2 Weeks in Africa: Sidi Bou Said with the BonFils

After the Bardo Museum, the BonFils and I caught a taxi out to another area of town where a burger joint called Le Zink was located.  It's a small little hole in the wall, and it took us some wandering around until we found it.  But oh my the burger greatness was worth the effort.

A few years ago, I wrote about the Burger Truck in Paris.  When I hear about a good burger, I will go on the hunt.  Y'all, the Zink did not disappoint.  And dare I say it?  It beat the Burger Truck.  Who would've thunk that one of the best burgers I've ever had was in Tunis?!  Or that such good bacon could be found in Tunis?!  I ordered the Paccino: with gorgonzola, onion confit, house sauce, and bacon.  Perfect.  

After we filled our bellies with burger bliss, we headed over to Sidi Bou Said.  Apart from the Real McCoy's house, Sidi Bou is my favorite place in Tunis.  It's beautiful.  It's blue.  It's filled with flowers and doors and has a great view of the water.  It has a dreamy café where one can drink strawberry juice and sit for hours in great conversation.  And while I went several times when I lived here back in 2010, I didn't post photos.  (I'm starting to think maybe my internet was too slow to post photos because I didn't post any on the blog during my stay...?)

So during this trip with the BonFils, I didn't take too many photos, because I knew that I already had them.  But because I didn't post them last time around, I am posting them this time.  The photos below are a mix of my day with the BonFils and from several trips out to Sidi Bou back in 2010.  The beauty stays the same, even if 5 years had passed between them!

No matter where you turn in Sidi Bou, you'll see gorgeous white washed walls, blue doors, and flowers.

A few places have blue tiles as well.

Lots of little alleyways.

There are a few non-blue doors.

This one creeps me out a little bit because I think it looks like the evil eye staring at me.

This is the famous Sidi Bou door.  It's on key chains of Tunisia.  It's on posters of Tunisia.  It's one of my favorite doors in the whole wide world.  In fact, it's probably #2 after the Avenue Rapp door in Paris.

We were having too much fun, even if we were sweating up a storm.  It was around 100 degrees that day.  Hello summer on May 2nd!

I promise there are more photos than just doors.  Keep on scrolling.

The Café des Delices.  Before we got there, the BonFils kept saying, let's go down to a café here, or there, or... I kept telling him to trust me and wait.  I knew the café we needed to go to.  I loved seeing him appreciate the beauty of the country he'd moved to from France.

The Café des Delices makes you think you're in Santorini, Greece.  Blue and white and a sloping hill and water and heat and loveliness.

I had strawberry juice and a coffee and kept pounding my big bottle of water that I'd already brought with me.  We were convinced our waiter hated us because whenever we tried to call him over he'd ignore us.

Earlier in the morning we'd discussed his move and adjustment to Tunisia.  Here, we discussed our upcoming moves: his back to the US and mine to the Middle East.

I loved hearing all that'd he'd learned, what he was enjoying, what he was thinking about repatriating.  I've said that those conversations that day were one of my favorite parts of my vacation because it set my heart at rest that we'd done the right thing when we (my team, boss, and him) decided to move him from Marseille to Tunisia.

I mean, I know Marseille looks out over that same body of water, but Marseille's got nothing on this view right here.

Every time I'd gone to the Café des Delices in the past, a car had been parked in front of this door.  I'm so glad to finally have gotten a picture of it without a car!

The BonFils took this one of me in front of my "boo".  Haha.  Could we call it Sidi Blue instead of Sidi Bou?  haha.  Oh the jokes.

We walked down the mountain towards the beach.

That's another thing Marseille doesn't have: sand beaches.  (Ours are rocky.)  We enjoyed the beach for a spell and then caught a taxi back to Bardo.

We played a little African version of the train game with the Real McCoys, and then said goodbye.  The BonFils is from Alabama, so I figured I'll see him again sometime back in the homeland.  It was such a fun day with him--I'm glad it worked out for us to catch one another.  As he would say, the day was "funsies."

Actually, he'd say, "hashtag, funsies."