Monthly Archives: January 2014

I know we’re already about 3 weeks into 2014, and it would have been more appropriate to do this on New Year’s Day instead of sitting on the couch and watching more episodes of “Smash” than one should really watch in one sitting, but it’s still January, so I think it’s still totally legit to post a retrospective on 2013.

The year turned out to be pretty wild. What I thought was going to be a year filled with figuring out how to live and work (and see gorillas) in one of the most remote, poorest countries on earth turned into a year of bouncing around all over the place until I finally landed in one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. (How that wealth is distributed is a whole other story – but that’s really a discussion for another place).

Here’s a quick city round-up of 2013. The Cliff’s Notes of my year, if you will:

1. Washington, D.C. – New Year’s! Fancy party!

2. Arlington, VA – unexpectedly got to spend some more quality time in my Arlington apartment with the killer view of D.C. Also got in one more visit with the fabulous ladies of MSNBC, plus a couple of basketball games (glossing over the fact that IU went down hard).

3. Columbia, SC – a trip down south before heading off to Africa!

4. Washington, D.C. – had to fly outta here.

5. Paris, France – Quick stop for meetings en route to #6.

6. Nouakchott, Mauritania – 3 weeks of Public Diplomacy work! Putting my French to the test! Beautiful beach! Lots of sand everywhere! (even not on the beach), Goats!

7. Casablanca, Morocco – OK, this was just the airport.

8. Dubai, UAE – Fine, also just the airport. But also a snoozecube!

9. Kigali, Rwanda – 3 more weeks of very different (but also interesting) Public Diplomacy work! Running (poorly) at high altitude! A mini-safari with cute baby zebras!

10. Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Airport again. But also the Yotel!

11. Washington, D.C. – 2 weeks here to wrap up what turned out to be a 6 month assignment with Public Diplomacy office of the Africa Bureau.

12. Columbia, S.C. – Packing up my belongings that had made their way down south! The next time I would see them would be many months later in Algeria.

13. Washington, D.C. – A couple more days for meetings! By this point it had become clear that I must learn to love meetings if I want to continue working for the State Department.

14. NYC – MORE meetings! (these were actually super interesting), plus FUN with friends (human and canine)

15. Paris, France – Yup, airport only again. There were a lot of these visits in 2013.

16. Algiers, Algeria – My new home for the next 2 years (inshallah)!

17. Tlemcen, Algeria – a chance to see more of Algeria, plus a chance to get my photo taken by a cow head.

18. Back to Algiers for my 30th birthday!

19. Nice, France, plus Monaco, Cannes, and Eze (the town atop a mountain) – My first break from Algiers!

20. Barcelona, Spain – Part 2 of my first break from Algiers! Good food, good sights, good wine, good cava!

21. London, England, plus tiny town somewhere in Suffolk – Louise’s wedding, aka grade school reunion from the England days!

22. Back to Algiers for various events, including gingerbread houses (oh yeah, and I had to do a little bit of work, too. Like a trip out east with the Ambassador)

23. Copenhagen, Denmark – Christmas vacation part 1!

24. Flensburg, Germany – Christmas vacation part 2!

25. Finally – back to Algiers to celebrate a very merry Christmas!

Whew! Next up will be the U.S. of A. – coming soon! Here’s hoping 2014 will be as adventurous as 2013, with maybe a little more stability when it comes to home-base! Happy New Year!

I didn’t include too much talk of food in my previous Christmas vacation posts. I omitted the info not because food and drink didn’t play a big role in our enjoyment of the vacation, but because my posts were getting pretty long already. So I decided to lump all the food and drink together in one, gluttonous post. Buckle your seat belts, folks – and maybe get ready to unbuckle your belts – here we go!

We hit the ground running night one in Copenhagen with a fantastic dinner just steps away from our apartment:

The next day in Helsingor (Hamlet castle town), we followed up our castle visit with an awesome lunch at the cafe of a nearby art museum:

Another great thing about Copenhagen is that everywhere you turned there were outdoor cafes with heating lamps and blankets on the chairs. We stopped at one of these places (also on the street where we lived) and had some fantastic glogg (Danish mulled wine).

Our daily breakfast place in Copenhagen was an extremely adorable coffee shop with outstanding pastries, breads, yogurts, and jams.

Getting food at markets and outdoor stands in Copenhagen was also a big thing. Mom got her much coveted Polser (skinny hot dog with amazing toppings like pickles and crunchy onions), we shared an order of aebleskiver, and Dad and I split a huge yummy sausage at a Christmas market (there’s also a photo of us taking a bite of said sausage, a la presidential candidates with corn dogs at the Iowa state fair. For obvious reasons if you’ve ever seen those pictures, I will not be posting that one.)

Our evening at Tivoli also provided great opportunity for good food and beverage. More glogg, Tuborg Christmas brew, and a fantastic meal wrapped up our evening.

The Carlsberg brewery provided some more beverage excitement. In addition to the beer we consumed, they had a massive collection of over 20,000 bottles of beer from all over the world.

Back to the street our apartment was on, we tried out a pub right outside our door. Again, pretty fabulous stuff:

And you can’t leave Copenhagen without Smorrebrod and aquavit! Although the smorrebrod was WAY more intense than I thought – HUGE portions! Also, check out the Brooklyn Brewery glass the restaurant gave Dad for his beer! Small world.

On to Flensburg, the good eats (and drinks) kept coming. We kicked things off with Flensburger Pils and yummy soup!

Later, on the main walking street, we kept the mulled wine thing going with Flensburg’s version: Feuerzangenbowle.

Back at the hotel in Flensburg, we had some fabulous, hearty German food. Spoiler alert: there were a lot of potatoes.

Breakfast at the hotel proved to be equally exciting!

Then it was back to Copenhagen and one more aquavit at the airport hotel before jetting off to Africa!

The first food photo in Algiers comes from Mom and Dad’s trip to one of the markets nearish to the Embassy and my apartment:

Our first dinner out in Algiers was at a fancy, traditional Algerian food place called El Djenina – it’s hands down the best restaurant I’ve been to here.

We also had some great home cooking in Algeria. Dad somehow made a great concoction using overly frozen vegetables and turkey breast, we had a fantastic Christmas dinner at a colleague’s home, and then we hosted colleagues chez moi for a dinner of Dad’s fabulous lentil shepherd’s pie!

And then there was the food in Tipaza (fish with bones, so it was a meal AND and activity), and the Casbah, where we had some Algerian sweets and coffee!

And last, but not least, Mom’s birthday dinner at Tantra – lamb, huge shrimp, fish, veggies…yum! Plus pre-dinner birthday cava from my trip to Spain!

Well, that about does it – hungry yet?

For the final leg of the Long family Christmas of 2013 (at least the final leg for me; Mom & Dad still had one more to go) was an 8-day adventure in Algiers.

Now, planning a tourist trip to Algeria is not quite like planning one to Western Europe. It’s not really built for mass tourism. It has massive potential – beautiful views of the Mediterranean, a fascinating and diverse history going back 1000s of years, Roman ruins, nice people who are generally pretty welcoming to the few tourists who do show up, oodles of oil money to make it all happen – but it’s not anywhere close to “there” yet with respect to tourism. I encourage visitors, but only if you’re adventurous. Fortunately Mom and Dad are adventurous.

After our pre-dawn wake-up call in Copenhagen to catch our respective flights to Algiers, once we arrived we decided that staying in was the best way to go. But we had Danish sausage and booze and a mini fake Christmas tree, so all was well.

Then I had to go back to work (boo). And this is where the adventurous part comes in. Mom and Dad wandered around on their own for a couple of days. Algiers is not what you’d call easy to get around. The streets are very windy and hilly and there are walls everywhere so you can’t see across large areas to get a sense of where you are. BUT they found their way around, made friends when they got lost, and even tried out the metro – which is one of the few infrastructure-related things the government has put money into. It’s very nice and clean, if limited in its service (it also takes at least 30 minutes to walk to the one line from my place. They are expanding it, but aren’t there yet). Here’s Dad waiting for the metro:

After a couple days of work, it was suddenly Christmas! Which we celebrated pretty well in my apartment with the tiny fake tree. Fake trees are not my cup of tea, but as long as I’m in Muslim countries, it will be the way it goes 🙂

Christmas involved what it usually does for the Longs: Christmas cosmos, Christmas bread, and some Veuve Cliquot.

The weekend after Christmas, we expanded the adventure a little bit. Another issue in Algiers, especially if you are working as a diplomat, is security. The Algerian government requires us to have police escorts pretty much anywhere we go outside of Algiers, plus when we go to the Casbah, within the city. This is a weird thing to get used to, but really not that big of a deal, it just means you can’t take spur of the moment trips – planning ahead is key.

We started the weekend with a trip to Premier Mai market – no police escort required for this one – it’s a massive market pretty close to my apartment (we drove, though) with pretty much everything you need.

That afternoon, the police-escort part of the program began with a trip to Tipaza, a town about an hour away from Algiers. Tipaza is known for its amazing Roman ruins, that are basically perched on the edge of a cliff. We were fortunate to have outstanding weather.

First we had a fish lunch sitting right next to Roman ruins:

Then we walked over to the main area of ruins, which is absolutely breathtaking (and inexpensive – there were 5 of us and it cost about $1.25 for the whole group)

Our day in Tipaza just happened to be December 27th – Mom’s birthday! So that evening, once our police escort returned us all safely to Algiers, the 3 of us went out to a lovely French/Algerian restaurant called Tantra to celebrate!

The adventures with escorts (the police kind) continued the following day with a morning visit to the Casbah, which is a neighborhood of Algiers known for giving Algeria a strategic advantage during their revolution against French rule because of the rabbit warren-like teeny, windy streets and houses that are squished very close together. It made it easier for Algerian fighters to hide/escape from the French. For more see my previous post on the Casbah here.

Our visit this time was actually a bit different, which was nice for me! One highlight was our tour guide took us to a local coffee shop that was not accustomed to tourists dropping in (and seemingly even less accustomed to having women there – Mom and I were the only ones), but everyone was super friendly and we had some pretty awesome coffee and sweets.

Another fun moment was when we stopped at a copper shop – I was taking a picture in front of it and the shopkeeper insisted that Mom and I go inside the shop and take a photo by the Algerian flag. A little awkward, but we ended up with a pretty good picture out of it!

Mom and Dad’s last couple days in Algiers involved me working and them hanging out/exploring. Then they jetted off to Barcelona for New Year’s, while I stayed in Algiers to work (and ring in 2014 at the Marine party).

Mom has many more photos on her blog if you want to check them out. They include photos of their New Year’s in Barcelona – I stayed in Algeria ’cause I had to work. I think you have to get invited, so email her if you want to see more pictures!

The second leg of the 2013 Long family  Christmas was a trip to Flensburg, where Mom and Dad lived for several years and where I was born. It’s just a hop, skip & a jump (plus a 3 hour drive) from Copenhagen, and you can actually see Denmark from the area where my parents used to live. (Insert “I can see Denmark from my house” joke here. This is the last one, promise).

But first, we had the drive. In the rain. It pretty much rained the whole trip, which meant it wasn’t cold enough to snow, which was sad, but not that sad because it meant it wasn’t that cold. I don’t like the cold. But I do like snow, which presents a bit of a problem. Oh well, somehow I’ve made it this far. Living in a country where it’s 60 degrees in January is probably a good way to go as well.

But on with the story. Our drive was in the rain. See, look – here’s one of the big bridges we drove over on the way:

Upon arrival in Flensburg, we went straight to a nice restaurant across the street from Mom and Dad’s old apartment (and overlooking the water) for lunch and my first Flensburger Pilsner – it was pretty great. Those Germans know how to do beer.

Once we were fed, we drove to downtown Flensburg where, after a bit of driving around, parked along the water and found our way uphill to the main walking street and the fantastic Christmas market!

It was along this street that we realized that prices in Germany are approximately half as much as prices in Denmark, even though we were literally steps away from the border. Maybe if I had cared more about those econ classes I had to take in college and grad school I would know why. But I didn’t, so I will have to remain in the dark on that one.

Anyway, the next morning was “find places Mom and Dad remember” day. First up: the hospital where I was born. After a not insignificant amount of driving around and getting lost-ish, Mom’s iPhone came to the rescue and showed us how to get there. Turns out the women’s clinic was knocked down in the ’80s, but we took a picture in front of the new hospital! Also we showed photos from 1983 to the old guy working at the hospital’s information desk. He was still bummed out that the old hospital got bulldozed. Anyway, here we are!

The next search was a little way outside of Flensburg in Schafflund, where the Longs lived for the first 10 months of my existence. Turns out things change in 30 years. Finding the actual house where we lived wasn’t in the cards. But, we found a delicious lunch and took a picture by the town’s sign.

Next, we kept the road trip going by hopping back across the Danish border to a super cute little town called Tonder, with yet another Christmas market. We had to get our fill before going back to Algeria and its lack of Christmas!

The following morning it was time to head back to Copenhagen, return the car and get on a plane back to Algiers. But first, we had some photos to take. Here’s Mom and Dad in front of their old apartment (it’s the one on the top floor on the corner with the balcony):

Then we had one more “memory lane” stop – the Saturday morning market:

Finally, it was back in the car, in the rain (yep, still raining), and away to the Copenhagen airport Hilton.  One final Flensburger Pilsner, a couple hours of sleep, and Part 2 of the trip was over.

Keep staying tuned! Part 3: Susi & Jan go to Algeria is coming soon!

Even though Christmas is long-gone (at least it seems like a long time ago), I thought I’d post a brief-ish recap of my holiday season.

Spoiler alert: it was pretty awesome.

It started off with my escape from Algiers about 10 days before Christmas to meet up with Mom and Dad in Copenhagen! And to get there, I got to fly over the Alps on a super clear day:

Then I arrived in Copenhagen and, suddenly, it was Christmas! Hooray! Christmas is not really a thing in Algeria, as you might expect. Copenhagen is pretty much the opposite. This is the street right out side the fantastic apartment where we stayed in Nyhavn:

Turns out, Copenhagen has some pretty amazing food and beverage options, which we took advantage of immediately upon arrival. (And continued to take advantage of for the entirety of our time there…we were definitely never in danger of going hungry.)

We hit the ground running our first full day in Denmark. Turns out you can pretty much walk anywhere in Copenhagen if you’re committed enough – and we were committed. Our first order of business was to make our way to the train station (picking up some roasted almonds en route). From there we headed to Helsingor, where the Hamlet castle is! Helsingor is very very close to Sweden; it’s right across a very narrow portion of the sea. Little known fact, this was actually made clear in an early draft of the play, but Shakespeare cut that part out, because the play was already running long. At one point, Hamlet darkly and dramatically proclaimed: “I can see Sweden from my house!”

That joke would have been hilarious 5 years ago. Anyway, this is Sweden:

And here we are in and around the castle:
                 

Then it was back to Copenhagen. Nighttime in Copenhagen is beautiful – and in December you get a lot of nighttime hours. It started getting dark before 4pm. But it meant we had lots of opportunities to see the Christmas lights!

Day 2 in Copenhagen involved lots more walking – fortunately the weather hovered around 40 degrees, so we didn’t freeze, which was nice. We saw Amalienborg, where the Danish royal family lives:

Then on to the little mermaid statue:

Then back to Nyhavn, where our apartment was (here’s our street in the daylight):

And a boat trip around the canals:

Finally, once it started getting dark, we walked over to Tivoli where, if we weren’t in the Christmas spirit when we arrived, we certainly were by the time we left!

The big event of Day 3 in Copenhagen was a trip to the Carlsberg brewery, which included some pretty enjoyable tastings. Here we are with the 2 guys who created the beer back in 1800-something.

We met the Carlsberg delivery horses – kind of the same idea as the Budweiser Clydesdales, but cooler because they’re Danish. The horses didn’t particularly like me, but Dad made a friend:

And here’s what the horses used to drag around to deliver beer:

Finally, we got to sample some more beer up at the really nice brewery bar:

On to Day 4 in Copenhagen – our last day! Sad. We did some more shopping, hitting up the Royal Copenhagen china store, where Mom and I stocked up on Christmas decorations. Then we decided to walk down to Christiania, a commune based around folks who enjoy indulging in the occasional joint (in reality, probably not that occasional), and, from what I understand, are trying to become an independent neighborhood that doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of Copenhagen authorities. There’s actually a sign as you leave the place saying “you are now entering the E.U.” It was kind of obnoxious, but I guess to each his/her own. The real downside was that you aren’t allowed to take pictures there, but if you want an idea of what it was like, just envision what you think a pot-centered commune that wants to be independent from the city would look like and you’ll probably be right on the money. It was interesting to see – not my cup of tea exactly, but I guess some people like it.

Anyway, that was wonderful wonderful Copenhagen. Stay tuned for Part 2: Flensburg!