Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Day Three in Algeria
Badr the guide and Nibaj the driver put me into the abyss more than a few times as we traversed seven bridges, the canyon itself, two museums, and various sights I would never have looked at on my own. But “on my own” wasn’t really on the table in Algeria. I could have used hotels to get my visa support letters, and used a taxi on arrival, but this was one of those situations where to get the visa, the budget hotels, and the guide when I needed one, it was just easier to go with Fancyellow, the most appealing of the options I found online.
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Day Two in Algeria
I flew from Algiers to Constantine last night, arriving at 7:35pm, and I was in my hotel by 8:30.
“Is there a hotel restaurant?” I asked the Ibis receptionist.
“No, but the Novotel next door has one.”
I dropped off my bag and headed to the Novotel, where there was a buffet for $30. I’m one medium-sized human and I definitely didn’t need a $30 buffet, though I was pretty hungry.
After a complex series of negotiations involved my limited French and Arabic, and a cashier’s limited English, we established that he’d let me take one plate from the hot food area for ten dollars. Simple—a small bit of chicken, veggies, rice, and potatoes. What more could I ask for?
I walked more than 22,000 steps yesterday, so I slept well in my little Ibis room. Breakfast was a plentiful (excessive, really) variety of bread products, scrambled eggs with optional processed Vienna sausage type meat (I did not opt), a sadly struggling automated coffee dispenser, some delicious yogurt, and a slice of local pomegranate. I regretted the pomegranate when I realized I had no elegant way of extracting the seeds with my little breakfast plate and a fork. The guide, Badro, fetched me at 9, and we drove out of Constantine to a smooth, new highway that took us to Setif over two hours.
Saturday, October 28, 2023
Algiers Walking Tour (and the metro, too)
In Algiers
Seagulls call to each other over the rusting satellite dishes, perched on the cracked painted 1930s concrete so many call home. Feral kittens play and occasionally yowl on the street below. The smell of diesel mixes with the whiff of cigarette smoke.
Remember cigarettes? They still live here, right off the Mediterranean.
Where the Mediterranean diet means something different. A local hotel breakfast buffet offers croissants, pain au chocolat, sliced white bread, brown muffins, vanilla muffins, French bread, pastries, and cookies. I’ve never seen so many carbs...
Except of course when I traveled to the Middle East and North Africa. Hard-boiled egg, a container of yogurt, cheese in a foil triangle, and eight types of bread.
I haven’t missed it.
I feel a pang of nostalgia for simpler times when eating bread didn’t equal regret.
Good thing I took so many packets of peanuts from work.
Friday, October 27, 2023
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Work and Fun in One Trip
Packed for both Algeria AND Sweden. I had to buy a new bag, my carry-on can only deal with one climate at a time.
Vanity In Flight
I can watch myself at 40,000 feet. I'm interviewed in the documentary on the left.
I won't, because like most everyone else, I don't know how to react to video of myself. But I could. Which is both kind of fun but also weird.
Monday, October 23, 2023
Progress in Pottery Class
I tried a combination of the glaze "lipstick purple" over "brilliant black."
It came out nicely. The blue tape shows where the glaze dripped. I'll have to grind that off.
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
A Special Day In JC
Apparently it's National Opossum Day!
I like opossums. They eat bugs in my yard.
This opossum is eating cat food, not bugs.
Friday, October 06, 2023
Tuesday, October 03, 2023
Just Say No
I went to see writer Sean Howe talk about his new book tonight, over in Echo Park. I thought it would be a record of the magazine HIGH TIMES but the book is about its enigmatic founder, Thomas King Forcade, who was a radical in the seventies, or possibly a grifter, who can really say? Anyway, it reminded me how in the seventies there would be smoke-ins on the national mall, and how pot was everywhere in those days and was nearly legalized under the Carter years. This isn't a book about pot, though, that's just part of the story.
Of course, the Reagan era was coming and the world was about to change a whole lot. Anyway, the book sounded great so I was fortunate enough to buy the last copy at the bookstore and get Sean to sign it.
But you know what makes this book extra-special? Cover art by Bill Sienkiewicz! (Sean let me have one of the posters.)