I left off the previous post with the Embassy July 4th party. Which happened in June due to various Ambassadorial scheduling issues. Which was great, because it allowed me to be in the U.S. on the actual 4th of July. I was back in DC for a week-long training class on Fraud Prevention, but first I celebrated Independence Day in our nation’s capital with 3 NYC friends and “Freedom Margaritas”. Seriously, that’s what they were called. Nothing says “yay USA” like tex-mex!
After 5 days of learning how to detect and prevent fraud in consular work, I bounced down south for a few days to hang with Mom and Dad, spending some time in SC and fabulous beach trip to Tybee Island for some fun in the sun and relaxation before returning to Algiers.
After a couple of months of hard work adjudicating visas and preventing fraud, I escaped to Rome for a very quick labor day weekend trip, meeting up with a friend from NY (you can also find evidence of this friend in prior posts about my October 2013 trip to Nice and Barcelona). Anyway, this time we met up in Italy.
Our Rome hotel had an alcohol vending machine right next to a rooftop terrace! Tiny rooms, but great location if you’re ever in town.
Aside from some amazing food and wine, highlights of the Rome weekend were a tour of the necropolis underneath the Vatican (no photos were allowed on the tour, but here are a few from afterwards):
Another high point was a nighttime tour of the Colosseum. I’d been to the Colosseum years earlier, but it’s a whole new story at night. Reservations-only, small group tours, very cool. I highly recommend it.
A few weeks after returning to Algeria, I experienced another first – a beauty pageant! I have to admit, attending a beauty pageant has never been at the top of my to-do list. BUT when you’re invited to go to the “Miss Algerie” pageant, you don’t say no.
In true Algeria style, the pageant that was supposed to start at 8:30 didn’t actually kick off until about 10:45. (Actually that’s a bit more extreme of a delay than typical Algeria-style). But we had been invited by a local language school and had been seated in the front of the massive tent where the stage was set up, so it would have been very noticeable if the Americans got up and left. Which meant we were in it to win it until it ended a while after 2am. While waiting, we took a photo with last year’s winner:
Once the event finally kicked off, we were treated to 4 rounds of competition (all various types of dresses including traditional Algerian-wear. No swimsuits, though). While the ladies were changing clothes, various Algerian musicians took to the stage. Overall a very interesting evening, if a little long and late 🙂 Here are a few photos of the contestants:
The new Miss Algerie, plus the 80s-tastic host of the show:
Shortly after the pageant, I turned 31. Which my friends helped me celebrate by throwing me a birthday brunch! It was great (some of my friends are really amazing at the cooking thing):
In short order, after a bit more quality time in the office, it was back to the States for a friend’s wedding in NY. Well, actually, the wedding was in NJ. Which proved to be problematic when driving to the wedding. I was riding with the husband of another friend of mine who was in the wedding and had to get there early. Long story short, we got stuck in crazy traffic on the GW bridge and missed the ceremony. We pulled up as the wedding party was leaving the church. BUT we were there in plenty of time to enjoy the reception. The bride was one of my former colleagues at MSNBC, and there was quite the crowd from the network!
After the wedding, I had another day to hang in NY, so took a quick trip out to my old stomping grounds in Astoria:
The next morning it was back on a plane and down to SC for a few days. Mom, Dad & I drove up to beautiful Asheville, NC. We were a little too early for the fall foliage, but the drive up the Blue Ridge Trail was gorgeous nonetheless!
Once we came down from the mountaintop, it was time to leave the U.S. again, but the vacation wasn’t over. There were still a few more days of leave to use up, and I opted to meet some friends in Dubai. These are the same girlfriends I’ve met up with a few times before – foreign service friends who all happen to be serving in countries with easy-ish access to Europe. But this time we thought we’d change things up, hence the Dubai choice.
Dubai is a somewhat bizarre place – we went on one of those bus tours of the city and every sight the tour guide pointed out was either a 5-star hotel or the biggest/tallest/widest structure in the world. The piece de resistance of the whole tour was the Atlantis hotel. The bus stopped for a good 5 minutes to allow us tourists to take pictures. Really remarkable. Also we stopped for this “light show” at one of the zillion malls in Dubai:
Since we were in Dubai, we figured “When in Rome…” and splurged on a super fancy hotel, the Al Qasr, a huge complex right on the beach. By far the fanciest hotel I’ve stayed in or will probably ever stay in!
We ended up going to a mall or two, going up the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world), and relaxing by the pool in our hotel complex, as well as taking advantage of the spa.
Finally, we finished things off with a bachelorette party for our friend who was getting married later in the year (more on that in the next post). Dubai may be wealthy, but it’s still in the Middle East, and they frown on traditional U.S. bachelorette party-type activities (in fact, visitors can’t even buy alcohol except in hotel restaurants/bars and at duty free, so we stocked up), so we stuck to our hotel room, followed by a frolic on the beach!
OK, this gets us caught up to early October. One more post to come to wrap up 2014!
Toto...We're Not In NYC Anymore 