This is the fourth blog First Serious Overseas Business Trip
Culture shock for me was the closest to how things were on this trip. When I arrived I was singled out right away by police and then no one to meet me where I didn’t speak the language was a new experience. I did find my hotel after some trying times.
I check in and went to my room. I needed a bathroom break pretty bad after the long ordeal at the airport and trip to find the hotel. Well as a novice at traveling I saw my first bidet and what it was for?
I was also very hungry and returned to the main floor to get a bite to eat. I went into the dinning room that was quite busy and reviewed the menu. I could not read a word of the menu. I started looking at the plates being brought to tables and I did not see anything I wanted. For those of you that don’t know me I am a plain meat and potatoes guy. I had to point to the menu and try something. I couldn’t eat what was the main course but did get fruit I enjoyed. At a table a couple of rows away there was a commotion that got very heated and a customer left crying. I asked for some more fruit and they brought some which helped a lot.
The next morning while at the counter exchanging some Marks for Tunis money a lady heard my voice and hollered MATY MATTY you speak English and ran up to me and gave me a hug. I recognized her as the lady that left the dinning room crying from last night. She spoke pretty good English but it wasn’t her natural language. She calmed down enough to understand her problem as she was a vegetarian and every time they brought food it was wrong. She was on vacation from Rome. Later the previous evening I had overheard a German accent and approach a man and found him to be able to speak English and he was on a business trip from Frankfurt and he worked for Pepsi Europe. I told the lady from Rome about this gentleman and that I would introduce her to him this evening so she could order some food. The hotel manager found out my help and invited me, the German Pepsi salesman, and the lady from Rome and three other foreign guests to a private roof top restaurant which was a treat.
I would walk the beach every night to cool off and the local kids would follow me as though I was someone they knew. The beach was too hot to walk on during the day but evening it was like okay. I could see ships coming in and out to sea everyday. The family that owned the poultry house invited me to their house for a meal the second week. I was very hopeful as I was very hungry as I didn’t find much to eat as I am fussy eater.
I had a good time but struggled with the food. They brought out strawberries for desert and I was overjoyed. They also brought out whipped cream for the strawerries!WOW!
I covered the strawberries with the whipped cream and set in to enjoy. It wasn’t whipped cream.
The owner had a son that came to take me to the downtown one evening and we went to an open restaurant. They had a camel hitch to a pole walking around a machine right in the middle of the restaurant making some kind of food product. Some local residents that seemed to watch out for me took me to the Soukes (SP) the first day off we had which was a four level mostly open front stores that had merchants selling their goods. I was ushered around safely and shown some very authentic Tunisian merchandise. I did buy some things that the family still has.
We had a real serious altercation at the hotel one evening and in the morning my building owner had to intervene to get me out of the hotel for work as being an American they wanted to be sure they knew where I was.
The project remodeling went well and when it was time to leave the owner was very reluctant to let me leave. It took some interesting conversations and phone calls to get me to my plane on time. I was able to make my connections coming back alright. I experience my first real rough ride over the Atlantic that trip but was told it was a normal drop for that time of the year in bad weather situations.
Fourth blog about First Business Trip written by Conrad Larson 7/19/09 If you would like to read the first three blogs you can probably find them in the archives, Time frame reference 1979. www.loveforbookwriting.com and www.myovercoat.com ; Boomertweet on Twitter
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