This post is to thank the Tunisian blogosphere for adding my blog to their aggregator.

In every Tunisian Bloggers meetup, the bloggers pose the same question: why isn’t AquaCool on Tunisie Blogs? My reply was always: although I feel so Tunisian, but the fact that I’m not a real Tunisian national might be the reason. And although I’ve always wished to be considered a Tunisian blogger as well, I totally understood why I couldn’t make it to the aggregator.
But my friends the Tunisian Bloggers didn’t surrender to this fact, so after the 10th Tunisian bloggers meetup, our dear friend Evil Drako created an online petition requesting adding me to Tunisie Blogs. And now AquaCool is added.
My thanks go to Drako and every single person who has signed the petition, as well as the aggregator administrator.

This is just a quick post dedicated to our dear friend Zizou, a fellow blogger from Tunisia who’s currently living in Lebanon.

Today we saw him -for the second time- in the Future Arab Super Star.

We truly are happy to see you, hope you’ll keep appearing there… and well, we all send you our best wishes.

So last Friday was the 8th Tunisian Bloggers Meetup. What made this meetup particularly special was the presence of Rebecca, Jeff , Mite Nishio, and Isam.

The lovely Rebecca; a very smart, friendly and impressive lady, full of ideas that if implemented, will make a revolution in the blogosphere, specifically the Arabic one!
One of her ideas was creating something like “Arabic Voices” for example, where Arab blogs are connected, getting more exposure and reaching more readers. I found it extremely impressive.

Jeff, a pioneer Malaysian blogger, very interesting, you can listen to him forever. He had his share of suffering to keep his blog going, and by checking his blog you can know he’s doing a great job 🙂
He tackled a very sensitive issue, which is the situation in which bloggers find themselves stuck between their beliefs, and the limitation imposed on them, often leaving the blogger lost and drawn to contradictions.

Mite Nishio, from the Dominican republic, a generous, friendly and extremely nice person. He also has a great sense of humour. One of the leaders in information society in his country. Talking to him, you can’t but wish to know more about his culture, and feel this itch to get on the plane with him and see the Dominican Republic.
He was so nice, he brought every single blogger present at the meetup a souvenir from his country. It was so sweet of him.

Isam, a Jordanian blogger, and founder of Jordan Planet. We met back in Jordan, and it was really great meeting him in Tunis as well. He talked about the Jordanian blogosphere and the exposure it got after the terrorist attacks. He also pointed out the huge requests he’s getting from bloggers to join the planet.
He was so nice to bring us “Mourning our Innocent” book marks…

Last but not least, the Tunisian bloggers who were present helped make this meetup a success. Despite the fact that most of them are francophone, they still were able to communicate with the guest bloggers, and tried their best to talk in English. They all did a wonderful job indeed.
The Tunisian bloggers present were: Evil Drako, Blogeuse, Adib, Tom, Mouse Hunter, Infinity, Jaz in the city, and of course MMM and me 🙂

Other than that, the restaurant was exceptionally beautiful that day, the food was fantastic, and the whole atmosphere was a warm cosy one that made us all enjoy our evening.

I would also like to note that I had the chance to meet Ethan the day before the meetup. I didn’t spend a lot of time with him, but from our quick chat, I can say he’s such a great person, so nice to talk to, very concerned about others, and very very helpful.
We were hoping he could join us, but he had to leave Tunis earlier.

I’m so glad I met them all, and hope we’ll meet each other more often.

More about this meetup:

.

More photos HERE

Ok I know it’s a whole week late but well, what can I say, life can get us really busy!

So the last meetup of the Tunisian Bloggers was in Kelibia, one of my favourite places in Tunisia besides the beautiful Bizerte and Djerba.
To be honest I only went twice to Kelibia, and it was for a short while; less than a day.
But the last meetup helped me see the real Kelibia, the other sides of its beauty, not just a public beach… all the thanks go to our fellow blogger Adib, who is from there, and who was our guide all the day long.

The bloggers present were: Mouse Hunter, Marouen, La Blogeuse & Evil Drako, EjjaBilCaviar & La Guilde, Adib, Subzero Blue and moi 🙂
The adventure started at 10 a.m. and ended at 12 a.m. 😀

It was breathtaking, simply amazing, very very beautiful. The best meetup so far! I just wished other blogger could’ve made it, we truly missed them so much, specially: Zizou, Noha, Yamen, Chikipi, Seif and Tom.

The meetup took place at Restaurant El Mansoura, an extremely amazing place, great food, comfortable atmosphere, and last but not least, a heavenly natural surrounding. Our table was literally on a big beautiful rock, its edge inside the pure clear water, i.e. one jump/ step and one can be enjoying the refreshing water and the view of the cute little fishes and other weird creatures 😛
And although the place deserved each and every millime we’ve paid, I believe it was a bit expensive, and that many bloggers, if they came, wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Yet again, it was worth it, anyway, it’s not always we get to have such a beautiful place and enjoy the food, view, water and company 🙂

After we had lunch and the bloggers swam and swam and swam 🙂 Adib took us in a tour to know Kelibia’s historical sites and figures. That was truly nice. The meetup ended with a yummy cup of green tea & pine nuts, some had shishas and we talked about many things.
The café was situated inside a rocky hill, and the seats we got were natural rocks covered with cozy mattresses, I got the worst place since the rock I had was not carved inside but pointing out that my back looked like a zigzag while I was sitting 😀

The meetup was special in many ways: being out of Tunis, and the same day of 2 sweet occasions: Drako’s Birthday 🙂 (Happy Birthday again friend) and Woman’s Day in Tunisia, and for that Mouse Hunter –the women supporter- brought each lady blogger a “mashmoom”: a bunch of jasmin/ fell organized in the shape of one big flower. It has an amazing beautiful smell and looks really lovely. Thanks again Karim 🙂

Thank you Adib for your effort in the arrangements, the reservations, the tour and all. It was one special meetup 🙂

For pics click here and on all links provided above 🙂

As expected, it was wonderful. More bloggers are showing up and the feminine participation is becoming only better with the sweet Troubadour, Blogeuse, Infinity, and IjjaBilCaviar, yep we were 5 ladies this time 😉

As for other male bloggers,they were Evil Drako, Tom, Zizou from Djerba,Yamen, Marouen, 7ammadi, La Guilde, and last but not least: Subzero Blue.

We arrived at 7 p.m. and stayed till 1:30 a.m. 😀 it was great, we talked LOT! The topics are always getting better, this time the main focus was on premarital relationships and religion.
Zizou gave us all a hard time to convince him of certain things, and he did a pretty good job asking us really hard questions 😉

The sense of humor of many bloggers, specially Tom, gave the meetup a very nice atmosphere. I also felt that many bloggers feel more comfortable now, specially Troubadour and Yamen.
It was also great to meet the newly engaged couple Blogeuse & Drako, and it was such a great chance to meet Infinity, who’s full of surprises 🙂

We truly missed Adib, MouseHunter & Chikipi, and I hope that more and more bloggers will take part in the coming meetups.

For pics and more details click here!