Simply Having A Wonderful (Wonderful) Christmastime – Part 3

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!