazy afternoon.

After my extended tea break, I hiked around town for another 30 minutes before deciding it was time to head back to Tunis. I started walking southwest through the old town, saying goodbye to the cafes and shops I’d gotten to know during the afternoon. Just ahead of me, a young Russian woman was walking rather briskly. Invariably, every time she passed a shop, the owner would call out to her.

“You speak English?”

“Where you from, lady, Italia? Angleterre?”

“You know you are sexy – a sex machine!”

I felt terrible for her. She was clearly fed up with the situation, usually saying something tersely in English, sometimes muttering Russian curse words under her breath. Tunisia is an incredibly friendly place, but male visitors definitely have it easier here than female visitors, particularly when traveling independently.

Soon enough, I walked downhill to the commuter rail station, sitting on a bench along the platform waiting for the next train. About 10 minutes later I heard the sound of the local train tracks warning automobile traffic about an approaching train. A group of about 20 of us got up and walked to the edge of the platform, only to discover the arriving train was going in the wrong direction. We all let us a guttural laugh and returned to our spots on the benches. A few minutes later, the right train arrived, and we crammed on board. More and more people came on the train with each stop it made, making it quite hot. Several kids decided they’d had enough of the stifling temperatures, and began to force the doors back open following each stop. So we rushed southward to Tunis with an incredible breeze flying through the open doors, the kids laughing proudly while the adults shook their heads and tsk-tsked them with little result.

The bus was standing room only by the time we reached Tunis; I was more than eager to get away from the cattle car conditions. I walked back to my hotel and took a quick shower before heading outside just before 6pm. My first stop was a cybercafe; they didn’t have Internet access at the hotel, but fortunately public telecenters were plentiful in Tunis. On the downside, the Internet access was slow and several US news sites were mysteriously blocked. I managed to check email but struggled to respond to them; they Arabic keyboard layout was mind-numbingly frustrating, with many letters transposed or moved to weird corners of the keyboard. To make mattes worse, certain symbols like commas, periods and exclamation points were scattered all over the place, adding to my typing difficulties. By the time my hour was up, I’d probably written three emails. I’d probably have to wait until I got to my meetings in Hammamet, where I’d be able to plug in my own laptop.

Departing the cybercafe around a quarter to 7pm, I walked to the medina with a long list of recommended restaurants. One by one I visited them, and one by one I discovered they were all closed on Sunday. I suppose I should have taken the hint when I saw that nearly all the shops in the souks were closed as well, leaving me walking in dark, vaulted echo chambers with nothing but a few cats and elderly men keeping me company. After 30 minutes I gave up and decided to return to Nouvelle Ville, where I’d seen plenty of restaurants open on my way from the hotel.

As I exited the medina, I looked back and noticed the entrance of one restaurant, the Ali Pacha, that appeared to be open. I went upstairs and found a charming restaurant with Tunisian and Turkish decorations, and a couple groups of young women having dinner. I asked for a menu just to make sure the prices weren’t too outrageous, then found a spot on the balcony, where I could watch dusk turn to night as hundreds of swallows darted and swooped through the sky, reveling in an orgiastic aerial dance as they ate flying insects for dinner. As for me, I stuck with more traditional Tunisian fare: a mezze plate of olives, harissa, pickled vegetables and French bread, followed by a succulent portion of lamb couscous. It was a small feast for 15 dinars – about 12 bucks – and I enjoyed every bite of it.

As I finished dinner, the evening call to prayer began. First just a sole muezzin singing in the distance, several other muezzin joined in from other mosques. It reminded me of standing on a rooftop near the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, hearing a dozen calls to prayers from all directions. Prior to now, I hadn’t appreciated the Tunisian call to prayer; each time I’d heard it, it’d been drowned out by traffic noise or music. But now on the restaurant balcony, the only sounds competing with the muezzin were the chirping of those ecstatic swallows diving over the square. It was a magical moment.

I soon returned to the hotel to listen to some Mingus, write my journal and wonder what to do about tomorrow. I was supposed to transfer over to Hammamet for my first day of meetings, but the first meeting got cancelled, meaning I wouldn’t have to arrive until Tuesday. So tomorrow would be up in the air; I’ll just have to play it by ear and see what happens.

Tunis: Mosaics and Medinas

“Je suis très désolé, mais il n'y a pas aucune salle maintenant.” the woman behind the hotel desk said to me.

“Pardon?” I replied, knowing full well what she said but was too exhausted to construct more than a one-word reply.

“Your room, it is not available,” she said, switching to English. “It is only half past10 o’clock – we cannot give you a room until 12 o’clock.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” I answered, slowly dropping my backpack, suit bag and laptop bag from my sore shoulders. “May I store my luggage?”

“Naturellement,” she replied, inexplicably returning to French.

My Air France flight from Paris had arrived in Tunis just before 10am, a few minutes ahead of schedule. I’d been eager to check into the Hotel Carlton in Tunis’ Nouvelle Ville (New Town) so I could get the day started and explore as many sights as possible. I was dead tired, having not slept a wink on the flight from Boston to Paris, but a steady refueling of caffeine and a second wind of “you’re in a new country” energy would hopefully give me the strength to get through the afternoon without collapsing. Fortunately, immigrations and customs at the Tunis airport were a cinch, and I was in a taxi within a matter of minutes, After shooing away several taxi drivers who were offering me exorbitant rates of 15 or 20 dinars (USD $12-$15), when the ride to downtown Tunis really shouldn’t cost much more than five or six dinars (four or five bucks), I found a driver who didn’t seem too intent on robbing me blind. So I threw my belongings into the trunk and made the 15-minute ride to central Tunis.

Now I was at my hotel with no place to freshen up and save my suits from permanent wrinkling – at least not for another 90 minutes. I managed to convince the hotel attendant to let me use a public bathroom to change into fresh clothes before handing over my luggage for storage. I actually hadn’t planned on changing clothes upon my arrival, but I was rather surprised to see dozens of tourists walking down the streets wearing only t-shirts and shorts. It’d been my experience in other Islamic countries to always dress modestly, wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Here, though, it seems it was socially acceptable to bare a bit more skin than you’d see in the likes of Cairo or Amman. It probably helped that the vast majority of Tunisian women I saw on the streets were wearing hip-hugger bellbottom jeans and tight, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination babydoll t-shirts with slogans like “WEAR ONLY ONCE” or “I’M THE ONE IN CHARGE OF THIS PLACE.” I’d actually never seen so many exposed midriffs in a Muslim country – it felt more like Athens or Rome, to be quite honest. Tunis was clearly more casual than many other Arab cities, and with the temperatures approaching 30 degrees Celsius by mid-morning, I wasn’t going to suffer through a long pair of khakis if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Sporting a pair of shorts and sandals, I was now ready to hit the streets of Tunis. At most, I figured I’d only have two and a half days here before having to get to work in Hammamet for the UN WSIS planning meeting I was attending, so I wanted to make the most out of the weekend. Somewhere a few blocks to the west of my hotel, just beyond the broad, tree-lined avenue that bisected Nouvelle Ville, was the Tunis medina, the tight maze of bazaars, cafes, mosques and Turkish baths that had successfully earned a spot on the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage list. A few kilometers beyond the medina was the suburb of Bardo, world renown for its unparalleled museum of Roman mosaics. Hopefully I’d have time to visit both today, but given the fact the heat of high noon would soon be on top of Tunis, I opted for a trip to the museum.

Walking several blocks west down Avenue Habib Bourguiba, I soon stumbled upon tram tracks crossing the street perpendicularly. I took out my Lonely Planet book to confirm this was the spot to catch a tram to Bardo. Turns out it wasn’t – at this particular intersection, the tram apparently ran only south, whereas I needed to go north, so I’d have to walk another block or two to get to the right tram tracks.

Soon enough I found the correct tram line, and followed the tracks until I arrived at the station. I waited in line until it was my turn at the ticket counter, and handed the agent a one dinar coin, thinking I’d get back whatever was the appropriate amount of change. Instead, he looked at me for a moment, then shook his head and said “Ou?” Apparently the price was based on distance, not a flat rate.

“Musee Bardo, s’il vous plais,” I replied.

“Bardo, Bardo,” he said while grimacing; I imagined he got this from a lot of clueless tourists.

After getting my ticket I waited until the next tram arrived and jumped on board. It was swelteringly hot and crowded, but I managed to squeeze in to a spot where I could see the train map. I then noticed there were multiple trams running along the same track, and they’d diverge after a couple more stops. Was I on the right tram?

At the next stop I jumped off to see if I could figure out what tram line I was on, then would jump back on if necessary. As I scrambled off the tram I saw the number 5 posted on the front of the car. Wrong tram – I needed to be on #4 instead. So I took a break from the hammam-like heat of the tram, catching a breeze from the Mediterranean, just a few kilometers away. The relief didn’t last for long, as train #4 soon arrived, so I got back into the steam bath and rode for the next 20 minutes until reaching the Bardo station.

Exiting the train, I had to walk another 10 minutes to get to the entrance of the museum, since the station was to the south of the museum, while the entrance was on the northern side. As I approached the entrance I saw a large parking lot. Most of the spots were taken by enormous, industrial-sized tour buses. So that’s what it’s going to be like in there, I thought to myself.

Paying the agent for my ticket and camera pass, I got in the queue and slowly weaved my way into the museum itself. At first I assumed the slow line was due to security precautions, but it turns out it was just an enormous bottleneck precipitated by the throngs of tourists wandering aimlessly in the first room, waiting to be corralled by their tour guide.

Inside, I was treated to one of the most fascinating, yet claustrophobic museums I’ve ever visited. The Bardo itself is a former palace, first constructed in the 12th century, with much of the current structure dating back to the 17th century. Being a palace, it was quite spacious, and all the floors and walls were covered choc-a-bloc with extraordinary Roman tiles that had been unearthed from across Tunisia. The dilemma, though, was that each room invariably had two competing tour groups in it, usually dueling in different languages. One tour guide would speak rapidly in French, while another guide would raise his voice in Russian. And all the while, most of the tourists, clad in tank tops and ripped shorts, were too busy chatting it up or making kissy-face with each other to notice what they were talking about it. I guess that’s what was most frustrating about it: it’s one thing to be surrounded by large groups who are absorbed by the sights around them; it’s a whole other thing when you’ve got groups that would rather being lying on the beach instead of touring a museum.

Nonetheless, I did my best to block out the noise, the bodies, as I appreciated the vast collection of mosaics. Like the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Bardo itself is worthy of visiting, even if it didn’t have a single piece of artwork in it. Going from room to room, I felt like I was given the keys to an Andalusian Moorish villa – or perhaps more accurate, a Turkish pasha’s palace. It’s just that they had a lot of copies of the keys made before moving out, so I had to appreciate the surroundings with about a thousand other neighbors.

Using my book’s map of the museum, I worked my way through the ground floor of the exhibition. One room was dedicated to a collection of Punic deity statues, including the god Baal Hammon sitting on a throne. Around the corner, a courtyard was dedicated to an incredible collection of mosaics from the ruins of Bulla Regia, along with a massive statue of Apollo.

I climbed a stairwell leading to the first floor (the second floor for all my fellow Yanks out there), which was adorned with giant mosaics climbing 20 or 30 feet up the walls. Reaching the top of the staircase, I soon found myself with even more tour groups as the vied for space in the museum’s most important exhibits. One floor mosaic from the city of Sousse was enormous, around 140 square meters, depicting the god Neptune surrounded by seahorses. Around the corner I spotted a small crowd of people admiring one of the few known likeness of the poet Virgil, flanked by the Muses Clio (history) and Melpomene (tragedy). Further along I found a striking wall-size mosaic of Orpheus charming the beasts. Orpheus himself hadn’t weathered the ages quite well, but the animals looked like they’d just been put together by the artist. Another room, the garden room, featuring gigantic mosaics of sea nymphs on all four walls, with hundreds of ocean creatures swimming with them. If it weren’t for the tacky plastic plants stuck in the center of the courtyard it might have been the most breathtaking room.

As I made my way up to the top floor, I was greeted by emptiness. No people, no noise – just beautiful rooms with walls full of dazzling mosaics. For whatever reason, the tour groups weren’t venturing up to the top floor, which was strange, because there were some tremendous views of the wall mosaics on display in the open courtyards below. I wasn’t going to question their judgment, of course – instead I reveled in it, slowly taking my time going from mosaic to mosaic, contemplating an ostrich here, a panther there. Most of the upstairs collection seemed to be dedicated to animal mosaics, save a statue of a drunken Hercules, urinating a la Brussels’ Mannequin Pis.

After two hours at the Bardo, I’d had my fill of the tour groups, and probably needed a change of pace from the mosaics as well. I stopped briefly at the museum cafeteria for a Diet Coke – my caffeine supplies were dwindling and my second wind fading fast – then hailed a taxi outside. As luck would have it, I picked the most talkative cabby in Tunis, who didn’t seem to care that I barely spoke French. He asked if I spoke English, clearly prepared to switch tongues to continue the one-sided conversation; I lied and said I was Norwegian. Fortunately he didn’t seem to realize that most Norwegians speak English better than most Americans, so he returned to talking to himself in French, giving me a few minutes to wonder if I’d make it through the afternoon without collapsing from exhaustion.

The taxi dropped me at Place de la Kasbah, at the western entrance to the medina. The plaza was flanked with whitewashed government buildings and a large plaza where boys played a feverish game of football. A Moorish-style mosque and minaret marked the entrance to the medina itself. Soon I was lost in the medina’s covered bazaars, or souks. The souks simultaneously reminded me of Old Jerusalem and Istanbul’s covered market; the bazaars had the chaos of Jerusalem’s Arab quarter combined with the vaulted architecture of Istanbul’s market. Unlike Istanbul, though, the shops weren’t well-lit or decorated in polished metal and glassed storefronts; this medina felt like a living, breathing place that kept things interesting even when the tourist buses weren’t visiting.

Within a few minutes I lost all sense of time, space and direction. I had no early idea where I was or where I was going, and it was delicious. I felt like I could walk for miles in the medina, with sudden turns and dead ends, and never find my way back to the Nouvelle Ville again. Apart from the periodic tugs by touts trying to drag me into their shops, I was able to wander the back alleys of the medina and lose myself in its marvelous atmosphere, completely forgetting that 12 hours earlier I was heading to the airport in Boston.

Soon my growling stomach snapped me out of it; I needed to get some lunch before the restaurants closed for the afternoon. My guidebook had recommended Café M’Rabet for its good food and great second-floor view of one of the medina’s mosques. By the time I arrived there, the lunch crowd had left and I had the restaurant to myself, save one French couple that was paying the bill as I settled at my table. The lone waiter informed me that there was only one item on the menu at the moment – couscous – and I could choose between chicken and lamb. I ordered the chicken. A few minutes later, huge slabs of French bread arrived at the table, along with an appetizer of canned tuna in olive oil, drizzled with harissa pepper sauce and a small collection of green and black olives. It occurred to me that I’d somehow managed to order a multi-course meal, which was perfectly fine given how hungry I was – I just wondered what the bill would be.

Eventually I received a large portion of couscous that could have fed a small dinner party, topped with half a chicken, a variety of beans and a cylinder-like steamed squash. I soon wished I hadn’t noshed on the bread during the first course, because I could barely make a dent on the couscous and chicken. (The waiter looked quite disappointed in me.) Afterward, I was able to wash it all down with a delicious glass of mint tea with boiled pine nuts – a local specialty that gives the tea a buttery taste. When all was said in done, the meal cost me 14 dinars, or $11. It certainly could have been a lot worse.

After lunch, I strolled around the perimeter of Zitouna Masjid (the olive mosque), the Great Mosque of Tunis. The mosque is open to non-Muslims during morning hours only, so if I wanted to go inside I’d have to return another day. From there I walked east on Rue Jemaa Zitouna, the central souk that spanned from the mosque to the eastern gate of the medina. More so than anywhere else in the medina, this street was primed for tourists. Every square inch of storefront seemed to be dedicated to Tunisian chotchkes, from leather goods to shisha water pipes to stuffed toy camels imprinted with “Tunisia Souvenir” across the hump. To no surprise, the shops were crowded with tourists, though they didn’t appear to be horded like lemmings as had been the case at the Bardo Museum.

At this point in the afternoon I figured it was probably a good idea to check into the hotel, if only to get my laptop out of the storage room and locked into my room. The sun shone brightly as I exited the medina, passing through the French Gate and walking east along Avenue Bourguiba. The avenue’s cafes were jammed with locals, particularly young couples enjoying a shisha and coffee under large umbrellas. Not far from the hotel, I discovered a large bookstore with very friendly staff. Their selection of English books was limited, but I was impressed with their Tunisian coffee table book collection.

Back at the hotel, I checked into my room and surveyed my new digs. The room was somewhat small, but at least it was nonsmoking with a queen-size bed and a strong, hot shower. I took advantage of the shower, soaking away the last 24 hours of sleeplessness in a matter of minutes.

Returning to the medina around 4pm, I wandered the souks until I found the perfect teahouse to waste away the rest of the afternoon. Not far from the Great Mosque, hidden down a nondescript corridor, I spotted Café Chaoechin, a grotto-like place with enormous murals of medieval teahouses on each wall. Algerian rai music poured through the speakers while I settled in for a couple hours of mint tea and an apple-flavored shisha. During my stay at the teahouse, the demographics of the patrons shifted from older males to twentysomething couples in fashionable clothes. To my surprise there were actually more women than men in the teahouse by the time I left. It certainly made me feel a lot more welcome; for whatever reason I always worry about sticking out like a sore thumb when sitting in a teahouse with a bunch of elderly Arab gentlemen.

The tea kept flowing as I immersed myself in the climax of Black Mass, the true story of how Boston Irish mobster Whitey Bulger managed to wrap the local FBI office around his finger for two decades. There was something extraordinarily incongruous about drinking mint tea, smoking a water pipe and listening to rai while reading about Special Agent John Connolly’s corrupt activities inside the Boston FBI, I found myself having to read the same paragraph over and over to absorb what was being said in the book, struggling to reconcile it with my definitely Tunisian surroundings.

Around 6pm I left the teahouse and started to walk east towards the main gate of the medina, the French Gate. I veered away from the main souk and found myself in a parallel souk that was packed with hundreds upon hundreds of Tunisians. Unlike elsewhere in the heart of the medina, the ratio of tourists to locals dropped dramatically; as I flowed like molasses through the throngs of shoppers, I think I spotted only one or two other tourists. The souk became so crowded that bottlenecks of window shoppers caused a logjam; I was pressed tightly within a group of several hundred Tunisians waiting relatively patiently for the multitude to surge forward. While the men joked with each other, dozens of women seemed to be muttering “imshee” (Go!) in unison, trying to break the bottleneck.

Exiting the medina, I noticed that it was extremely dark outside, much darker than it should have been for that time of the evening. Then the raindrops landed on my shirt. I realized that the darkness was caused by enormous thunderclouds that had settled over the city. I’d hoped to go for a long walk in search of a restaurant for dinner, but instead I had to high-tail it back to the hotel since I didn’t have an umbrella with me, and the shops I passed were selling them for an extortionate 45 dinars ($36). In a land that’s home to the Sahara, umbrellas apparently come at quite a premium.

Lightning flashed and thunder cracked as I arrived at the hotel. I was getting a little run-down at this point, so I decided to get dinner at the hotel restaurant. Unfortunately, it didn’t open until 7:30pm, so I had to keep busy working on my journal while wondering if I’d be able to stay awake much longer. Fortunately, writing helped pass the time, so around 8pm I went to the restaurant and had a lackluster fixed-price meal of tomato harissa soup, fried chicken and chocolate cake (my French must be extremely rusty – I really thought I’d ordered something else). With the raindrops outside doing their best to mask the whirring sound of the restaurant refrigerator, I ate dinner while finishing Black Mass, wishing I’d brought a second book and an umbrella with me.

Dawn in Paris

It's just before 7am at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. My Air France flight from Boston arrived here about 50 minutes ago. I had a sleepless night - my section of the plane was very warm and the guy next to me coughed all night. I managed to kill time by reading about Tunisia and Whitey Bulger - no, not in the same book, as surreal as that might be - and playing solitaire on the in-flight entertainment system.

After a quick visit to TJ's Cafe for an espresso, I've settled in at my departure gate. If all goes well I'll be boarding in 45 minutes, so my next blog will hopefully be from Tunis... -Andy

Waiting for Tunis

New Feature: Where in the World is Andy?

As many of you know, I've been hopscotching the world over the last month, attending a variety of digital divide conferences. I became interested in figuring out a way to connect my blog to a mapping tool so readers could see maps of where I was traveling.

My first experiment was with a tool called GeoSketch, which is supposed to create maps of cities you mention in your blog. It seems like a killer idea, but unfortunately the server that processes the maps appears to be dead at the moment, so I wasn't able to get it working.

Then, I discovered another tool called WorldKit. Basically, WorldKit generates a Macromedia Flash map of the world, and allows you to mark the map with text and images based on latitude and longitude. Each time you plot something on the map, you can hyperlink it to a web page as well. It's a fairly simple tool, though you need to be able to look up the latitude and longitude of places you want to plot on the map. But apart from that, it's just a matter of editing the XML code of an RSS feed, filling it in with descriptions of each place you want to plot on the map.

So after a little bit of experimentation, I've created a small image of a world map, which you can now see on the left side of my homepage. If you click the title of the map, you'll be brought to another page, Where in the World is Andy? This shows a map of the world, marked up with the various places I've recently traveled, and where I'm going next.

It's a neat little tool, but it requires manual upkeep unless you're creative enough to auto-generate latitude and longitude data in your blogs, which is a little too uber-tech for my limited skills. Perhaps when I get back from my trip to Tunisia I'll create a map for my photo.spotlight photo blog. Until then, give it a try and let me know what you think... -andy

E-Government for All Report Now Online

Hi everyone... I'm back in Boston for a few days before heading off to Tunisia tomorrow for the WSIS prepcom meeting. But before I leave I wanted to let you know that we've just released the report from our November 2003 E-Government for All conference. You can download the report for free; simply visit our press release for more information.... -andy

CTCNet International Symposium

On the last afternoon of the CTCNet conference, the organizers hosted an international symposium focusing on the work of participants from outside the United States. Through scholarships sponsored by Microsoft, representatives of telecenters from 10 countries came to CTCNet, and we got to hear from many of them over the course of the afternoon.

Maripaz Diaz of Somos Telecentros gave an overview of her network’s activities in Latin America. Initially launched as a telecenters research initiative, Somos Telecentros evolved into a Latin American network of regional telecenter networks. Along with addressing strategies for financial sustainability of telecenters, the network felt it was important to help telecenter managers address political sustainability and social sustainability as well, she explained. Somos Telecentros has joined with CTCNet, Aspira and Canada’s association of “CAP centers” to form the Telecenters of Americas Project (TAP), to help coordinate activities and policies relevant to their work in North and South America.

Karen Higgs of the Association of Progressive Communications (APC) discussed her organizations work around the world. Launched as a partnership between Peace Net and Green Net in the late 1980s, APC initially served as a network of Internet nodes for NGOs around the world. By 1992, APC provided the communications for the UN Rio environmental summit. Over the years, APC became active in promoting communications rights through international activities such as WSIS and the UN ICT Taskforce. Today, APC is an association of NGOs working in a variety of information and communications technology fields. “The majority of APC members are in developing countries or the former Soviet Union,” she explained. “Our members define our direction… They set our strategic goals. When they meet in biannual meetings they ask, ‘What can APC do to support our programmatic goals.’”

Karen described several of APC’s programs. They’ve developed a gender evaluation methodology for helping telecenters serve women in an equitable fashion. Recently, the association produced an open source tool called ActionApps, which is a freely available content management system adopted by NGOs around the world. She encouraged CTCNet members to take advantage of APC’s free tools, as well as participate in policy discussion. “On a practical level I think we need to start working together,” she said.

Theresa Williams of Catalytic Communities, jointly based in Washington DC Brazil, discussed her organization’s work in helping low-income neighborhoods shared community-based solutions with each other. They’ve created a dynamic database that allows community-based initiatives share detailed information about projects they’ve developed so they can be used by other communities. Some neighborhoods have also used the tool to help articulate their work in the process of applying for government grants. Currently, their website details 65 countries around the world, including the US and Brazil, Sudan, Israel and India. The site is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, thanks to a team of community-based volunteers around the world.

“The results that have come out of this project are quite different from anything we predicted,” she said. “The community that accesses this information is much broader – it’s used by the press, for example, for newspapers and television programs.” After the movie City of God came out, Rio’s favelas received a lot of bad press, so some media outlets used the community programs listed in the site to highlight positive activities occurring in these low-income neighborhoods. Catalytic Communities has also launched a telecenter in downtown Rio, managed by staff and volunteers. It’s centrally located so it’s only one bus ride away from any corner of the city. The telecenter targets neighborhood leaders from around the city to improve their ICT skills and partner with each other on local development activities. The telecenter is also a community art gallery that changes its collection every two months. They’re now working to partner with telecenters around the world to create a network of community ICT leaders .

David Barnard then gave a presentation about the Southern African NGO Network (SANGONet). Their mission is to be a facilitator in the effective and empowering use of ICTs by development and social development groups in southern Africa. “We started out as an ISP, providing basic Internet and email services to NGOs,” he said. “That later developed into a range of ICT services, as well as work in ICT policy.” SANGONet continues to serve as an NGO ISP, though that role is being phased out over time, so they can focus on providing training, technology solutions and advocacy work.

“During the past year, SANGONet has initiated two separate activities for NGOs to come together to discuss and debate ICT issues,” including the Theta initiative, he said. More recently they launched a new initiative to demonstrate practical uses of ICTs in a community context. Another project, CINSA, is an 18-month pilot program to create a support network for community ICT for development initiatives.

Kakinda Daniel of SchoolNet Uganda talked about his organization, which was launched in 1997 by WorldLinks and the World Bank, but eventually became an independent NGO. Their core business is to offer technology professional development to educators, but Kakinda focused his remarks on Ugandan telecenters. They work with 15 school-based telecenters, so that they are used by students in the day, while the community has access the rest of the time.

“Setting up technology is expensive but it’s really the easy part of it,” he said. “The really big thing is creating useful activities for the community.” In Uganda, schooling is free only for the first seven years, so many young people drop out of school because they can’t afford secondary education. In response to this, they’ve developed their Youth IT initiative, which provides ICT training and entrepreneurial education to kids who’ve left formal schooling. Additionally, they’re working with AED and EDC to do peer youth counseling as part of an AIDS-awareness program. They also have a program called The World Starts With Me, helps expose youth to computers and Internet access so they can gain access to sex education and reproductive health resources.

Ruslan Nozdryakov from Project Harmony Russia spoke next. Based in Vermont, Project Harmony works to provide public Internet access across the former Soviet Union. They coordinate the US Department of State’s Internet Access and Training Program, which has initiated more than 90 telecenters in over 60 Russian cities. They provide free Internet access for socially disadvantage communities, and offer ICT-related assistance to educators, orphanages and others. More than 87.000 people have received training at their sites.

IATP now offers web-based education courses, usually in classes of 20 to 25 people. Recently, they’ve offered coursework on using the Internet in academic research, English for computing, and project management tools. They plan to open another 11 centers before the initiative wraps up its work in 2005, as well as a virtual university.

Departing dramatically from the other presentations, Claus Stoll of Fundacion Chasquinet in Ecuador presented a series of stories about South American telecenters through a series of digital photo galleries. A video set to the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the photos showed the best and worst of life in Ecuador , slowly advancing to images of communities embracing ICTs for local development – young families, children playing, the weathered hands of farmers, lakes and mountains polluted by oil, waterfalls contaminated by industrialization, children wandering through villages built on landfills, “No Trespassing” signs warning of petrochemical pollution, old telephones being recycled for use at telecenters, indigenous communities learning how to use computers, microwave antennas, street children using the Internet, cheese makers who learned their craft online.

WSIS Civil Society Discussion at CTCNet

Yesterday afternoon at CTCNet, I co-hosted a gathering on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) with Amali DaSilva-Mitchell of the Vancouver Community Network. Almost 20 people attended the informal meeting, and we had an engaging discussion over the course of the hour. Amali and I gave an overview of WSIS, and the process created to encourage civil society representatives to participate. There was concern amongst the group over the relative lack of participation by members of the CTC/telecenter community, some of which may be due to lack of awareness or resources. Additionally, because CTCs and telecenters are largely interdisciplinary, providing education services, Internet access, content development, etc, their interests get distributed amongst the many thematic working groups involved in the WSIS process.

Because there seemed to be a lot of interest in mobilizing CTCs to get more involved in WSIS, Amali and I offered to invite the attendees to participate in the North American Civil Society discussion list. Additionally, I'm going to take a crack at writing a brief essay on what WSIS is all about and why CTCs should care about it. Perhaps one of the end results of this will be the development of an interdisciplinary CTC/telecenter working group as part of the WSIS process; we'll have to see if other civil society reps from around the world think it would be productive to do so.... -andy

Max Gail

Cool Tools for Accessibility

Russ Holland of the Alliance for Technology Access, along with Tom Ross and Dave Grass, hosted a hands-on workshop this morning, demonstrating a selection of "Cool Tools" for promoting accessibility. "The term assistive technology is broadly used to describe any product or piece of equipment used to increase, maintain or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities," Holland explained in his introductory remarks. Holland stated that CTCs must try to offer "consumer specific technology" -- the customization of specialized assistive technologies that can be made available for all individuals.

Tom Ross then introduced Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7, a voice input system for people with motor skill impairments. Using nothing but his voice, Tom was able to use Microsoft Word to write a letter and format it with complex tables. The software does an impressive job at understanding a speaker's natural voice and recognizing the difference between action commands (such as save document, send email or format in ALL CAPS) and text that should be written into a document. Following Tom's presentation, Russ demonstrated text-to-speech software called Text Help that allows users to have computer content read back to them. Participants were then given the opportunity to try the tools for themselves.

Tom Ross

Audio Blog from CTCNet Seattle

I've just posted an audio blog summarizing some of the activities from the first day of the CTCNet conference in Seattle. Please give it a listen when you get a chance.... -andy

Update from Seattle; then Tunisia, then Mauritius....

It's 7am here in Seattle, on the morning of the second full day of the CTCNet conference. The first day was busy and engaging; nearly 600 people from the US and abroad are here, eagerly talking about the telecenter movement in all its various forms. Yesterday, during the opening session, Paul Lamb of Street Tech gave a very entertaining presentation on what the community technology movement isn't really a movement yet, and what steps we could all take to create that kind of well-organized, creative momentum. Later, I co-hosted a session on online communities with Tony Streit (check out my previous blog entry for a brief description). The day was capped off with a road trip to the Seattle Center, where the conference organizers hosted a reception for all the attendees, many of whom scattered to the winds afterwards to take in the sights and sounds of downtown Seattle for a few hours.

Today will likely be a very interesting day as well. While I no longer have any official sessions in which to participate, I still have three big activities on my plate. First, during the "birds of a feather" sessions this afternoon, I'm co-hosting a forum on the World Summit on the Information Society with Amali DaSilva-Mitchell. Immediately following that, my organization is hosting a wine and cheese reception for the release of our new E-Government for All report -- more on that later. And tomorrow morning, I'll be organizing a virtual chat between North American and European civil society representatives to discuss the upcoming WSIS planning meeting that will take place in Tunisia the week of June 24.

Speaking of which, I've still got a lot of exciting travel plans coming up. I'll be going to Tunisia for the WSIS meeting, so I'll post blogs updating everyong on how things are going there, plus hopefully a bit of personal adventures over the weekend while I have some free time in Tunis. Then, after the July 4 holiday weekend, I'm off to the tiny island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, for an ICT stakeholders forum hosted by the the British Commonwealth Business Council. I'm very excited about going to Mauritius -- an island reminiscent of Maui populated by Indians who speak French Creole -- it should be a wonderful cultural experience.

Lastly, I'm working on a photo gallery for my recent trip to Scandinavia. Hopefully I'll get it done on my flight back home to Boston, assuming my Mac's batteries don't conk out on me too quickly.... -andy

Online Communities and Meeting Virtual Colleagues in Person for the First Time

This morning I participated in a panel session tackling the role of online communities. Moderated by Tony Streit of YouthLearn, the 90-minute session was an engaging discussion about strategies to develop online communities, as well as emerging Internet tools that may be of benefit to them.

Dan Schackman of CTCNet began the session by talking about the evolution of the CTCNet email list, as well as the creation of geographically-based forums that focus on particular cities or regions. Many of the people in the audience were members of the list, and Dan received high praise from one participant for the quality of discussions and moderating. I followed Dan with a presentation on my WWWEDU discussion list and the Digital Divide Network, talking about the challenges and opportunities for integrating email-based discussions with Web-based tools. I gave a preview of the new version of the Digital Divide Network, which we hope to launch in the early fall. The new site will feature a variety of publishing and networking tools, giving users the ability to create their own blogs, discussion forums and shared calendars. I then gave a demonstration of the youth activism network TakingITGlobal.org and some of the community tools they’ve built into their website.

After a presentation about YouthLearn and its current experiments with RSS feeds and blogs, I was surprised to discover that Karen Higgs from APC was in the audience. Karen, who’s based in Uruguay, introduced herself and offered to talk about APC’s new online content management system that allows nonprofit groups around the world to manage their own websites and seamlessly share content with each other. I’d known Karen online for a long time but had never met her in person, so meeting her turned into an appropriate demonstration of how online personal contacts often lead to in-person contacts.

Before we knew it, our 90 minutes was up, and the audience headed out to get lunch. Ideally we probably could have used a full two hours for the presentation, but the time we had was just enough to begin an engaging conversation over the role of online community tools by CTCs and other neighborhood organizations involved in the telecenters movement.... -andy

Building Online Communities

Hi everyone... I'm just giving a quick demo of blogging for the online communities panel session at CTCNet.... -andy

Dan Schackman

Digital Sista

Tony Streit

Opening of CTCNet

Copenhagen, Day 2: Vertigo and Tivoli

Susanne and I woke up Saturday just before 8am. Outside there appeared to be some rain clouds in the distance, but from what I could tell they were heading away from the city. We decided to leave our umbrellas behind when we left for breakfast; it would be a fateful decision.

Since our hotel didn’t serve breakfast, we decided to walk towards Strøget in search of a café. Several of the cafes near our hotel were either closed or deserted, so we continued walking past the Rådhus until reaching the western end of Strøget. Our choices were rather limited; several Irish pubs were open, but their clientele appeared to be continuing their drinking from the prior evening. Eventually we arrived at Café Europa, a swank little place with nice outdoor seating on the square. When we looked at the menu, my eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head: nearly $10 for a croissant, jam and fruit platter, and it didn’t even come with a cup of coffee. By the time we left there we’d spent nearly $30 and I still felt like I hadn’t had breakfast. Frustrated, I walked across the street to another coffee shop; this one didn’t have outdoor seating, but at least I could get a coffee and a roll to go for less than four bucks.

Our plan for the morning was to walk across the main canal into Christianshavn to visit Von Frelsers Kirke, a church with a curious spiraling steeple that offered one of the finest views of the city. As we headed south from Strøget towards the canal, we made a brief detour to Slotsholmen, a small island that serves as Denmark’s seat of government. Tightly packed with palaces and gardens, Slotsholmen was supposed to be a beautiful place to visit. Unfortunately, the best buildings were usually closed to the public, or only open on special tours. Nonetheless, hiking across the outer courtyards gave us a feel for the place. We spent a while lingering in the gardens of the royal library, watching several families of ducks playing in the large water fountain at its center.

We exited Slotsholmen, passing a horse and carriage bringing a Danish military officer into one of the government offices, then proceeded to cross the canal into Christianshavn. We soon found several smaller canals that were modeled on the waterways of Amsterdam; their resemblance was quite striking. Off in the distance, the rain clouds I’d perceived as heading away from us were now clearly headed straight towards us. It wasn’t a matter of if we’d get wet; it was whether we’d get wet while spiraling up the outside staircase that leads to the top of Von Frelsers Kirke.

Within a few blocks we reached the outer courtyard of the church. High above us, Susanne and I could see the marvelous steeple, black with a gold strip winding its way to the top, like a gilded, chocolate-coated ice cream cone. We first visited the interior of the church; built in the late 17th century, the church features a 300-year-old pipe organ and an altar designed by Swedish architectural genius Nicodemus Tessin.

Near the entrance of the church, we each paid an attendant 20 kronor for the privilege to climb more than 400 steps to the top of the steeple. The first hundred steps were rather straightforward, as we ascended a series of stone steps. Then, we passed through a large door, leading us to a labyrinth of wooden scaffolding housing the church bells and clock. On several occasions we had to duck our heads to fit through the tight passages leading upward.

Nearly 300 steps to the top, we proceeded through another door and found ourselves on the outer base of the steeple. A gold-painted railing was all that protected us from a long fall and a quick death; fortunately, my fear of heights seemed to be taking a holiday this morning. Walking clockwise around the platform, we reached the spiral staircase that winds dramatically to the very top of the steeple. Susanne and I were quite knackered from the climb, but didn’t want to stop with only a short way to go to the very top, so we started the final ascent.

As we walked counterclockwise to the top, the rain clouds to the west were becoming darker, more ominous. Neither of us wanted to linger at the very top; a few moments snapping some pictures of the old town would suffice.

“Okay, let’s go,” Susanne said, ready to head back down.

“I thought you weren’t afraid of heights,” I replied, following her.

“Sometimes, and this is getting to me,” she said. “I mean, look at it out there.”

I looked over the edge of the rail, and suddenly imagined what it would feel like if the rail had vanished. Suddenly I felt a wave of nausea come over me. “Okay, I see your point,” I said. “I can only imagine what it was like to build this thing 300 years ago.”

Both of us were quite happy when we went through the door back into the maze of wooden scaffolding. Even though the scaffolding was much riskier for us – the steps were slippery and quite vertical – we were just happy to be indoors again.

Back at the entrance of the church, we started to hike northwest towards Strøget again. The clouds that we’d seen approaching us from atop the steeple were now straight overhead; it was just a matter of time. We crossed the canal and walked parallel to Slotsholmen when the first raindrops fell. At first it was just an inconvenient drizzle; within a matter of minutes it was a steady shower. Just a couple of blocks below Strøget, we retreated to an apartment doorway and spent the next 30 minutes keeping dry as best as possible. The rain was actually quite pretty to watch falling on the cobblestones, now that we were no longer standing in it. But my coat was quite drenched and my hair was dripping wet; I knew the next couple of hours were going to be rather uncomfortable.

Once the rain died down to the point that we didn’t mind walking out into it again, we hiked another block to the coffee shop where I’d picked up my supplementary breakfast. The café was jammed with people retreating from the rain, and the staff seemed quite overwhelmed. I waited about 15 minutes to get a couple of bottles of soda for us – the coffee service was so slow we didn’t care if we had cold drinks at this point – then we found a couple of seats by a second-floor window with an excellent view of the square.

The rain continued to slow its pace, as best as we could tell through the window. Off to the distance I could even make out some sunshine penetrating the fluffy clouds, so perhaps there was hope we could salvage part of the afternoon. Eventually, the rain died down to no more than a nagging mist, so we left the café and walked towards Nyhavn in search of lunch. I’d heard good things about Nyhavns Færgekro, an old Danish café famous for its lunchtime herring buffet. Neither of us were into herring, but they supposedly had a good selection of smørrebrod sandwiches as well.

Reaching the canal, we went downstairs to the lower level of the restaurant, which looked like it’d been serving customers there since the 18th century. A waitress who appeared to have been several inches taller than six feet tall first sat us at a long bench in a corner of the room, then offered us our own table when it opened up a couple of minutes later. Susanne and I each selected a smørrebrod for ourselves: I wanted to have the smoked salmon while Susanne stuck with her mozzarella and pesto. We then waited for the next 25 minutes, unable to make eye contact with any of the wait staff. On a couple occasions several of them appeared to debate who would work our corner of the restaurant, but they came to no satisfactory conclusion. So we waited and waited as the rest of the people in the restaurant got to order and receive their food.

Eventually I waved down a waiter and gave him a look of exasperation; he took our order and vanished somewhere in the kitchen. A few minutes later, our sandwiches arrived; neither of them were larger than the palm of my hand, and Susanne’s was so stingy it featured only a single slice of mozzarella. (Compare that to the sandwiches we had for yesterday’s lunch, and these smørrebrods were a joke.) For the second time today, it appeared I’d have to supplement a meal with a second round of food. I was really getting frustrated with the poor service and overpriced finger food; it probably didn’t help that I hadn’t slept much the night before and was still quite wet from the morning rain.

After lunch, we stepped outside and discovered the rain had stopped, replaced by huge crowds of people, many of whom were wearing red and white Danish football jerseys. Hundreds of them were crammed along the edge of the canal, sitting wherever there was room, carrying handfuls of Carlsberg beer and hotdogs. Later today the Danish national team was going to play Croatia, so the entire country, it seemed, had come out to Nyhavn for a tailgate party. Susanne was eager to wander the crowd and take pictures of people; I meanwhile, was in a bit of a sour mood from still being wet and hungry, but I did my best not to drag Susanne down with me.

Once Susanne had finished her portraits of face-painted, Viking-helmeted football fans, we returned to Strøget, heading west down the pedestrian mall. The street was as crowded as we’d ever seen it, with an apparent majority of people sporting the red and white football jerseys of the national team. The sun had now reappeared from its morning exile, and I could feel the dampness slowly vanishing from my coat. It was actually now warm enough to tie our coats around our waists, so we stripped off our outer layer and went in search of an ice cream cone.

Back in Stockholm, we’d discovered the marvels of hazelnut ice cream when we had dinner at Tomas and Eva Ohlin’s house, and we were eager for a repeat performance if we could find it anywhere. We had to visit a few ice cream shops before we found one that sold our flavor of choice, but it was well worth the wait. I ended up getting a cone with two scoops of hazelnut, one scoop of pistachio, while Susanne the purist stuck with hazelnut ice cream only. We found some space for us to lean against on the edge of a marble fountain and spent the next 20 minutes enjoying every lick and bite of the ice cream, while watching the crowds of red-and-white sports fans drinking their beers, making the most out of a sunny afternoon.

As far as either of us were concerned, we only had one other thing to do while in Copenhagen, and that was visit Tivoli. For over 160 years, Tivoli has been the grand dame of European amusement parks, and you didn’t even have to leave the old town to visit it. Tivoli is actually located in the heart of Copenhagen, squeezed in between the central train station and the Rådhuspladsen. So we stopped by our hotel just long enough to get rid of our jackets – and grab our umbrellas, just in case – then backtracked three blocks to the entrance of the amusement park.

After paying the $9 entry fee, we walked into Tivoli, and immediately forgot we were in the biggest city in Scandinavia. Tivoli was a throwback to the Victorian age, its gardens and amusements jammed with thousands of visitors. In fact, we were quite taken aback by the throngs of people crammed into such a small space; I wasn’t sure how long we’d last there, particularly as it began to appear that the rains would return. But soon enough the skies cleared again, the crowds thinned a little, and we had just enough space to wander the park at our leisure.

Rather than climb onto any of the roller coasters – not one of my favorite activities anyway – we explored the grounds of the park. Much of Tivoli had a Near East theme, with restaurants designed to look like the Taj Mahal, and rides located in sultans’ palaces. I imagine these Islamic themes must have seemed really exotic at the turn of the last century, which seemed ironic considering there were now many Muslim families strolling around the park, and groups of children led around by women in headscarves.

Everyone at Tivoli seemed to be having a marvelous time, particularly the parents, with constant access to Carlsberg beer around every corner. Oddly enough, it was the kids who seemed to be having less fun at Tivoli; lots of kids were pouting, crying or screaming, perhaps from exhaustion after a long day of queuing for one ride after another. Susanne and I made a loop around the park, then settled down at an outdoor café so I could have my first taste of Carlsberg since arriving in Denmark. The beer was sudsy and cold, well worth the $7 a cup they were extorting from us visitors.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lingering in different corners of the park, watching families paddleboat across ponds and big bands perform in the outdoor palladium. There was even a parade of live toy soldiers, with boys dressed like they were marching straight out of a gingerbread house, escorting a “king” and “queen” in an ornate carriage. The royalty, probably no more than eight or nine years old, even had the royal hand wave down pat, rotating their wrists left to right in a hilariously pompous fashion.

Around 6:30pm we left the park, getting our hands stamped just in case we wanted to go back later in the evening. Susanne dropped off her camera at the hotel before we proceeded to the Koh-I-Noor restaurant, which Lonely Planet had recommended for its nightly Pakistani buffet. But after getting one look at its disturbing selection of oily meats and stagnant mushroom curry, we decided to take our business elsewhere, so we walked a few blocks south to Denmark’s first Pakistani restaurant, the Shezan. There, we had a delicious dinner of chana masala and chicken vindaloo, along with naan that was more akin to Afghani flatbread.

By 8pm we returned to the hotel, hoping to spend some time reading and journaling until it got sufficiently dark outside before returning to Tivoli. The amusement park is supposed to be particularly beautiful at night, and they have a fireworks show just before midnight on Saturdays.

We spent about an hour at the hotel before heading back outside; the sun hadn’t set but was now hidden in a bank of low clouds. Walking several blocks east to Tivoli’s entrance, we showed the security guard the green stamp on the inside of our wrist – the word “ROCK” in capital letters – and were welcomed back into the park.

Tivoli at night is a marked contrast to the park during the day. Less crowded, more subdued Tivoli took on an entirely different character as the sun set. The number of children had decreased significantly, with more well-dressed adults appearing for a fancy dinner at one of Tivoli’s many restaurants. As we entered the grounds, we soon reached a pavilion featuring a chamber orchestra. The musicians were playing an upbeat Tchaikovsky waltz, as a crowd of people listened while sitting in rows of park benches. We stood to the side and enjoyed the waltz, which was followed by a Richard Strauss piece.

Knowing that we had around two hours before the 11:45pm fireworks display, we decided to get some dessert at the ZZZ restaurant. Housed in a glass pavilion with penetrated by a large tree, the restaurant was jammed with well-dressed diners drinking copious amounts of wine, beer and aquavit. We soon managed to get a table; both of us ordered the hazelnut pie, while also ask for a small glass of chilled Pedro Ximenez sherry. It took a while to place the order, but we were in no rush; I didn’t know if we would be able to stay awake until the fireworks, but a least we wanted to be at Tivoli long enough to fully appreciate it at night.

My sherry soon arrived, followed by our pie. Each slice was piping hot, accompanied by a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce, sliced passionfruit and a dusting of crushed pistachios. The combination of flavors was simply magnificent, and the syrupy sherry was an added bonus; all that was missing were cigars.

We lingered over dessert until just after 10:30pm, at which point we paid our bill and began strolling deeper into the park. The restaurant modeled after the Taj Mahal was now glowing with thousands of light bulbs, reflected in a small pool out in front. Water danced in the central fountain, while some of the remaining young children were treated to balloons shaped like dolphins and butterflies.

Susanne suggested we try going to the right, along the western edge of the park. I couldn’t remember if we had seen anything back there earlier in the day, so I was pleasantly surprised to discovered a street heading up a hillside, each side of the street busy with cafes, pubs, amusement games, candy shops, even slot machines. Some of the storefronts were decorated with a Wild West theme, which added to the character of the small casinos and bars. We paused for a while at a poster shop that sold reprints of vintage Tivoli posters dating back over 100 years. The posters ranged in style and quality, with the most charming posters surprisingly coming from the early 1980s.

Backtracking down the busy street, we walked the perimeter of the park. We discovered there were several casinos towards the back of Tivoli; perhaps they weren’t open in the daytime, because we hadn’t noticed them earlier. The casinos added to the park’s more “adult” aura at night; even though there were still some kids around, the evening hours at Tivoli were the time for their parents to come back without them.

The Chinese pagoda restaurant, not far from the roller coaster, was lit with colorful bulbs from top to bottom, accented by several dozen glowing paper lanterns in the adjacent tree. We walked to the far side of the pagoda and took pictures of it from the pond, with the glowing lights reflecting in the water. Further to the east, you could see the clock tower of the Rådhus, apparently lit up by floodlights, with haunting, fluffy clouds floating behind it.

By now it was just passed 11:15pm, according to the bells that tolled from the clock tower. We were only 30 minutes from the start of the fireworks, but both of us were starting to feel quite exhausted. We decided to persevere and stay for the display, but the next 30 minutes would pass very slowly. Soon we parked ourselves on a bench facing the Taj Mahal restaurant. A somewhat tipsy Turkish couple sat next to us, smoking and laughing; I had to lean towards Susanne on several occasions to avoid being stung by errant ashes escaping the man’s cigarette.

Just after 11:30 we noticed that groups of people were assembling in the central pavilion, just in front of the large water fountain; this must be the best viewing spot for the fireworks. We found an open row of seats and sat down, just in front of a group of drunken women from Yorkshire who appeared to be having the time of their lives.

As soon as the bells of the clock tower sounded the arrival of 11:45, most of the lights around the parks dimmed quickly. Far ahead of us, on the building beyond the water fountain, roman candles shot upwards from the roof, followed by a giant sparkler display that spelled out the words 05 Juni 2004. For the next 10 minutes we were treated to a delightful fireworks display directly over the southern perimeter of the park. Each fire burst created a percussive thud that echoed behind us in the central band shell, generating collective “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd.

Almost as suddenly as the show had begun, it was over, punctuated by a final volley of roman candles, flares and sparklers. The crowd applauded excitedly, half due to the quality of the show, half perhaps because of a readiness to head out for the rest of the night. We soon joined the river of people walking to the north gate of the park, the exit closest to our hotel. Outside we spotted several groups of young men sporting the colors of the national football team; they were quite drunk but not giving away much of any sign if Denmark had won or lost.

Soon the crowd dissipated as we crossed the street and headed west to the hotel. Despite the bright lights of the city, we saw stars above us, the first stars we’d seen since arriving in Scandinavia over a week ago. With the sun setting close to 11pm in Denmark, and the skies never getting darker than dusk in Iceland, the stars surprised both of us. In an odd way it reminded us of home -- just dark enough to see some stars, but not dark enough to see that many of them – and it made me realize that we’d be off to the airport in less than 12 hours. I didn’t expect to get a good night’s sleep, considering what I’d experienced the night before, but it really didn’t matter. We’d just seen the fireworks over Tivoli, and I couldn’t think of a better way of ending our brief, but delightful trip to Scandinavia.

The Wrong Way to Copenhagen

With the conference wrapping up mid-day Friday, Susanne and I soon made our way back to the Ronneby train station to continue to our final destination, Copenhagen. We’d have the rest of Friday and all day Saturday to enjoy the Danish capital before returning to Boston on Saturday. The train arrived as expected a couple minutes before the hour, so we climbed on board and settled ourselves for the journey.

About 15 minutes later, the train conductor came by to punch our tickets. She looked at our tickets and began speaking rapidly in Swedish.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Swedish,” I replied.

“I am sorry…. You are on the wrong train,” she said.

Susanne and I looked at each other. Uh-oh.

“Wrong train?” I replied. “Where are we going, then?”

“This train is to Karlskrona,” she said. “Your ticket was for the other direction.”

I couldn’t believe we’d done this. A few times I’ve gotten on the wrong subway before, but never a train. “So what should we do?” I asked, bracing for her reply.

“The train, it will go to Karlskrona, then it will turn around and go to Kristianstad,” she said. “There you can get the next train to Copenhagen. I will explain to the conductor your error.”

Susanne and I both had to suppress laughter as she wrote a note on the ticket explaining to any future train employee inspecting our tickets that we were dim-witted Americans who didn’t know east from west. Fortunately she was very nice about the whole thing, and connecting trains ran hourly to Copenhagen, so we wouldn’t have a major problem getting there eventually.

We settled into our books, now having an extra hour for quality reading time, as the train passed through the farm country of Sweden’s Skåne province. After arriving in Karlskrona, we waited about 10 minutes before the train reversed itself, giving us the chance to experience traveler’s déjà vu as we spotted familiar cows, barns and rolling hillsides along the way.

Arriving in Kristianstad, we departed the train and crossed platform to our next train. I stood for a moment outside the train, double-checking and triple-checking the digital sign that displayed the word Kobenhavn in large blocky letters. This time we would not get on the wrong train. Fortunately it was unreserved seating, so we didn’t have to worry about finding free seats on a booked train; we just grabbed what was available as soon as we could find a pair of adjoining seats. Not long after the train started to roll west, the conductor came down the aisle to check everyone’s tickets. I handed her our tickets, and she inspected them for a moment.

“Ah, yes,” she said, suppressing a grin. “I heard about you two… Don’t worry, this train is going to Copenhagen, so this time you will make it.”

“Word spreads quickly,” I replied, trying not to look too embarrassed.

“It is very easy for this to happen,” she said, seemingly feel the need to comfort us. “Ronneby is a small station, there is no announcement or platform information sign, so you should not feel bad about it.”

The rest of the ride to Copenhagen passed quickly; before too long we were crossing the bridge over Øresund, the sound separating Sweden from the Danish island of Zealand. About 20 minutes after crossing the sound, we arrived at Copenhagen’s central station. We exited the station and walked several blocks west to our hotel as a light, chilly drizzle fell on us. The weather had changed markedly in the time since we’d left warm and sunny Ronneby; Copenhagen was at least 15 degrees Fahrenheit colder, not to mention the rain. After walking half a block we stopped under a hotel awning so we could put on our coats; we were not dressed for these conditions.

Soon we arrived at the Hotel Løven, a modest accomodation located in a Turkish neighborhood in Copenhagen’s Vesterbro district. Once we put down our bags, we decided to get some food; between the rush to the train station and the accidental excursion to Karlskrona, we never got around to having lunch, so were feeling quite famished. A couple blocks east of the hotel we found a delightful café decorated with Italian art posters and jazz festival lithographs. Along with some strong coffee, we each ordered a smørrebrod, Danish open-faced sandwiches. Even though they were called smørrebrods, the sandwiches actually looked more like baguettes, both of them overflowing with fixings. Susanne ordered a mozzarella and pesto, while mine was smoked salmon – simply outstanding. And I was relieved to see that the bill was just over $12, much more reasonable than Sweden, and particularly Iceland, where you’d be lucky to get one sandwich for that kind of money.

After polishing off our smørrebrod, we continued walking east, soon passing the entrance to Copenhagen’s famous amusement park, Tivoli. We planned to explore the park some time tomorrow; for now we just wanted to walk around and get a feel for the city. Just beyond Tivoli, we reached Rådhuspladsen, or town hall plaza. On the far right of the plaza sat the stately town hall, a turn-of-the-century structure with a fine clock tower. The square was crowded with people, some clearly on local business, others enjoying the sights in between the occasional raindrops. Bicyclist whizzed by the perimeter of the plaza, following along one of the many paths reserved for bicycle traffic.

Crossing the plaza, we found ourselves at the start of Strøget, a pedestrian mall that stretches northeast through Copenhagen’s Latin Quarter for more than a kilometer. The heart and soul of old town Copenhagen, Strøget was jammed with sightseers and shoppers, oblivious to the mediocre weather. Groups of German and American tourists followed tour leaders sporting colorful umbrellas; mothers driving baby carriages the size of small SUVs negotiated the pathways with streams of bicyclists.

A couple hundred meters up the street, we veered left across Gammel Torv to pay a visit to Copenhagen’s cathedral, Vor Frue Kirke. Originally founded nearly 900 years ago, the cathedral had burned down on at least two occasions, so the present structure dated from the early 19th century. The outside was surprisingly modest for a cathedral; no gargoyles, no flying buttresses. The inside was even more peculiar – whitewashed with neoclassical vaulting, columns and statues, the interior was oddly reminiscent of the US Capitol. Susanne and I wandered the cathedral, reviewing the giant statues of Jesus and the disciples sculpted by Bertel Thorvaldsen. For some reason, the names on the apostle statues didn’t seem to match the apostles as we’d remembered them. Perhaps the names were strikingly different in Danish? Hard to say.

Leaving the cathedral, we continued north by a couple blocks before reaching a much older church, Sankt Petri Kirke. Constructed in the 15th century, the church was the oldest in Copenhagen, home to the city’s German Lutheran population. Again, we found the interior of the church a surprise; the hall had been completely renovated and whitewashed, with an unusual amount of modern art on the walls. If we hadn’t known it was a 600-year-old church, we certainly wouldn’t have guessed it.

Around the corner, we briefly passed the local synagogue. Dating from the early 1800s, the synagogue is closed to the general public, so we had to do with an exterior view. From there, we walked through a delightful medieval arcade called XYZ’s Passage. This led us back to Strøget, where we headed directly for La Glace, one of the most famous 19th century pastry shops in Copenhagen. Susanne and I began to drool as we stood at the window, staring in at the vast selection of cakes, cookies and danishes – known locally as wienerbrod (Vienna bread), quite curiously. Inside the shop it was total chaos, so we needed to know what we wanted when we approached the counter; otherwise we might get bowled over by hordes of elderly ladies with no patience for our indecisiveness. Along with a small pot of coffee, Susanne ordered a slice of almond wienerbrod, while I requested the Karen Blixen cake, a mocha mousse concoction.

Sitting at our compact table, we lost ourselves in our treats as the chaos continued around us. Only when we’d finished our desserts and come up for air did we realize how hectic it was in the café. “It’s like Thunderdome in here,” Susanne said, in reference to the Mad Max movie.

Abandoning our table to a group of tourists hovering nearby, we left the café and said a brief hello to a friendly Parson Russell terrier residing next door at a boutique jewelry shop. Once the pup was ready to go back to napping in her little bed, we returned to Strøget and strolled along the shops for several more blocks. Reaching Kongens Nytorv (The King’s New Square), we veered to the right to explore the canal area known as Nyhavn. Historically the home of local fisherman, Nyhavn’s most famous resident was undoubtedly Hans Christian Andersen, who spent many years residing in house #67.

Susanne and I criss-crossed our way towards Nyhavn, having to dodge roadside construction in several different directions. Eventually, we arrived at Nyhavn – a picture-perfect stretch of colorful houses and cafes along a canal, sailboats lining either side. Touristy, yes, but still absolutely adorable. Unfortunately the skies were still dark with clouds, so it wasn’t the most suitable conditions for taking photographs, but we did our best just in case we wouldn’t find ourselves back this way again. We walked the length of the canal, even climbing onto a canvas-covered boat to get closer photos of the houses lining the other side of the water. Crossing to the opposite side by way of a small bridge, we walked along the numerous cafes, many of which were busy with Danes wasting away the damp afternoon over pints of Carlsberg and Tuborg.

Halfway down the canal, a group of young people in red costumes and funny hats came our way, handing out pamphlets to strangers. One of them came up to us, pamphlet in hand.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you tourists?”

“Yes,” Susanne said somewhat hesitantly.

“Oh, I’m very sorry,” she replied. We figured she meant “sorry to bother you” because the pamphlets were written for local Copenhageners, but it came across as “I’m sorry to hear you’re a tourist.” She was actually very nice, and even offered to pose for a photo by Susanne.

Leaving the Nyhavn canal, we decided we had just enough energy to explore a little further. We walked northwest on Bredgade, in the general direction of Amelienborg Palace. After a few blocks we came across the Marble Church, an enormous, neo-baroque structure modeled after St. Peter’s in Rome. Though construction had started in the 1700s, the project soon went bankrupt due to the price of Norwegian marble; it took the assistance of a wealthy businessman to finance the rest of the construction, which was completed over a century later.

As we entered the church, we passed multiple signs each displaying the world SILENCE in large, uppercase letters. Susanne and I had visited many churches that requested you respect the sanctity of their space, but I’d never seen one so insistent on absolute silence. Nonetheless, as we entered the church we soon encountered a group of tourists whispering rather emphatically. The ornate inner dome had just the right acoustics to create an echo inside, so there was no way of disguising the visitors’ conversation.

Continuing up the street, we passed a Russian Orthodox church built in the late 1800s by tsar Alexander III. Soon we reached an enormous park that surrounded Kastellet, a 16th century fort still used by the Danish military. To the right of the fort stood St. Alban’s, a tall Anglican church that was built for the wedding of King Edward VII of Britain, who had married a Danish princess before being crowned. We approached the wooden bridge leading to the fort and couldn’t figure out if we were able to enter or not. Just past the gate we could see a number of soldier in camouflage. Unsure what to do for a few minutes, we soon observed a family pushing baby carriages stroll across the bridge and through the group of soldiers without any sign of problems. So we followed their lead and proceeded across the bridge, where we were thoroughly ignored by the troops.

Susanne soon disappeared up a hill above the barracks while I fished out my tour book to see if it had any information on this place; the guide said that the fort was a public park during daylight hours, so we weren’t trespassing after all.

Looking across at an opposite hill, I was befuddled when I saw an enormous cruise ship appear to glide across the hillside. I climbed a little higher and realized that the fort was located along the waterfront; in fact, somewhere just beyond the fort was the home of the famous Little Mermaid statue. Once we realized this, we decided to proceed through the fort to the other side, so we could reach the harbor and seek out Copenhagen’s most famous landmark.

A chilly breeze greeted us as we exited the northern gate of the fort. We followed a path to the waterfront; across the harbor we could see industrial windmills, smokestacks and warehouses. It wasn’t exactly the type of location I expected to find the Little Mermaid. Ahead of us we could see a group of tourists working their way down a set of stone steps; that must be the place. Soon enough, we reached a quay, below which sat the statue of the mermaid on a rock, a few feet into the harbor. A man and his daughter had just jumped from rock to rock until they’d climbed onto the statue’s perch, posing for a picture before struggling to jump back to the quay. The statue was smaller than I expected, but delicate, pretty; you couldn’t even tell that the poor thing’s head had been sawed off by pranksters on two different occasions.

The wind began to pick up as we stood along the quay, so we lingered long enough to appreciate the statue and snap a couple of pictures. It was now getting rather late, and I realized that we were almost three miles from our hotel, so we had a long walk ahead of us. Following the path around the upper edge of the fort, we connected to a busy roadway, passing a series of quaint row houses before veering southwest down Rigensgade. After a few more blocks we reached a large, meticulously manicured park; it was the grounds surrounding Rosenborg Slot, a 17th century palace that served as summer residence for the king. We cut through the park, following a path lined with perfectly symmetrical trees, until we reached the center of the garden, with a view of the palace to our west. The palace had closed for the evening, so we’d have to return tomorrow if we wanted to see its collection of the Danish crown jewels.

On the other side of the park, we were approached by a group of young women sporting plastic purple crowns, one of whom was also wearing a wedding vail.

“Could you take our picture,” one of them asked.

“Of course,” Susanne said. “Bachelorette party?”

“Sorry?” the apparent bride-to-be replied.

“Batchelorette party,” Susanne repeated.

One of the other women jumped in at this point. “Yes, batchelorette party; she is the bride.”

After Susanne took their picture, plus one for good luck, we encountered a group of young people in their early 20s. They were sitting in a circle, drinking beer and smoking, singing a song. They sounded like a glee club, each picking different harmonies or singing counterpoint. We paused for a moment to listen to them but some of them began to giggle, becoming self-conscious of our presence.

After several more blocks, we finally found ourselves in familiar territory, at the far eastern end of the Strøget pedestrian mall. The street was even more crowded than before, as shoppers were joined with throngs of diners having dinner at local cafes. We paused for a while on a bench near a church as a group of Roma musicians played Slavonic Dances and other Eastern European classics. Susanne spent a few minutes taking pictures of the musicians, who appeared to be having a grand old time. The two fiddlers jousted with each other as the hammer dulcimer player kept up furious pace, hollering and laughing at appropriate crescendos in the music. The bench was a perfect spot for people watching; beautiful young fashionistas, elderly couples in their finest outfits, tourists with exhausted children, street hawkers selling bubble machines and tin whistles.

By the time we reached the neighborhood around our hotel, the local restaurants were getting crowded with the second or third round of diners. Just across the street from our base camp, we found the Ankara restaurant, a Turkish all-you-can-eat buffet. Upstairs we managed to claim one of the last available tables just as a large group of people arrived behind us. The waitress told us about the buffet and ordered our drinks, so we jumped in head-first into a wonderful assortment of hot dishes and salads: kofte meatballs, cacik yogurt, shepard’s salad, several different bean dishes, olives and bulgar wheat pilafs. Eventually, we returned upstairs to the hotel, our stomachs stuffed and our feet swollen. Hopefully we’d have enough energy tomorrow to take full advantage of our final day in Scandinavia.

Thursday Afternoon at the Telecities Conference

I've just spent the last three hours participating in two breakout sessions on e-inclusion. I was the first speaker of the afternoon; I gave a history of the Digital Divide Network, as well as an overview of the November 2003 E-Government for All conference I coordinated, including a preview of the conference report, due out in a couple of weeks.

There were several interesting presentations during the afternoon. A representative from the Polish city of Gdansk talked about a program created by Poland's 12 largest cities, in which city governments are opening community e-government centers, or Internet Gates. These centers offer public Internet access and are staffed by people who can help local residents navigate e-government, such as applying for a license, pay taxes online or other government transaction. We also heard from representatives from the city of Ronneby, whom have developed a series of initiatives to provide public Internet access and local training, as well as making government websites accessible for people with disabilities. Like the government of Hong Kong, they're experimenting with an e-gov portal that has text-to-speech capabilities built into the website.

The most exciting session of the day so far was actually done by a pair of teenagers who work on a project called Youth Tech. It's a Swedish association of young people who want to use their Internet talents for social good; they do computer problem solving for senior citizens, as well as offer training seminars for policymakers so they have a better understanding of young people and their use of ICTs. One of the two teenagers talked about a related project called Girl Tech, in which girls who are intimidated by the high ratio of boys in technology clubs can participate in a girls-only program, learning skills ranging from digital animation, radio webcasting and video editing.

Now we're having a coffee break, and in a few minutes I'll be speaking during a plenary roundtable session. More later.... -andy

Manchester: Civic Participation and Urban Renewal Through E-Government

The next plenary session of the conference was entitled "Developing the Intelligent Cities of the Future: Joining Up E-Government and E-Inclusion." The city of Manchester, England was used as a case study for the session. Dave Carter of Manchester 's Digital Development Agency discussed his communities involvement in the IntelCities project. Launched in January, IntelCities is a partnership between 18 cities, 20 ICT companies and 36 research organizations. The project is allowing cities to deploy and assess a variety of e-government services. "E-government should be available 24/7, making life easier for citizens and businesses," he said, noting that e-government cannot be seen as a success if only 10% of the population is able to use it.

The IntelCities project hopes to develop an "eskilled society," by way of a a new "Integrated Open System City Platform," a collection of systems and services built upon accepted Internet protocols. Government agencies can use e-government to improve their decision-making process, utilizing technology to expand the participatory process to all citizens. Through the 18 months of the project, the team hopes to pool their collective experiences in e-government, e-planning, and e-community building to create a set of tools and benchmarks that can be replicated elsewhere, as well as potential business models for helping support the costs of e-government.

"In the last 20 years, we've been trying to convert the city from ashes of being the first major industrial city - and one of the first cities to feel the effects of de-industrialization," he said. As new businesses have become established in Manchester, many of the new jobs associated with have been filled by people from the outside, leaving many locals unemployed.

Carter discussed the notion of "e-regeneration," improving urban governance through the use of efficient and sustainable technologies, and renewing local democracy by re-engaging citizens in civic life. "Each year, less and less people vote, less and less people participate in society," he said, "and we hope this will give people more interest, more confidence in participating in civic life."

In New East Manchester, the unemployment rate is double the national average; the population has declined from 100,000 to 30,000. They are now working to build "a new town in the city," hoping to double the population to 60,000. This requires building new services and economic capacity through the use of ICTs. Carter demonstrated how the city is using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to identify opportunities for economic development, improving the efficiency of services such as waste disposal and recycling. GIS is also helping policymakers and citizens visualize their city in new ways. "Using GIS, citizens can say, 'We think the new development should look like this, rather than that,'" he said, noting that GIS can overlay relevant data sets to help citizens articulate their vision for local economic development.

Citing the neighborhood of Seedley as an example, he showed how virtual reality fly-throughs of an economically-collapsing community was used by the citizens to think creatively about developing initiatives for urban renewal. Local home values had plummeted to the point that people were literally abandoning their homes rather than trying to sell them, so the virtual reality tools helped members of the community become civically engaged with local government decisions to renovate and rebuilt the neighborhoods. The tools also helped the city sell their urban renewal programs to potential investors.

Carter notes the high level of economic exclusion in Manchester has been a barrier to get communities involved: surveys showed that an astonishingly 30% of households in some neighborhoods no longer had phones because they couldn't pay the bills. "If you don't have a credit card, a bank account, etc, you can't sign up for broadband because you don't meet the contract rules," he said. So they established a local broadband initiative to give low-income families easier access to the Internet. Nationally, 10% of the population uses broadband, but now neighborhoods participating in the program have 20% access. The city has also partnered with the local credit union to create a "community credit card" - a local savings account to help low-income systems save money for purchasing computers and broadband access. The program is also helping people gain new routes to entrepreneurship, something that is vital to the community's economic renewal.

In conclusion, Carter said that city's e-government programs aren't always connected to the real needs of local citizens, particularly undeserved population. Creating initiatives that help people gain access to ICTs while giving them a sense of ownership in local urban renewal is helping Manchester renovate communities that have been economically ravished by de-industrialization.

Opening Plenary of the Telecities Conference

The summer 2004 Telecities conference kicked off its first full day of activities with a welcome from the mayor of Ronneby, JanAnders Palmqvist. He gave an overview of the history of the town, locally famous as one of Sweden's premiere spa towns of the 19th century. Ronneby went through an iron industry boom in the 20th century, but it soon declined, so the city decided to focus its efforts on establishing the town as a local information technology hub. Despite the recent dot-com bubble burst, the mayor is hopeful that the city will continue to grow as a regional oasis for ICT companies and technology-related higher education. The university, in fact, will begin offering coursework in e-government - the first university in Sweden to do so. The mayor also spoke about the conference facility, a state-of-the-art secondary school that will open to students for the first time this coming August.

The mayor was followed by the president of Telecities. She welcomed representatives from cities that have just joined the organization, a European association of local governments interested in the role of ICTs in their communities. Along with a number of cities from Spain and elsewhere in western Europe, a distinguished group of Eastern European cities have now become members, thanks to the recent expansion of the European Union.

Next, Artur Serra of the Center for Internet Applications in Spain gave a keynote address entitled Open Cities: The Next Generation in Digital Cities. With the rapid deployment of fiber optic networks, cities are quickly gaining access to faster and faster bandwidth. He talked about the expansion of Internet2 across Europe and North America, with networks reaching multi-gigabit speeds. The Global Lambda Internet Facility (www.glif.is), is a prime example - a multi-gigabit network created as a partnership between Canada and Europe, with the network running by way of Iceland. Serra also showed how the city of Barcelona is deploying fiber optic networks to allow for high-quality streaming video.

Serra then talked about the explosion of Wi-Fi: with individuals setting up their own wireless hubs, citizens are now serving as network providers for their local community. He also noted trends in grid computing, in which large banks of computers distributed across the Internet are able to work in sync with each other to tackle complex computing tasks. Grid computing allows anyone with an Internet PC to take part in collective research projects and other activities by providing access to their computer, when they would otherwise sit idle. Additionally, grid computing is embracing open source technology. This, he argued, will make it easier for cities to embrace grid computing and develop locally relevant projects in collaboration with community businesses, research institutions and the public. "Grid cities open the way to real knowledge cities and citizens," he said.

Lastly, Serra discussed the future of digital television and voice-over-IP technology. "The current text based Internet is not for everyone," he said. "The audiovisual Internet can be.... This will be the first Internet for everyone in your cities," regardless of their literacy level. Digital television, he said, will be a tremendous opportunity for transmitting high-quality multimedia services to the home. Universities, in particular, should embrace opportunities to participate in the production of content that can be multicast through digital television. In Barcelona, for example, they are now experimenting with connecting Internet2 networks to digital television.

"Open cities are cities that begin to use the next generation of Internet technology," he said. "The critical point is the alliance between universities and research centers that produce this technology, and the city officers and politicians... to develop more citizen involvement.... The citizens not only want e-government services. They can _change_ governments with the help of digital networks."

Conference organizers then launched a new initiative called E-Citizenship for All, a benchmarking survey on European cities and the accessibility of ICT services to their citizens. (www.telecities.org/ecitizenship) Additionally, cities participating in the project will be eligible for awards based on their deployment of ICT services to their constituents. Richard Drewes of Deloitte and Touche gave an overview of the most recent survey. Members of Telecities are given access to a database of benchmarking statistics from various Telecities member cities; this will allow them to compare programs and services that have been deployed by each city. Users can also search the database by type of initiative or service to see which cities are deploying them, and how they are going about doing it. All the data may be downloaded into Excel files for offline research.

Reporting from the Telecities Conference

Hi everyone,

After a lengthy train ride yesterday, I arrived in the southern Swedish town of Ronneby, home of this summer's Telecities conference. The first informal gatherings took place yesterday afternoon, as attendees arrived in a very good mood, given the wonderfully warm weather and the beautiful location -- Ronneby is home to a 300-year-old nature reserve that's located literally in the back yard of the hotel and conference center. It's a 20-minute walk from the hotel to the conference, something that might otherwise be annoying if it weren't for the fact that you get to stroll past ponds, waterfalls, and manicured gardens.

My two sessions are coming up later today. First I'm participating in a breakout session on e-inclusion; later I'll take part in a plenary roundtable. As far as I can tell, I'm the only American here, with most representatives coming from over 100 city governments across Europe. So it's already proving to be a fascinating, eye-opening experience for me.... -andy

Onward to the Conference

Early in the morning we hit the road, going to Stockholm Central to catch a train to Ronneby and the Telecities conference. The train was very relaxing, traveling through many forests and lakes. The intercity train from Stockholm was rather warm inside, but the local train to Ronneby turned out to be much more comfortable.

Arriving at the Ronneby station, we immediately saw a sign from the organizers of the Telecities conference pointing the way to the Ronneby Brunn Hotel. We’d planned to take a taxi, but as long as it was walkable, we might as well enjoy the splendid weather. As we followed the signs to the hotel, we realized we’d made a terrible mistake. We found ourselves walking a long canal, with several large warehouses to our left. We seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, and the signs gave no sense whatsoever of how long this walk actually was. Both of us were lugging heavy backpacks, and I had my laptop case as well, so after 20 minutes without any sign of the hotel or a passing taxi, we started to get rather aggravated. But there wasn’t much we could do – heading back to the train station seemed crazy, so we did our best to press on.

We followed the signs into the Ronneby Park, a beautiful place that seemed to stretch for miles. It was hard to appreciate the tranquility of it, though, as we dragged our belongings further down the road, occasionally passing yet another conference sign pointing the way, almost tauntingly. Eventually, after nearly 30 minutes of walking we reached the hotel grounds. The signage pointing the way to the reception area was quite confusing; we soon joined a British couple going to the conference in the same predicament. Feeling better that we weren’t the only ones thoroughly lost, we joined them and eventually managed to get to the reception area.

Checking into our room, we dropped our belongings and felt an enormous weight lifted from our shoulders. We stopped briefly at the hotel bar to kick our feet up and have a soda; by then the conference registration and orientation was getting under way, so I ventured over for a while to get situated and learn more about who else would be attending the event.

Later that evening, Susanne and I decided to go for a walk before getting some dinner in town. Ronneby’s park has been attracting visitors for over 300 years, particularly for the local baths. While I didn’t think I’d have any time to take advantage of the spa, I did want to get a look around the grounds and utilize the extra hours of daylight, since the sun wouldn’t set until 10pm. The two of us followed a path into the park, passing by a small putt-putt golf course and several ornate Victorian villas. The park was extremely busy with children playing stick ball, teenagers having picnics and sunbathing, adults taking their toddlers for a stroll. It was a beautiful location, with a waterfall streaming down the side of a cliff into a duck pond.

Towards the center of the park, we reached a pavilion that appeared to have been built in the late 1800s, reminiscent of the architecture at the entrance to Disneyworld. There was an enormous crowd gathered here, perhaps somewhere around 1,000 people. Teenagers and parents with cameras seemed to be everywhere, but it was hard to tell what was going on. Susanne and I managed to pick the one Swede in the entire country who didn’t speak English when we wanted to find out what was going on, so we had to figure it out ourselves. As we worked our way through the crowd, we saw a procession of kids in their late teens; the boys were in tuxedos and the girls in ornate gowns. From what we could tell, they were heading off to their prom, apparently stopping for a formal photo somewhere in the garden, and their families had gathered to watch the procession. Further along, we could see some of them getting onto large buses, undoubtedly being taken to the location of their dance.

We returned to one of the garden paths and followed it in the general direction of town, soon reaching a quiet road along a canal. On the canal itself were small pleasure craft and private docks. To the left of the canal, quaint 19th century cottages lined the street, each with manicured gardens bursting with lilacs and tulips. Many of the houses had names on them, such as Annas Gaarden or Victoria Hus. Several of the houses had their front doors left wide open, with not a care in the world about strangers or ne’er-do-wells venturing in, save the neighborhood tuxedo cat playing in the garden.

At the end of the canal path we crossed a bridge leading to the center of town. Ronneby is a small community, and the entire old town stretched no more than six or seven blocks. The vast majority of businesses were already closed for the night, leaving us with a handful of kebab joints and cafes to consider for dinner. After making a loop around the area, we settled on a place called Valentino Pizza, which served kebabs as well as pizzas. The restaurant was run by a group of Middle Eastern men, most of whom didn’t speak much English, but we managed to place an order for a small cheese pizza for Susanne and a chicken pita for myself. The pita turned out to be one of the tastiest things I’d eaten on the entire trip, and four five or six bucks, its price couldn’t be beat in all of Scandinavia.

We sat at an outside table enjoying our dinner, watching the sun set over the edge of town. Next door to the restaurant was another eatery called the Garlic Café, which appeared to have a decent dessert menu. I wasn’t sure how hungry I was at this point, but I had a distinct kebab taste in my mouth, and there were no shops open where I could get a pack of gum or something, so dessert began to sound better and better.

I went back inside Valentino’s to pay the bill. One of the men behind the counter asked where I was from.

“The US,” I replied.

“Ah,” he said. “We are from Iraq; what do you think of that?”

For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say back to him. He had a smile on his face so I got the sense he was just messing with me to see how I’d react, so I decided to reply with a question of my own.

“Iraq, wow… Are you Arab or Kurdish?”

“We’re Kurds,” he replied, before pointing to one of the other guys behind the counter. “But he is an Arab bastard.” Both of them broke out laughing.

“Kurdish? I’ve been to the Kurdish parts of Turkey,” I replied. “One of our closest friends lives in Van, and we’ve visited him there, and he’s visited us in America.”

“Van?” he said back to me, surprised. “Very good. America is a good place… We love George Bush.”

“Great,” I replied politely.

By now it was approaching 10pm, and the setting sun was causing the temperature to drop rapidly. As it had been 70 degrees just a few hours earlier, I was wearing only a t-shirt and khakis, so I started to get a chill. We followed the canal path back to the hotel, thinking warm thoughts to tie us over until we could reach our room.

Vaxholm and the Archipelago

Today was our last day in Stockholm before going to my conference in southern Sweden, so we decided to get a better feel for what the area was like from the water. Stockholm is the biggest city in an archipelago of more than 24,000 islands, many of which are sparsely populated, while others have villages and summer cottages. We had thought about taking one of the tourist boats that offers a guided tour from the water, but we wanted to have a particular destination we could visit as well. So after a late breakfast we walked to Stockholm’s Stromkajen ferry terminal and jumped on a ferry destined for Vaxholm.

The town of Vaxholm is one of the major gateways to the archipelago’s outer islands. About 45 kilometers from Stockholm, Vaxholm would give us a small taste of archipelago life, which comes alive particularly during the summer, to which the crowds on the ferry attested. Susanne and I found seats near the back of the ferry, in a large, air conditioned gallery. There was a small aft deck a few rows behind it, but it was already jammed with people, so we’d have to spend the trip inside. Susanne past the time by napping, while I watched the forested scenery through my window, glancing at my map trying to pinpoint where we were, give or take a few islands.

About 45 minutes in to the trip I assumed we’d soon reach Vaxholm, since our book said it was a 50-minute trip. But when we pulled into the dock on an island that appeared to be the half-way point of the journey, I realized my Lonely Planet guide was mistaken. I went to the ticket agent and asked what time we’d arrive in Vaxholm; he said the scheduled time was 11:15, but that we were running a little late. I’d have to factor in that extra travel time when we would head back to Stockholm, given the fact we were meeting friends of a colleague of mine for dinner at 6pm, in a western suburb of the capital.

The boat finally arrived in Vaxholm prior to 11:30, about 35 minutes later than I’d expected. The Vaxholm waterfront immediately gave away that it was a summer resort town: harborside cafes, charming hotels, ice cream stands, even a gas station on the harbor so day trippers could refuel their boats.

Disembarking the boat, we walked several blocks to the radhus (town hall), which also served as the tourist information center. The radhus was located on a small, leafy square, where several people sat on benches having an early lunch. Inside, we found two maps of Vaxholm and the surrounding section of the archipelago. While we didn’t plan to island-hop, we certainly needed to know our way around town.

The map showed that there was an old church several blocks down the street. We walked along the main street, passing its many boutique shops, until we reached kapellgatan (Chapel Street). The church itself was rather modest in style, but the adjacent farm house and cemetery were quite pretty, so we walked around to the far end of the cemetery and walked through it. Most of the gravestones were from the last 50 years, though some dated back to the mid-19th century.

Leaving the church, we backtracked and continued to the upper waterfront, an area known as Norrhamn (North Harbor). The harbor had been a primary port in the 1800s, but now the local fishermen houses have been converted into quaint summer cottages, each boasting their own garden of tulips and lilacs, both in full bloom. As we strolled down the country lanes towards the harbor, we spotted an old fisherman’s house that had apparently been converted into a harborside café called the Hembydsgard. A group of elderly women had just exited the café, plastic containers of salad in hand, and were heading to the dock for a picnic. A dozen or so tables were set out front of the café, while there appeared to be more seating around the back.

I walked around the far side of the café and was treated to a marvelous view of the archipelago, with several islands not far across the water. To the right, you could see the island that serves as home to Vaxholm’s 16th century fort, now a military museum. Continuing to the right was Norrhamn itself, with a variety of pleasure craft docked in front of quaint cottages, painted either red or an orange-yellow.

“We have to have lunch here,” I said to Susanne, turning in circles to appreciate the view.

There were plenty of tables available, so we didn’t have to worry about saving seats for ourselves. Susanne and I went into the café, which appeared to specialize in pastries, along with a modest selection of sandwiches and waffles. We both ordered a brie and chorizo sandwich, Susanne removing the chorizo so she could support her vegetarian aspirations. The sandwiches were somewhat stale but the view provided more than enough satisfaction to make up for it. We then returned inside to select some snacks from their large platter of pastries and tea cakes, each of us picking two to brink back to our waterfront table.

After lunch, we hiked around the perimeter of the harbor until we reached a small park just opposite the café. The park, on a hillside above the harbor, presented us with a broad vista of the local islands and sailboats. A family of Iraqi immigrants enjoyed a sumptuous picnic in the park, along with a pair of English friends; on the next hillside sat an American family, apparently visiting Swedish relatives.

We continued our hike clockwise around the harbor until we returned to the ferry dock, about an hour prior to our scheduled departure. As we talked about what we’d do in the meantime, a beautiful old steamship, the Storkska, pulled up to the dock. According to my ferry schedule, this was the boat that would take us back to Stockholm, but it was an hour early.

“Is this the ferry to Stockholm?” I asked the harbormaster.

“Yes, but it is going to make several stops around the archipelago before returning here in an hour,” he replied. “Then it will go to Stockholm.”

Susanne and I looked at each other and nodded our heads in agreement.

“Would it be alright if we boarded the ship now?” I asked.

“Hmm, I don’t know…”

“Would it cost extra?” I continued?

The harbormaster turned to one of the Storkska’s crew, who was getting ready to pull in the plank and depart, and said something in Swedish. The crewman turned to me and said in broken English, “How many are you?”

“Just two of us,” I replied.

The crewman nodded his head and waved us on board. We’d get to an enjoy a private cruise for an hour.

Susanne and I settled onto the forward deck just as the captain left off the ship’s steam horn. The Storkska, which has been in service on the archipelago since 1908, was one of the last remaining steamships, a floating time warp harkening back to a golden era of sea travel. The ship could seat at least 100 people, but there were only about 10 of us on board, not counting the captain and crew. The ship left the harbor and began making a loop past several local islands. Most of the people getting on and off appeared to be locals: kids who’d gone to Vaxholm to ride their bikes, adults returning from grocery shopping. With each stop, one of the crewman would lasso a mooring with a large rope, then fasten the other end of the rope to the boat. Sometimes during stops he and a fellow crewmate would throw logs off the side of the boat, each one attached to ropes, so the logs would serve as a buffer between the boat and the dock.

For the next hour, we steamed around the archipelago, stopped in six or eight different locations. I ventured inside the boat for awhile, exploring the ornate upstairs restaurant before heading below deck to the cafeteria to buy a bottle of beer. I then sat on the forward deck, bottle in hand, peacefully soaking up the sun rays as we hopped from island to island. We were also treated with front row seats for a tour of some of the finest summer cottages in Sweden. While some islands boasted smaller, middle class cottages, others were clearly reserved for wealthy Swedes: gorgeous multi-story houses with spectacular views of the archipelago.

“If these are their summer houses, I wonder what their homes for the rest of the year look like,” I said to Susanne.

Just before 2:15pm, the steamer returned to Vaxholm harbor, where we picked up several dozen passengers, a much smaller group than the one we’d joined on the boat from Stockholm. We managed to keep our seats on deck, though Susanne retreated indoors for a while in fear of getting a sunburn. Given the high latitude, though, I wasn’t terribly concerned; besides, I was having the time of my life sitting at the front of this antique steamer cruising along the Stockholm Archipelago. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have the chance to do this again, so I wanted to relish every moment of it.

The 75-minute ride back to Stockholm went by very quickly. The next thing I knew, I could see the old church steeple at Skansen on Djurgarden island, along with the much taller steepls in Gamla Stan not far behind it. The Storkska shut off its engines as we made the final approach into Stockholm’s harbor. The boat went quiet, and all we could here was water rushing by us and the rumble of the city before us. I stepped off the boat, at first a little unsure of myself on dry land for the first time in nearly three hours. We turned and looked one last time at the Storkska as it got ready for the return voyage to the archipelago.

Leaving the steamer behind us, we walked to Gamla Stan for one last coffee at a Stortoget café. This time we tried the Chokladkoppen, the café adjacent to the Koffikoppen. We soon regretted the decision: their café lattes were smaller, covered in chocolate and minus the cardamom we’d grown to love at the Koffikoppen. I was tempted to move next door but we were short on time; soon we’d have to return to the hotel to get ready for dinner in Bromma.

After buying some postcards and a bottle of wine to bring to dinner, we got to the Pensionat Oden. I then realized I needed to go to an ATM, just in case we needed to take a taxi rather than public transportation. Susanne went up to the hotel room while I hiked in a wide circle, going from block to block in search of a cash machine. Amazingly, despite the fact we were in the heart of Stockholm’s shopping district, I couldn’t find one. I remembered seeing an ATM with a long line several blocks south of the hotel, so I went there as a last resort. The machine was out of mine. Exasperated, I returned to the hotel and ended up exchanging $40 in cash at the front desk, receiving a much less favorable rate than I would have at the ATM.

It was now 5:05, and I had about 10 minutes to get ready for dinner. Tomas and Eva were expecting us at 6pm, and we weren’t sure how long public transportation would take to get there. Fortunately for us it was fairly straightforward: We walked four blocks to the local subway station, then traveled half a dozen stops north before transferring to what was locally called a “tram” but to us looked more like a light rail commuter train. Several stops later we arrived in Hoglandstorget, a square in suburban Bromma. From here, my directions said we were to cross the train tracks, go straight, “towards the sea,” until we found a street called Gronviksvagen. Susanne and I walked across the tracks and straight ahead, but couldn’t find a street by that name; there was also so much foliage that there was no sign of “the sea” in any direction. After a few minutes we asked a women walking to her car, and she pointed us down another street, in the same direction, that she said would eventually lead towards Gronviksvagen. We then walked downhill, switching streets several times in the hope of eventually finding the street in question. In a couple of minutes, Gronviksvagen magically appeared, and we soon arrived at Tomas and Eva’s house.

We spent the next several hours visiting with Tomas and Eva in their home, enjoying a delicious salmon dinner with a beautiful view of Malaren Lake. Tomas was a pioneer in electronic privacy in Sweden, and was now working on e-democracy projects, while his wife was an official in the Swedish equivalent of the National Science Foundation.

After dinner, Eva drove us back to the closest subway station so we wouldn’t have to transfer by way of the tram. It saved us about 20 minutes of the trip back to the hotel, and we arrived back at our room just after 10:30pm, full of good food and wine, ready to for a good night’s sleep.

Viking Ship