News About The Greer Family
January 4, 2003: Welcome to 2003
Outer harbour at the marina in Monastir, Tunisia
We enjoyed beautiful weather during Christmas. The warm weather and lack of Christmas decorations continue to make us feel out of place as we celebrated Christmas in a Muslim country for the first time ever. But Santa Claus found Dragonsinger in the Mediterranean Sea and we have stayed busy over the holidays.
Christmas Shopping
Kevin and Allen Shopping
Before Christmas we faced the challenge of shopping in a strange country. This was also a challenge last year when we were in Barcelona, but at least there we had major stores and shops to choose from. In Monastir, there are only small stores and if you are looking for local Tunisian products you have to put up with aggressive touts and long negotiations. Kevin, Allen, and David took the easy way out and shopped at the fixed-price store. This is a privately run store, beautifully maintained, where all the shop attendants are friendly and the price you see is what you pay. But unlike stores back home, there were no Christmas decorations to be seen or Christmas carols to be heard.
Riding Home (Ribat in the background)
Walking or biking is how we get around Monastir and we chose to ride for our shopping trips. As we travel from the marina into town we pass the Ribat, the fortified castle that looks over the waterfront, and the Mosque. We have lived here for more than two months, so we tend to ride by these sites without giving them a second glance. At the same time we pass bus loads of tourists that have come specially to see those sites that we blithely ride by.
Christmas
Christmas Morning
Christmas day started before daylight as Allen woke up at 6:00 AM. Even though he wasn't suppose to he immediately woke up Kevin. The two of them opened their Christmas stocking presents and played quietly in the main cabin until our agreed wake-up time of 9:00. We were not surprised that Allen was the first awake, he has been so excited about Christmas that he has had a "funny tummy" since the beginning of December. With sunlight streaming through the main cabin windows, we had breakfast and then enjoyed opening all of our presents. We had lots to celebrate as all five Dragonsinger crew have got through another year of growth and health.
Dinner with friends
While Tunisians are the largest eaters of turkey per capita in the world, they rarely sell it whole with the skin on. Yesterday, we made a special trip to the market to pick up the whole turkey that we had reserved, complete with the skin. The turkey was too large for the oven onboard Dragonsinger, but fortunately the oven in the apartment we are renting was big enough for it to fit. We celebrated Christmas dinner with our friends Tony, Maggie, and Charlie on Ganymede. We started Christmas dinner at 4:00 in the afternoon and continued until after 11:00. We had several courses and even played games between some of them. After cleaning up, the kids watched one of the movies that they got for Christmas while the adults settled in with a coffee. It was a wonderful way to complete our Christmas day.
New Year's Eve
Camel Racers
New Year's day was spent lazing around. About fifteen cruisers went out for a special New Year's Eve dinner -- four appetizers and two main courses. By 10:00 we were ready to join the marina party put on by boaters spending the winter here in Monastir. There was dancing and visiting and after we celebrated the start of the New Year it was time for the camel races.
Racing Camels
The betting was keen as the starter lined up Allen, Kevin, Charlie, and Jocelyn. With a shout the camels were off with Kevin winning the first heat. In the second, Allen came in first, with a little help from one of the adults. After the racing we all stayed up longer, until by 2:00 even Allen was worn out. Surrounded by fellow cruisers, we had a New Year's Eve to remember in Tunisia.
Holidays Continue
David ready to run
Karalee and David have been running three times a week. It has been so nice that we regularly run in just shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. The kids have been playing soccer and riding their bikes, while spending lots of time in the evening watching movies. We all needed a break with unstructured days and lots of reading and play time.
Allen loses a tooth
Allen started the New Year by losing one of his front teeth first thing in the morning after the new year's party. What a way to start 2003. We had been waiting for weeks for the tooth to wiggle free and the one next to it won't be too far behind in coming out.
Travel Pictures
Eiffel Tower
We have slowly been reorganizing many of our travel pictures into Web pages that highlight specific regions that we have visited. You can access our pictures from France and Switzerland by selecting one of the links below.
- France:
- Switzerland:
