Subzero Blue

Tuninter Plane Crashes In Mediterranean Sea

An ATR-72, a twin-engine, propeller-driven aircraft, operated by Tuninter, a subsidiary of TunisAir that operates internal and short-distance flights, crashed into the mediterranean sea, just off the coast of Sicily, yesterday afternoon.

The plane had reported an engine problem around 3:20 p.m. and tried to make an emergency landing at Palermo’s airport, but it went into the sea 20 minutes later, according to Italian air traffic control officials.

The Tuninter aircraft was headed from Bari in southeastern Italy to the Tunisian island of Djerba, a popular destination for European tourists.

Rescuers have saved at least 23 of the 38 people on board.
Thirteen people have been confirmed dead, and another two are missing.

Our condolences to the families of the people who were lost in this crash.
May God rest their souls in peace.

[More: CNN]

Tunisian Blogger Meetup 5

Our friend Adib has suggested we have the next meetup in Kelibia, which I personally think would be really cool.
Also when we talked about this in the last meetup, everyone seemed excited about it.

So, here’s the idea. We can meet together in one place in Tunis, split ourselves between the available cars and then all drive to Kelibia together for a nice meetup day.

The best thing for a meetup like this would be a weekend. Either a Saturday or Sunday.

So basically we have 4 of those:
– Weekend of 6-7 August
– Weekend of 13-14 August
– Weekend of 20-21 August
– Weekend of 27-28 August

So, please leave a comment with your choice of weekend, your choice of day (Saturday or Sunday), and whether you have a car or not (If yes, how many people can you take with you?).

After The 4th Tunisian Blogger Meetup

So, we just got home from the 4th Tunisian blogger meetup, which was another great success by all standards 🙂

This one was even longer than the previous ones; We started at 7PM and finally remembered to go home at 1:15AM, lol.

13 bloggers turned up for this meetup, more than I ever expected especially that it was held on such short notice.
The blogs represented today were: Infinity, Tom, Diana Magazine, Marouen, Zizou, Troubadour, La Guilde, 7ammadi, Blogeuse, Evil Drako, AquaCool and Subzero Blue.

We missed the people who couldn’t make it. Make sure you all come next time 🙂

We talked about a lot of stuff as usual; from blogging in general, to the Tunisian blogosphere, to organization of meetups, to suggestions to make things go smoother, to religion, to work, to internet connections…etc.
As usual, it was really a lot of fun and very interesting dicussing all these different issues with a bunch of great people with unique points of view.
It’s a very enriching experience.

We’re lucky the weather was nice; not too hot. We sat in Biwa’s garden overlooking the lake of Tunis. It did get a bit more humid towards the end of the meetup, but it was ok.

Adib, who couldn’t make it today, and who was missed a lot, is suggesting we have the next meetup in Kelibia.
Expect a post about it soon on his blog and maybe here too.

Update: I just remembered to mention that in this meetup we broke our record on the number of female bloggers present; we had five this time 🙂
Hopefully, in the future, more and more girls will come to the meetups.

Best Places To Swim In Tunisia

It’s summer-time in Tunisia, the heat is frying your brains out, the humidity is unbearable, your clothes are wet with sweat and sticking to your body, you’re disgusted even more with every passing second and you know it’ll only get worse as long as summer is here.

The only solution is to forget everything, head straight to the beach and cool down in the holy waters of the mediterranean.

But where exactly?
Tunisia has a 1300 Km coastline and beautiful beaches all over the country, so which places are the best to swim in?

Here are the best ones I know of:

La Grotte (Bizerte): This place is at the end of La Corniche in Bizerte. The mountains overlook the beach as the water eats away from them creating small caves, explaining the name La Grotte (The Cave). The water is crystal clear and ice cold, getting colder and colder as the weather gets hotter. You’ll certainly have the most refreshing swim of your life there.

Sidi Ali El Mekki (Ghar El Melh): This place lies at the end of Ghar El Melh. Another point where the mountain meets the sea in a beautiful harmony. Again, the water is crystal clear, at a beautifully cool temperature. Not too cold, not too warm, just perfect.
The beach is clean and even cleaner if you venture a bit further into places that are a bit disconnected from the rest of the beach by the mountain.

Continue reading Best Places To Swim In Tunisia

Tunisian Blogger Meetup 4 on July 29th

After yesterday’s post, it seems more people are for having a meetup this Friday than next Saturday.

Again, I know this is on a very short notice, and I hate that. I know some of you won’t be able to come, and I hate that even more. I’m really sorry.

We’ll be having this meetup on Friday, July 29th at 7PM in Biwa (Les Berges du Lac) (More Details), and right after it I think we should start organizing for the next meetup to be sometime in the middle of August.
This way these 2 summer meetups are close and whoever can’t make it to one can make it to the other 🙂

Adib is suggesting we have a meetup in Kelibia soon, which I think is a really cool idea. Anyway, I know that not all bloggers have cars, so if you guys are interested we can try and organize it so that we can meet in one place and then all go together in the available cars.
We’ll talk about this more in this Friday’s meetup and when organizing the next one.

Another suggestion I have is to set a certain day in the month to be the default meetup date, so that it’s known in advance when the meetup will be and we don’t have to go through this whole date choosing thing time and again. For example, something like the 4th Sunday of the month at 7PM.
What do you guys think?

Anyway, as this meetup is on really short notice, I’d truly appreciate it if you could help promote it through your blogs, through telling the bloggers you know directly, or anyway that you can.

Thank you all. I can’t wait to see you all this Friday 🙂

Al-Jawhara FM Hits Airwaves

‘Al Jawhara Radio’, the second private station in Tunisia has started broadcasting from the coastal city of Sousse.

“Al Jawhara Radio” will broadcast, initially, 19 hours a day (from 6.00 am to 1.00 am). Its “FM” signal will cover most of the central region of the Mediterranean coast (including the governorates of Mahdia, Kairouan, Monastir and Sousse).

The new station is called “Radio Al Jawhara” (Arabic for “Pearl Radio”), in reference to the nickname “Pearl of the Sahel” given to the city of Sousse, Tunisia’s third largest city and a major sea-resort.

I guess we won’t be getting its signal in Tunis yet, but hopefully I’ll try to tune in and check it out when I next pass by the central west coast.

I think it’s great that the media sector in Tunisia has been opened to private companies, and I’m pretty happy with the pioneering private companies like Mosaique FM and Hannibal TV.
I hope more and more jump into the media arena to enrich it and make it more exciting for us all.

[Source: Middle East Online]

Tunisian Author Mohamed Laroussi Metoui Dies at 85

Mohamed Laroussi Metoui, one of Tunisia’s most prominent literary and cultural figures, died Monday at the age of 85.

A prolific author of novels, poems and short stories, he was particularly known for his novels “Halima” and “Al Tout Al Morr”.

Mohamed Laroussi Metoui was also the founder of the Tunisian union of writers as well as of the union of writers of the Arab Maghreb. He also founded and directed the literary review

Banks In Tunisia

The banking sector in Tunisia has been slowly opening up over the past few years, with a number of international banks acquiring local ones, new foreign banks opening up, privatization of govenrment-owned banks and more.

I think this is great, and I hope it will move the whole banking industry forward, revitalize it and make it more client friendly.

I truly think the most important thing the banks in Tunisia need is a change of mentality. They currently treat the client as if he needs them more than they need him, which is not true. Without the client, the bank has no reason to exist and will shut down, so they have to do their best to satisfy the client.

Every added service a bank provides for its customers is an added value that will make them more satisfied and less likely to take their money some place else.
And these services shouldn’t be created to use the client even more and suck more money out of him, but to make his life easier and win his loyalty.
And most of these services should be free.

Continue reading Banks In Tunisia

Suggestions for Tunisian Blogger Meetup 4

Ok, it seems some people have a problem with the date of 29/07/05 for the blogger meetup.

So, here are the suggestions and please leave a comment on which suits you best asap.

– Friday 29/07/05 at 7PM in Biwa (Les Berges du Lac). (Some expat Tunisian bloggers will be in the country on this date.)

– Saturday 06/08/05 at 7PM in Biwa (Les Berges du Lac).

Please leave a comment asap so a decision can be made on the meetup’s date. Thank you.

4th Tunisian Blogger Meetup

Nearly a month has passed since the last Tunisian blogger meetup, and it’s about time we organize another one.

I was planning on posting about this last week, but as my blog was down, I couldn’t. Anyway, Zizou went on and took the intiative to collect suggestions from the bloggers. Thank you man 🙂

According to the feedback I saw there and the feedback I’ve been getting from some other bloggers, plus because it’s the summer, the day should most probably be in the middle of the week.
The time of 7PM still seems good for most.
So, I’m suggesting we have the meetup on Wednesday August 3rd at 7PM.

As for the place, I think it’s cool that we’ve been having each meetup in a new place, so does anyone have any suggestions for this meetup?
It should be somewhere nice, air conditioned and close to most people.

I can’t wait to see you all. It’s always a great pleasure.