Author Archives: notinnyc

Labor Day weekend involved my first venture out of Algiers – a CLO trip to Tlemcen, a city in the west of Algeria about 20 miles from the Moroccan border. Tlemcen is quite different from Algiers; notably, it’s cleaner, the buildings are in better repair, and it has sidewalks! Big ones! You don’t realize how important sidewalks are until you walk to work without them. (Don’t worry, Mom, it’s safe – it would just be better with sidewalks) 🙂 Anyway, let’s start off with a view over Tlemcen:

A group of 18 from the embassy traveled together for this one; we left Friday evening and took a quick, one-hour flight. It would have been quicker if AirAlgerie wasn’t perpetually late, but you take what you can get.

When we arrived, our “minders” met us as we got off the flight. For any travel outside of Algiers, we have to have an escort. It is unclear whether this is for our protection or to make sure we don’t do anything bad. I imagine it’s a bit of both. At any rate, they whisked us off onto a bus and off to our hotel, the Ibis. Definitely a budget hotel. Didn’t really want to walk into the bathroom in my bare feet, but the bed seemed fine. We arrived around dinner time, so we ate at the hotel and headed to bed to rest up for the next day. I enjoyed the free wifi and watched some Downton Abbey dubbed in French. Which is strange, but easy to understand. It was the episode where everyone has influenza or whatever and Lavinia dies. It wasn’t a half bad night!

Next morning, the bus tour began. I have to say I’m not a huge fan of the bus tour thing – but it would be very difficult for me to do this trip on my own, so I sucked it up with minimal irritation that pretty much was kept til the end of the trip. The main issue with the bus was the diesel engine was REALLY loud so our tour guide could only be heard by people sitting in the first few rows, which was not me. So I didn’t catch many details about the stuff we saw. Ah well. Bottom line – we saw a lot of mosques. They were cool.

The first place we went was an old, 11th or 12th century set of palaces, plus a mosque. Pretty courtyard, tiles, fountain, etc:

Next up was another ancient mosque. This one involved us ladies covering with scarves – sadly no photos of that (although I’m sure I will have many opportunities to photograph myself in a headscarf over the next couple of years), but the prayer area was gorgeous, and the entire mosque complex was lovely and had a fabulous view.

Then it was off to lunch, which consisted of massive amounts of traditional Algerian food. Good, but way too much. The highlight of lunch was ducking out of the restaurant to take pictures outside a butcher, where a freshly chopped-off cow head hung from the door:

It was still dripping blood. Not kidding.

After we gorged ourselves at lunch, we piled back on the bus and headed off to a super cool cave outside Tlemcen, where we met about 1000 of our closest Algerian friends who were all waiting to get in. But we made it and it was pretty much worth it. Very cool stalactites/mites:

Apparently back in the day this cave stretched all the way to Morocco, but at some point during French rule, they decided to put an end to all the weapons smuggling that was happening through the cave, so they blocked it off.

After we got our fill of the cave and our PAO who was on the trip did an impromptu interview with a local TV station that happened to be filming in the cave that day, it was back on the bus again to head to mosque #3. This one was destroyed a bunch of centuries ago, but apparently is still the largest mosque in Algeria. (Although Chinese workers are building one in Algiers right now that’s supposed to be even bigger when it is completed…)

Anyway, this mosque was part of a city that the prince of Fez lived in back in the day when they (Morocco) were trying to take over Tlemcen. They failed and their city was torn down. BUT parts of the mosque are still standing and are kinda cool:

Next up, it was off to a lookout point where we could see all of Tlemcen (the photo at the beginning of this post), and back to the hotel for a much needed rest (all that on and off the bus stuff wore us out), before dinner at a FABULOUS Moroccan place. I had lamb cooked in a tagine. It was amazing. Then it was back to the hotel for sleep. No French Downton tonight, sadly.

Next day was a bit shorter. We went to a souq (market), which actually reminded me a lot of those street fairs in NYC where they sell a bunch of cheap clothes and crappy plastic toys. There were definitely a few cool shops with actual Algerian artisan-y things, but mostly I was surprised by how western the majority of the stuff there was. Interesting, though.

Finally, we hit up one last mosque. And not just any mosque. The GRANDE mosque.

I’ll post more photos of this on facebook if anyone is interested. In the meantime, that about covers my labor day trip – very interesting, but I think I’ll steer clear of bus tours for at least a month or so. Overall, it was a great way to get out of Algiers for a bit. It made me even more excited for next month when I’ll take my first Europe trip of my time in Algiers!

I finally have some of my stuff!

The operative word here is “some”. The first of my many shipments to arrive wasn’t the one that was supposed to arrive first (because that would make too much sense), but it was the one that was supposed to arrive second. So my methodical plan for packing things in the order in which I wished to receive them was really a complete waste of time.

The customs situation is interesting to say least – apparently all of my shipments are at the port, hanging out, waiting to be cleared through customs. And no one can predict when it will happen. So I guess I should be grateful that I have “some” stuff. And, the “some” that I received included my bedding, so no more welcome kit/motel-style comforter (which can’t really qualify as “comfort”ers, since “comfort” did not seem to be a consideration when manufacturing them). At any rate, I’m taking tiny steps toward making my apartment feel more like home. Hopefully more will materialize soon.

My bed!

Guest room bed!

The first day of this weekend began with church and ended with flip cup.

I kicked off the morning with a “coastal tour” around Algiers, planned by the CLO. We began at Notre Dame d’Afrique, a 19th century Roman Catholic church, after a windy drive down the hill from the Embassy and ultimately up another hill on the other end of town until we reached the church. Sadly it wasn’t open yet for the day when we arrived so we couldn’t see the inside, but the outside is quite striking and the view is great – looking out over the water (and a soccer pitch).

Next we drove over to a couple of public beaches, which were packed. Our group of 11 consisted of 9 women and I think we doubled the number of females on the beaches. Such is life here, I suppose. Also, comparisons were made to the Jersey Shore due to the preponderance of plastic chairs and umbrellas. Never having been to the Jersey Shore myself, I can’t say. Decide for yourselves:

We finished up the morning with a nice fish lunch overlooking boats:

After lunch, it was back home to whip something up for a birthday party I was attending that evening. I found a Tunisian brand of cake mix at the grocery store and thought I’d give it a whirl. Chocolate chocolate chip cake is hard to screw up, right? Right. Not quite Betty Crocker, but it was tasty enough to serve to people at the party. At which there was flip cup. And I’m pleased to report I still have the touch, thanks to my excellent Indiana University education. The corn hole was less successful. I went down to the Marines on that one.

One of the main “tourist” attractions in Algeria (I use the quotations marks because tourism is really not big here) is the Casbah, or citadel, which is the old part of Algiers. The area was instrumental in the Algerian rebels’/freedom fighters’ strategy during their war of independence in the 1950s, and was the setting for the film, The Battle of Algiers.

It is also now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For various reasons it’s difficult for us, as U.S. Embassy folks, to go to the area on our own, so our fabulous CLO (Community Liaison Office) planned a trip for us to go. A van-full of us headed over and met a guide who took us on a fantastic tour of the windy roads of the Casbah. We ended up at the home of a local guy who has made a business of cooking traditional Algerian meals for tourist groups.

The Casbah is basically on the side of a big hill, sloping down to the water. We started at the top of the hill and worked our way down. The first stop involved climbing to the roof of a house and over looking the entire area:

Here’s me on that same roof:

Then we went down and began to make our way through the area, which is well known for it’s narrow, haphazard streets, like these:

We briefly went into a lovely mosque (no photos allowed on the inside):

And, after a couple of stops at teeny tiny little workshops of guys who crafted various items out of wood and copper, and sweating like it was my job in the extremely direct sunlight, we ended up at the bottom of the hill at a restored palace. Most of the Casbah has fallen into disrepair (many houses are being desperately held up by makeshift scaffolding consisting of planks of wood), but the palace in the lower Casbah, which sits smack dab on the water, has been turned into a museum. The tile work inside was amazing (the blue ones came from the Netherlands!):

One final discovery in the palace – during the renovations, they discovered a Roman bath!

The Roman Empire of course extended into Algeria once upon a time, and there are apparently Roman ruins scattered around the coastal areas of the country. Much more to explore over the next 2 years!

After the tour was complete, our van picked us up at the bottom of the hill and drove us back up to the top, where we had a great but massive lunch consisting of some traditional Algerian standbys, like borek, chorba, and rechta noodles with chicken. After topping it all off with sweet mint tea and fruit, I was ridiculously stuffed and was very happy to get back in the van and head home to crash!

…is great. Probably twice the size of any previous apartment I’ve lived in. Which, granted, isn’t saying a whole heck of lot, but still. And I have stairs! INSIDE the apartment. And a patio. With a view. Have I mentioned the view?

Of course, I still don’t have a wireless internet connection, almost 8 weeks in, but who’s counting? (Me. I’m counting.) Anyhow, I’m making do. And hopefully my shipments will start coming in soon, which will help the place feel more home-y.

Other highlights: I’m within walking distance of the embassy – my commute is 10 minutes door to door. Also, there’s a little shopping street about 10 minutes in the other direction, with a couple of small corner grocery stores, a bakery, a butcher, and, (as I recently found out since Ramadan is now over) an alcohol store. There’s a lot of Algiers that’s not easily accessible by foot, however, so in theory I will eventually get a car. But I’m not in too much of a hurry just yet. We’ll see how life goes.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of photos of my apartment pre-household shipments:

Super big kitchen

Living room (a couple of photos in the bookcase courtesy of mom and dad!)

Upstairs Landing

Stairs!

Washer & Dryer! Didn’t have that in New York!

And…the patio!

Well, I made it to Algiers and am actually starting to feel like I kinda could sorta belong in the Embassy community here. Ramadan began a week after I arrived, so it’s been difficult to do much for the majority of my time here, since pretty much everything shuts down for the month. Which actually is OK, because just getting used to my job and trying to make friends with the embassy folks has been time consuming enough. But things have finally settled down long enough for me to try and get back into this blog thing. Another big problem is I still don’t have internet in my house, which is not the complete end of the world, but I’m ready to have internet in my house.

On the plus side, my apartment is GREAT. Within easy walking distance of the Embassy, it is by far the biggest place I’ve ever lived (which, granted, isn’t saying a whole lot). It’s a split level apartment with a patio and a fantastic view of Algiers and the Mediterranean:

Here it is at night:

I’ll post more photos of the interior of my place later, after my shipments arrive. Which could be a couple more months, given the lengthy customs process here.

On the job front, there has been a pretty steep learning curve. Having been prepared for a public diplomacy position, it was quite the change getting assigned to a consular job here, although it is proving to be quite interesting. My days are jam-packed with visa interviews of various sorts, so my French is getting quite a workout. And I’ve also had the opportunity to lend a hand in the Public Diplomacy section, which has been nice. For example, last week I sat on the Fulbright interview panel, which was really interesting. Lots of very impressive young Algerians coming to interview for the opportunity to study in the U.S.

I’ll leave it there for now, with the promise to try harder to do more regular updates!

I think I said Snoozecube was the best thing ever. Boy, was I wrong. Yotel (at the Amsterdam airport) kicks snoozecube’s butt! For roughly the same price, Yotel has a comforter instead of kinda icky blanket, a toilet, TV, sink, shower, a key card like a regular hotel room, and room service! Of course, I used very little of the above except the comforter, since I passed out for 3 hours shortly after I checked in. But soooooooooooo great!

One wouldn’t call me an experienced camper. Or even a good camper. Or really a camper of any kind. When I was 7, my Brownie troop “camped” in our troop leader’s backyard, I was in one of those play tents with my friend, which is most definitely not made for actual camping. There was a gap at the entrance flap, which we plugged with our clothes “to keep out the bugs”. It downpoured all night, meaning my mother had to run home and get me a change of clothes since all of mine were soaked. I don’t remember any bugs, though, so technically our plan worked.

In college when I worked at a rich kids camp one summer, we had to spend one night with our campers away from our cabins and mattresses and in the “wilderness” a few feet away from camp, in the woods, where there was a lean-to. I let my kids sneak back into camp to use the bathroom instead of making them go in the woods, and used bug spray to get the fire going. 18-year-old me was a great role model.

So my history of camping is not something I take pride in. But when it was suggested that we go camping in Akagera National Park, about a 2-hour drive from Kigali on the border of Tanzania, I figured what the hell. You only live once, plus there are cool African animals there. Also there were plenty of actual campers with extra tents, sleeping bags, etc to share with me. So 7 of us loaded up 2 SUVs with aforementioned tents & sleeping bags as well as headlamps, cameras, folding chairs, hot dogs, marshmallows, nuts, beef brochettes (meat skewers), cups, plates, cutlery, wine and beer, and got going.

Day one consisted of driving through the southern end of the park, keeping our eyes peeled for fun safari beasts. For most of the day, all we saw was this:

Sure we saw a baboon or two, and a couple of antelope, but nothing too crazy. Actually, the most wildlife we encountered were the zillions of tsetse flies that would swarm the car from time to time, and if we opened the window to take a picture, would sneak in and hide. Then, when we thought we had gotten rid of them, they would launch a sneak attack, setting off several moments of hysteria while we went on the warpath. This happened so often throughout the trip that the floor of the car became a virtual tsetse fly graveyard. Serves the suckers rights. Their bites HURT. Still, it was pretty cool to be bouncing through a national park in Rwanda.

At about 4pm, we finally made it to the camp site, at which time it became clear the trip was completely worth it. (Also we were at a high enough altitude that the tsetse flies were no longer with us).The camp site was on top of a big hill, overlooking a lake:

The weather was perfect, and later we would have a full moon. If the ground wasn’t so hard, I might have actually slept. But before trying to sleep, we did the campfire thing. My hearty camping compatriots did not do a good job lighting a fire. They had been working on it for about 10 minutes when a hearty German family who lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo drove up. The mother started their campfire in about 3 minutes, while our firestarters were still frantically blowing on tiny embers. In the end, our friendly German neighbors gave us one of their burning logs. I think our team was embarrassed, but hey, we had a fire.

Our campfire. Our German saviors are sitting in the background.

Things looked up from there. We ate, we drank, we chatted, we were in our tents by 10, and up by 6 the next morning to continue our mini safari. Fortunately no hyenas surrounded our campsite overnight (that I knew of), but in the morning, there were zebras and topi (type of antelope) within feet of us. They were just minding their own business. It was super cool.

Plus, safari day 2 proved to be much more fruitful. We were in the northern part of the park at this point, and although the roads were much much worse, the animal sightings were much much better. Giraffes (completely fearless; you can drive right up to them), warthogs (total scaredy cats), water buffalo (mean; apparently the park guides are even afraid of them), tons of zebra, a bunch of kinds of antelope, more baboons and, unfortunately, more tsetse flies.

Mean water buffalo glowering at us

Giraffe!

Zebra family!

All in all, I had a great time. Although one night of camping at a time is more than enough. You can take the girl out of the city, but…

46 days, 7 flights, 7 airports plus 2 additional tarmac stops*, 2 embassies, 1 mini-safari, and 0 lost bags (!) later, I made it back to DC.

The flights home went just as smoothly as all the rest of the flights on this trip; the travel gods have truly smiled on me for the entirety of the last 6 weeks! The first leg began with what one might call a ‘puddle jumper’; a quick, 37 minute flight from Kigali to Entebbe, Uganda, where 90% of the plane got off while I and a handful of my fellow travelers stayed on board, watching as about 20 cleaning people whizzed through the plane, replacing blankets, pillows, and head rest covers in preparation for the new crop of travelers who joined us for the onward flight to Amsterdam. Here’s where the amazing part comes in: I SLEPT. For a couple of hours. While sitting in a middle seat. This is a true testament to how tired I was. I also watched “The DaVinci Code”.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport is fantastic. Super clean, super modern, and it has a Yotel. (Same concept as the Snoozecube, but far superior. More on that, plus pictures here). I slept for a few more hours, then began the final leg of my trip.

Taking off from Amsterdam

It was again, blissfully uneventful. My entertainment consisted of “JFK” (too long and sorta boring, but it’s fun to think about conspiracies), “The Devil Wears Prada” (one of my faves), and “Queen of Versailles” (actually a good documentary – more depth to it than I thought).

So that was that. I’m safely back in DC for a few weeks, so I can get over jet lag just in time to fly back to Africa!

*In case anyone’s interested, the 7 airports were: Washington Dulles, Paris’ Charles DeGaulle, Nouakchott International, Casablanca’s Mohammed V, Dubai International, Kigali International, and Amsterdam’s Schiphol. The 2 tarmacs were in Mombasa, Kenya and Entebbe, Uganda, en route to and from Kigali.

I went from running through sand at sea level to the complete opposite – running hills a mile high. Spoiler alert: t’s not any easier.

Rwanda is known as “le pays des milles collines” (land of 1000 hills), and they aren’t kidding. There are nothing but hills as far as the eye can see. And it’s beautiful! [ADD PICTURE] But you forget all that pretty quickly when you try and go for a run, as I did my 2nd day in Kigali. Although, actually, the hills pale in comparison to the lung-tightening, persistent breathlessness that is the result of not being accustomed to the altitude.

I tried it again a week later when I got peer pressured into running a 5k “fun run” affiliated with the International Peace Marathon in Kigali. And it was fun. Except maybe for the running part. Which was tough. There were hills and yep, we were still a mile up.

BUT I’ve always loved the atmosphere around marathons, and Kigali was no different. Well, it was a little different. The organization of the event was more of a go-with-the-flow type of thing.

The races all started and ended at Amahoro Stadium, which you may have heard of as a site where thousands of Tutsi refugees took shelter during the 1994 genocide (one of the few places where they survived).

The half-marathon (or, as they call it here, the “semi” marathon) started first, with zero fanfare, outside of the stadium. There wasn’t really a start line, and definitely no starting gun – somehow people figured out where to stand and then a guy basically yelled “go!”. From what I could tell, it worked.

The “semi” marathon starting line

The start of the “semi” marathon

Then everyone trooped back into the stadium for the start of the marathon. The 100 or so runners got to start on the track with a bit more fanfare than their semi-marathon compatriots. There was an emcee with a microphone this time, there was a section for the media (it was empty, but still…), and after multiple announcements imploring the runners to avoid running into a camera that was set up in the middle of the track, the minister of something yelled “go!” into the microphone. Success!

Finally, it was time for the fun run to get going. By this time we’d been there for almost an hour and a half and the lovely cool morning had disappeared into a still lovely, but HOT morning. Half a mile in I was sucking wind. About a mile in I decided to walk and try and get my breath back, then realized that’s easier said than done at high altitude, so I figured I should just start running again and get it all over with as quickly as possible. Once I succumbed to the idea that I just wasn’t going to be able breath well for the next 20 minutes, it actually got less bad and I managed to plod along the rest of the way and reconnect with the group from the embassy at the finish line with minimal problems. So, mission accomplished, although I was toast for the rest of the day.  But someone did point out it was my first international race, and that’s kind of cool! Also, apparently if you get used to running at altitude you get really fast when you go back to sea level. I don’t think I’m going to be in Rwanda long enough to benefit from that nice side-effect, but it’s good to keep in mind for future reference…

The finish line!