A couple of months back, I FINALLY got to go to the Algerian desert! Travel within the country is difficult because of security concerns, but our security folks determined that one particular area right on the edge of the Sahara (a oasis town called Taghit) was OK, so off we went! That’s right, I have now been to the freakin’ Sahara desert.

But since Taghit is a teeny tiny town with no airport, we had fly into Bechar, where there is an airport (more of a large hall with high ceilings sitting next to a tarmac where airplanes stop by every now and then than an airport, but it served its purpose). We also had to stay the night in Bechar in what is hands down the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in (and this includes hostels). The photos don’t really do it justice. If you imagine a strong smell of sewage when looking at them, you’ll get a better sense:

Also the sheet wasn’t quite the right size, so sleeping on the gross mattress was an inevitability. Also it was freezing cold. So yeah. Not much sleep that night.

Anyway. We survived the night and loaded into a rickety bus the next morning for our trek to the Sahara, complete with our police escort (as the Algieran government requires of us when traveling outside of the capital). I’m not in the photo because I was taking the picture. Our bus driver took one with me in it, but he decided not to include the bus in his.

After about 90 minutes on the road, we arrived at our hotel in Taghit. There were enough of us from the Embassy to take over the entire place, which was smack on the edge of the desert. Check out the view from the roof of the hotel:

The hotel was a massive improvement from the night before; the rooms were basic but had tons of character and, most importantly, no sewage smell. Also, did I mention the view of the sand dunes???

After a bit of negotiation with the hotel manager (negotiation with him would be a key challenge of the trip, and probably the only negative to the weekend), we rode camels. It was awesome. And when we stopped for a photo op, two of them did some kissing. Kissing camels are really cute.

We then went on a walk through the town of Taghit – walking through the entire place at a leisurely stroll too about 15 minutes. It’s a small place.

During our 2+ days in the desert, we had a dedicated tour guide, Kadr, who told us his family had lived in Taghit for 1000 years. Not totally sure if he was being honest or just telling the westerners what we wanted to hear, but he was a good tour guide. He also shared with us that he loved him some Jack Daniels, which led to the revelation that outside of Algiers people are much, much less uptight about the “no drinking” part of life. In fact, life was noticeably more laid back out in the desert, which I guess makes sense.

Anyway, our second day in Taghit, Kadr took us out into the “brown desert” (as opposed to the “gold desert” which is the fancy sand dune kind). The excursion involved the group cramming into 3 dilapidated four wheel drive vehicles, driven by buddies of the hotel manager, and going off-roading through the desert for about 45 minutes until we reached a rock pile featuring etchings from 6000 B.C. It was more fun to climb the rock pile and check out the awesome view from the top than to look at the etchings, but either way it was a cool outing.

The piece de resistance of the entire weekend was an combo platter of afternoon hiking out into the Sahara, watching the sun set, then sitting around a campfire at a bivouac while listening to local musicians, drinking tea, and then eating succulent chicken that was slowed-cooked beneath the campfire.

Walking up and down sand dunes is as tough as you’d expect, but totally worth it!

Looking back at our bivouac site as we headed out into the desert:

The making of the tea – main ingredient: an insane amount of sugar. It really makes American sweet tea seem bitter! Of course, that didn’t stop us from indulging!

As the sun went down, we huddled by the fire for warmth while being entertained by the group of local musicians, who were basically just having a jam session (they told us the next day that after we left, they stuck around and played together until 4am!)

Finally the food was deemed cooked and one of the cooks dug it out from underneath the campfire. It really was the best chicken ever.

The following morning we went on one last tour of the town – this time to purchase souvenirs, though there was little selection. Turns out even in a tiny town on the edge of the Sahara desert, there’s still a bunch of tourist crap for sale. Then it was back in the rickety bus to get back to the airport in Bechar to catch our plane back to Algiers (but only after a 4 hour wait in a freezing airport since our security people required us to be off the road before dark and our flight wasn’t until later in the evening.) But despite the one or two difficulties of the trip, it was hands down the best trip I’ve taken in Algeria since I have been here. I feel very lucky to have had this opportunity!

Upon moving to Algeria, I quickly learned to have zero expectations and go with the flow because, really, anything could happen. However, despite my “expect anything” attitude, I did not think I would be going to see Shakespeare in Algiers. And yet, shortly after New Years, that’s exactly what I found myself doing.

It was all part of a very very cool two-year-long, worldwide tour of Hamlet that the Globe Theater is doing in honor of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. And when I say worldwide, I’m not kidding. They intend to go to every single country. Check it out here. As I write this, they are performing in Khartoum.

Their performance in Algiers was at the National Theater, a building whose architecture is very reflective of Algerian history. The facade of the building reflects the country’s 130 years of French rule, adorned with a series of stone arches and intricate flowery accents (albeit chipping and rundown due to a decades-long lack of upkeep). Then the stark, cement interior of the building harkens back to a newly independent Algeria’s Soviet leaning in the 1960s, when the goal was to get as far away from France and the West as possible.

The organization of the event was purely Algerian. For some reason, the decision was made to admit theater-goers on a first-come, first-served basis. Which meant when the group of us from the Embassy showed up 45 minutes before the show was to begin, there was a massive throng of people crammed up agains the yet-to-be-opened doors. At least twice as many people as there were seats to be filled. Our group had received special invitations to see the show, which we naively thought might allow us to bypass the crowd. No such luck. So we joined the masses and subtly tried to edge our way through. At one point we thought we had gained traction when one of the security guards noticed the invitations we clutched. But this particular gentleman quickly found he had no clout with the people who had the authority to let us in, and abandoned us almost immediately. However, this brief glimmer of hope had allowed us to get closer to the front of the crowd, right before they opened the one door through which they decided to funnel all those people.

At this point, it was a complete free-for-all. It was the first time that I’ve realized how people can get crushed to death in such crowds (it wasn’t that bad, but it was getting there). Some people were funneled through the metal detector, others avoided it in their haste to get in, so the security precautions were basically pointless. Our group of 8 successfully made it through the door, which turned out to be just hurdle number one. Next up: find a seat. We managed to snag 4. Then it was standing room only. But, we made it in, which was more than many of our fellow Hamlet hopefuls still waiting outside.

When the performance finally started (an hour late, which is really on-time by Algerian standards), we were treated to a fantastic, abbreviated (2 hours and 40 minutes as opposed to the usual 4 hours) version of one of Shakespeare’s biggies. Now, theater-going is not common in Algeria, so the etiquette isn’t quite what one might expect at a Shakespeare performance, but once we blocked out the chatting, phones ringing (and being answered), and the constant moving around of the patrons, it was great fun and quite the mixture of cultures. A rough French translation of the Elizabethan lingo was projected onto the back wall of the stage. And when half the audience departed at intermission (some perhaps tired of standing, some perhaps not quite enthralled by the somewhat rocky translation, some perhaps caught unawares as to what they were getting themselves into), it got even better as many of the audience distractions departed with them!

When we finally headed home, we counted ourselves lucky to have experienced one stop of this epic global tour, despite (or maybe because of) all the cultural idiosyncrasies involved! All in all, a fantastically adventurous and entertaining evening! If you happen to be in a country where the tour hasn’t yet stopped, I would highly recommend heading out for a night at the theater, regardless of your enthusiasm for Shakespeare.

Happy New Year to all! I returned to Algeria just in time to ring in 2015, which happened with a little fanfare and a whole lot of wine. But the good news is some embassy folks organized the perfect cure for all that wine – a New Year’s Day “Polar Bear Plunge”!

We first had to endure a 45 minute ride in a bouncy bus, but it was worth it to get to an Algiers beach that is reasonably clean and trash-free (ish). Upon arrival, we discovered that the ring leaders of the group had gone ahead and gotten a bonfire started, all ready to warm us up after the so-called plunge. With warm clothes and warming fire at the ready, there was nothing left but to go for it.

OK, so admittedly a Polar Bear Plunge in the Mediterranean when it’s sunny out isn’t the most torturous form of the plunge. Polar bears probably would have thought the water felt like a nice warm bath. BUT it still felt cold until we got back to the fire and our sweats.

And just for fun, we got certificates! It was very exciting.

The rest of the day was spent chatting and roasting marshmallows and hot dogs around the fire. Not a bad way to celebrate the first day of 2015!

A couple of days later (we had a 4-day weekend to start out the year due to a local holiday), I continued my participatory attitude by joining an embassy-organized walking trip around Algiers. We started by heading to an old Christian cemetery from the colonial days. While you don’t find many Christians around these parts anymore, there are a couple of small congregations, and an Anglican church is supposedly charged with the upkeep of this particular cemetery. Nevertheless, the cemetery was pretty dilapidated. Apparently after independence, it was ransacked, and repairs have never really happened, which I guess makes sense. Not at the top of the to-do list, I imagine. You can see below how all the crosses are laying down on the tombs – at one time they were standing straight up on the brick-looking stone at the head of the tomb. No longer.

The French did know how to pick a spot for eternal, rest, though. Check out the view from the cemetery:

And a particular point of interest for us Foreign Service-types: a former U.S. Consul in Algeria who died while serving here during World War I is also buried in this cemetery:

Apparently he’s not the only U.S. Consul who died while in Algeria – there’s another one as well in a different cemetery. We’re hoping to leave it at two.

After the cemetery, we swung by the Martyr’s Monument (Maqam Echahid in Arabic), which I had yet to see up close during daylight hours (although I can see it from my balcony, so I figure that counts for something…). It’s a very Soviet-looking structure, which is the direction Algeria leaned as they tried to move as far away from France and “the West” as possible after they gained their independence in the early 1960s:

From the monument, there is a cable car leading down to a lovely park (the Jardin d’Essai). It’s a bit of a rocky ride, but we braved it and lived to tell the tale.

And the park at the end was worth the ride. It was a gorgeous day, and this is one of the most well-kept parks in the city.

And the piece de resistance of the park is the “Tarzan tree”. Apparently the original Tarzan movie in the 1930s was filmed right here in Algiers! Have to admit I haven’t seen that or any other Tarzan movie, but it’s a cool old tree, at any rate!

So that wrapped up my first weekend of 2015 – beautiful weather, good friends, and an extra long weekend are a great way to kick things off! Here’s to more excitement to come!

So here’s for the last post to wrap up 2014. I’ll start with the Marine Ball, an opportunity for us Embassy folk to get all gussied up and celebrate the Marine Corps’ birthday. This ball was an especially good one; it took place in the Hilton ballroom and had all the required pomp, circumstance, and speeches, which then gave way to drinking and dancing.

Later in the evening, I had my first Algeria clubbing experience. Now, I’m not really an enthusiastic clubber in any country, but I felt like this was an experience I should have before I leave. Algiers doesn’t have too many clubs, and they are mainly attached to major hotel chains. This one was no different (it was at the Hilton – easy access from the Marine Ball). The club was large, a little run down, and very very smoky. So basically a club in the U.S. before smoking was banned. And now I’ve had that experience and probably don’t need to go back.

Thanksgiving was up next – fairly uneventful, but nice. Those of us who remained in town for the holiday gathered at the Ambassador’s residence. Her cook prepared the bird and the rest of us brought sides and dessert. Definitely not the same as Thanksgiving with family, but it was a lovely alternative!

After Thanksgiving I moved quickly into the Christmas season with the annual gingerbread house party. There were collapses, successes, mulled wine, and lots and lots of sugar:

So we’re in December now, and my last trip to the U.S. before leaving Algeria for good. The trip started with a week of training in DC to be an Equal Employment Opportunity counselor, so now I am officially qualified to counsel people who have discrimination complaints.

After a whirlwind week in DC, which included entirely too much dental work and some great catching-up time with various friends, it was down to Orlando for the wedding of 2 friends of mine who met in our foreign service orientation class! It was a fabulous weekend, a great reunion with a group of good friends, a beautiful wedding, and dancing. So much dancing!

All too soon, it was time to say goodbye to friends in Florida. But the last big thing of 2014 was Christmas in SC! Which was a wonderful, relaxing week and a half involving movie-going (Annie, The Hunger Games, Into the Woods), shopping, running (outside, on sidewalks), eating, drinking, and general merriment!

Whew! Got through 2014 – I’m almost all caught up. A few things have happened so far in 2015 that might be blog-worthy, but I’m calling this caught-up enough for now! Happy New Year to all!

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!

WELL, I just spent a fabulous 3 weeks in the U.S. on my final R&R for (from) Algeria, and during the 12 days I spent in SC, I got several comments about how I had slacked off on the blog (you know who you are). They were polite comments, but nevertheless. I get it; I’m not the best at sticking to this whole blog thing. BUT in an endeavor to make up for lost time, I will try to fill in the blanks in a couple of posts covering the last 7-8 months of radio silence. Here goes…

As I was perusing my previous posts to remind myself of what I had posted about most recently, I realized I completely skipped over my January/February R&R in NYC and Istanbul! Well, let me tell you, it was a pretty great trip (or couple trips, really).

Mom and Dad spent the 2014 spring semester in NYC while Mom taught at Columbia. Which was extremely convenient for this former New York girl, who got to see family and friends all in one trip! That never happens!

I was in NY for Super Bowl weekend (unintentionally – no one should ever be in any city that’s hosting the Super Bowl unless they are going to the game), but I fought my way through Times Square (worst I’ve ever seen it) to check out the puppy bowl with a couple of friends, which is much more my speed:

Dad and I went to the Natural History Museum:

Dad and T-Rex

And I caught up with the old Ed Show crowd at Channel 4, our go-to bar:

Oh, also it snowed like hell:

Snow in NY is much prettier when one is on vacation

AND we tried this weird Russian-ish string cheese called Chechil.

It is not good.

After about 10 days in NY, I hopped a plane to Istanbul to meet up with some of my favorite friends from A-100, my Foreign Service orientation class. They are currently in Tirana, Albania; Riyadh Saudi Arabia; and Muscat, Oman. We convened in Turkey for a fabulous long weekend, where we stayed in a great Airbnb apartment!

Kicking things off with a cup of Turkish coffee

We visited the Blue Mosque and the cistern:

And had a super fancy tasting menu at an amazing restaurant overlooking the city:

We even caught a whirling dervish act when we took a break for coffee!

Now I’ll jump forward a few months to the end of May, when a group of us from Algeria journeyed to Edinburgh to run a half marathon! Training in Algiers is tricky (no sidewalks, narrow roads, few running options), BUT we figured it out (one trail run and lots and lots of treadmill time) and made it to Scotland for a VERY rainy and chilly race. Far from my best effort (see: rainy, chilly, difficulty training), however, it was a fantastic trip, especially because I got to stay with a long lost friend from my English schoolgirl days who is a doctor now, living in Edinburgh!

We also took advantage of being in the land of Scotch to take a very touristy (but very fun) tour of the Scotch Whiskey Experience (thats zillions of bottles of Scotch behind us):

After cold and rainy Edinburgh, an EasyJet flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia was just the ticket. A friend and I spent an amazing few days in an amazing hotel with an amazing view:

Dubrovnik was, as predicted, quite touristy, but for a couple of days it didn’t matter. The old town was beautiful! Here’s one from our walk around the top of the old town walls:

We also had some great Bosnian food (think really really good meat and potatoes):

And we visited this cove on a kayak trip around the area:

Not too shabby! I then transited back to Algiers through London, where I spent an afternoon wandering the city (yay freedom to wander) and hit up the Leicester Square half price booth for tickets to Wicked!

Then it was back to work and time to go into overdrive, as I was responsible for planning the Embassy’s official July 4th event. Lots of stress ensued, but it turned out great! We held it outdoors at the Ambassador’s residence, the weather was perfect, and the view even better. Happy Birthday America!

So that takes us halfway through 2014. Stay tuned for a run-through of the 2nd half soon!

Back in May, I learned the hard way that Algiers airport parking is not the most secure, despite the swarms of cops all over the place. I opted to drive myself to the airport while traveling to Vienna for a long weekend instead of paying for the Embassy’s motorpool to take me. I knew several other Embassy folks who had left their cars there for a few days with no problem, and the whole point of getting a car in the first place was to afford me a modicum of independence in a place where security restrictions, lack of public transportation, and no sidewalks leaves a little to be desired in that particular area.

So. My trip to the airport was uneventful, ditto for the act of parking itself. Large lot, well-lit, plenty of police (as there are most everywhere, seemingly). So I locked the car, hopped a plane to Vienna and thought no more of it.

3 days later, I returned to Algiers at about 11:00 at night, glad I didn’t have to wait for the other Embassy staff who were on my plane to get their bags before motorpool took us all to our respective homes. Nope, I could jump in my car and head straight home. Or so I thought. As I approached my car, I punched the remote to unlock the doors. Nothing happened. “Huh,” I thought, “maybe the battery died in my remote”. If only. When I reached the car, I tried the door – unlocked. Uh oh. Then I saw that the glove box and every other compartment that could have been opened had been opened. Clearly someone had broken in. Bummer, but there wasn’t anything in there to steal, so I got in the car and tried to start it. Dead. Ugh.

Next step was to call our Embassy security folks, who came out to the airport at midnight to help deal with the situation. Airport police came over, and began an hours-long ordeal of examining the car, and asking me to recount what had happened again and again. They lifted the hood to discover someone had taken the battery and spark plugs (later we would discover that the ignition coils had also been sliced out). Awesome. After the police examined the car, someone decided to bring a forensics guy out to dust for fingerprints (no one thought of doing this before about 5 cops and several Embassy staff members had already gotten their fingerprints everywhere). Finally at about 2:30am, the police decided to call it a night. Some Embassy guys towed the car up to the temporary parking area (using nothing more than a long chain), and we got to go home and grab a few hours of sleep.

Next day, I had to return to the airport for more interviews (accompanied by a couple folks from our Embassy’s security section). Once again I had to recount the story of what I discovered when I returned to my car the night before, while a young cop took notes for his report. It seemed no one could understand the concept of jimmying a lock, so they basically didn’t believe me that I had locked the car. Super fun to not have the cops believe you.

Finally, after a good 2+ hours of recounting every detail of the story over and over again (by now I felt like they were investigating a murder with their level of intensity), we got to return to the Embassy. My car was towed again, using the same chain get-up as the night before, only this time they took it all the way from the airport to the Embassy (30 minute drive in a car that functions)! Fortunately they made it without destroying anything.

Then it was time to figure out how to get the damn thing fixed. My initial attempts to call a mechanic failed when he stopped calling me back. Fortunately, we have really nice guys in our motorpool section, so one of them was able to find a mechanic and set it up for me. (Another complicating issue is many people here do not speak French, only Algerian Arabic, which means I can’t communicate with them.) BUT, the car got towed to the mechanic’s workplace (using an actual tow truck this time, which was a good thing for my nerves), and after much hunting around on his part – apparently ignition coils for a Toyota Yaris are difficult to find – he FIXED it!!!

So. Happy ending, fascinating view into how the police works (although I suspect they wouldn’t have been so concerned about it had I not been a U.S. Embassy employee), and I got a functioning car back within a couple of weeks.

Lesson learned. So much for independence. Take motorpool to the airport.

Day number 2 in Austria was full of surprises. Good ones, don’t worry!

We had been playing around with the idea of taking the train fro Vienna to Salzburg and getting our Sound of Music on for the day. But when we looked at tickets, it seemed kind of expensive. So we asked at the front desk of our hotel about finding a car rental company in the area. Their response was fantastic: the hotel had a car that hotel guests could take out for the day free of charge. Gas included. The only requirement was that we have the car back by 10pm! And the car was SUPER cute (even if we were a driving advertisement for the hotel – which was actually fine because it was an awesome hotel; we were happy to promote it!)

We opted out of breakfast in Vienna in favor of getting on the road – we wanted to get going and figured we could find something en route. Surprise #2 was the rest stop along the autobahn. Let’s just say Austria’s rest stop food is far, far, far superior to the Shoneys, Golden Corrals, and Cracker Barrels of U.S. highways. We walked into the restaurant to find a massive spread, with everything from a strudel station to a meat carving station to freshly squeezed orange juice. AMAZING. Plus there were indoor palm trees.

A few hours later we made it to Salzburg – it was rainy and cold, but still very lovely.

Cold and hungry after the long drive, we consulted our Lonely Planet guidebook and tracked down an adorable old pub (which is probably not called a pub in German, but that’s the idea). Goulash and pork and dumplings was on the menu and we ran with it, along with mugs of Salzburg-brewed beer. Hit the spot on a rainy day!

Fueled up, we took to the streets of Salzburg. In yet another surprise, we found a set-up for a marathon that was to happen the next day! Thinking about a run through beautiful Salzburg definitely provided food for thought for next year!

As our time was running short, we decided to do a self-guided tour of a couple of Sound of Music sites. Up first, Nonnberg Abbey. (Where God closed a door.)

After a walk around and a number of photo ops, we hopped back in our cute little car and miraculously found the mansion used as the exterior of the Von Trapp house (where He opened a window).

By that point, we had had about enough of the cold and rain, so it was back in the car and back to Vienna, where we opted for Chinese food for dinner. After food and some bonding time at the hotel, we headed to bed. Sadly that was about it for our quick trip – the next morning we met up for breakfast, then one by one we took ourselves to the airport and returned to our respective homes.

FABULOUS time, though! We all agreed that we have pretty cool jobs that allow us to do stuff like this on a whim. We’re lucky folks, that’s for sure!

Vienna is GORGEOUS. And it’s super efficient to get around. Given the lack of ability to get around easily in Algiers, it’s always SO nice to escape to a country with clean, straightforward, easy-to-navigate public transportation. And sidewalks. I never take sidewalks for granted anymore.

I arrived at about 7:30 in the evening, met my friend who flew in from Albania at the airport, and we made our way to our hotel. Which was AMAZING. Weird, but amazing. It had a sort of a youth hostel feel to it, but it was much nicer and was an actual hotel (bonus: it had a rooftop bar). Also, as we found out later, they had a free car for guests to use. The hotel had kind of a weird clown theme, bizarre, but it gave it character. In case you’re ever in the region, it’s called the 25hours Hotel.

Our hotel room decor

After checking in, we headed out to find food immediately (sausages, of course), and ended up taking a lovely evening stroll through a park and past Vienna’s Rathaus – beautifully lit up at night.

The next morning, while our friend from Riyadh was still in training and our friend from Sanaa was sleeping, my friend from Tirana and I went in search of coffee. We were hoping for Starbucks (I know, I know, why go to Starbucks when you’re in Europe – but when you live in countries without Starbucks, it’s OK.) However, we didn’t find one. Instead we found a funky hippie neighborhood that was way too cool for the 2 of us, but we found an amazing chocolate shop and then, finally, coffee! After a bit more of a walk around, it was back to the hotel for lunch and beer.

Then we got back out to enjoy the beautiful weather and wide open spaces plus the freedom to explore them, which none of us enjoy in the countries where we live. Have I mentioned how GORGEOUS Vienna is?

We ended up walking quite a ways, finding various parks, stopping for gelato, and finally ending up at Schloss Belvedere, one of the Habsburg palaces. We opted just to explore the gardens as opposed to going inside due to the beautiful day – and despite an enormous group of tourists waiting in line to take photos of themselves fondling the breasts of the nude statues, it was idyllic.

We also learned a little something about WWII history – outside the palace complex there was a massive monument with a bunch of Cyrillic writing on it. Evidently the Soviets kicked the Nazis out of Vienna. Who knew?

Actually probably lots of people knew. Just not us. Now we do, though!

We still had plenty of daylight left, so it was back to the hotel to try out the rooftop bar – it did not disappoint.

Happy hour was followed by some more walking about – this time hitting up the city center, passing by the Hofburg Palace (the Habsburg’s winter residence – they had a lot of residences. There was also a Starbucks across the street, so belated success on that search), and St. Stephen’s Cathedral, en route to amazing dinner at this little hole in the wall. We had asparagus soup and then basically a plate of meat and potatoes with mustard and shredded horseradish on the side. No shame. We were on vacation!

So that was day one of Austria – next up; Austrian ROAD TRIP.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, one of the highlights of living in Algeria is how gosh darn easy it is to get to Western Europe. After a number of not unstressful weeks working on a whole host of things (plus that S visit thrown in there too), international labor day provided me with a long weekend at just the right time!

May 1st is a holiday in more than 80 countries, including Algeria, so yay! I decided to celebrate workers by going to Vienna, meeting friends from my foreign service orientation class (A-100), eating pork and drinking beer. I think workers everywhere would approve.

I decided to put on my big girl pants and drive myself to the airport. Traffic and parking can be intimidating, to say the least, but I had been assured that airport parking was easy and plentiful, and I figured the morning of a national holiday would be a good time to brave the highway. Correct on both counts. Easy peasy drive to the airport, easy peasy parking, easy peasy check-in, at the gate 2.5 hours before my flight left. Which was OK, because my bid list for my next tour JUST came out, so I had plenty to do! More on that in a separate post. Also more on how it actually turned out to be a really bad idea to drive to the airport.

Finally boarding time came, which meant more security checks (the Algiers airport loves its security). It was made more entertaining this time when I arrived at the final checkpoint before boarding the plane. In the gangway, security guys do one last manual search through your bags (even though they’ve already been scanned twice by this point). My guy was rifling through all my stuff when he landed on some feminine hygiene products one cannot generally find in Algeria. Use your powers of deduction on that one. After a good amount of scrutiny, he apparently determined that they were not harmful to the plane or its passengers, and he let me proceed.

Flight number one from Algiers to Frankfurt went well except for the FIVE screaming children in the row in front of me (noise canceling headphones are the best invention ever). Flight number two from Frankfurt to Algiers had significantly fewer screaming children. Both flights (Lufthansa) were on time. Let’s hear it for German punctuality!

So I made it. Stay tuned for more details on our Austrian getaway.