Dinner at the American Embassy
I've been sans laptop for a day after one of the Algerian Parliament IT experts made some modifications for connection purposes at the Capitol, and I forgot to ask him to change it back (technobabble: he changed the configuration of the proxy settings, and I tried everything other than taking the laptop apart before seeing that the proxy server had been modified, making it bypass the local gateway). Here's a picture of Algiers at night (right).
We stopped by the American Embassy here in Algiers last night and had a great visit with Deputy Ambassador Tom Daughton along with Political Officers Ryan Campbell and Lynn. Surprisingly, they had read Under the Dome and incorporated some of it into their daily report back to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. Embassy was opened here in 1962 shortly after Algeria received its independence from France. The country has been a stalwart, vocal supporter of the global war on terrorism.
Rock the Casbah
In addition to visiting the Embassy, we also reserved a couple of hours yesterday afternoon after meetings to see the city and part of the country and to visit the Casbah, one of the oldest and finest inner-city sites on the Mediterranean. This famous place, built in 1516, is a maze of streets and narrow alleys and amazingly constructed houses, historical structures and markets. Think of the French Quarter meeting San Francisco. We also stopped by Tipaza, a beautifully preserved group of Phoenician, Roman, palaeochristian and Byzantine ruins. We had a security detail that accompanied us for the entire visit here in Algeria.
Au Revoir Alger, on to Fayetteville
I'm en route back home via Germany and will land in Texarkana at 9:05 p.m. Thursday night. I have to be in Fayetteville Friday morning at 7:30 a.m. for the final session and graduation of Leadership Arkansas, so I'll immediately hit the road up Hwy. 71 upon landing tomorrow night. This has been a very impressive and productive trip, and I've learned as much from the Algerian MPs (members of Parliament) as I hope they've learned from me. I'll be posting a full summary over the weekend.
Update: Here's an Algerian forum discussing the trip. Someone more fluent in French will have to translate for me.
We stopped by the American Embassy here in Algiers last night and had a great visit with Deputy Ambassador Tom Daughton along with Political Officers Ryan Campbell and Lynn. Surprisingly, they had read Under the Dome and incorporated some of it into their daily report back to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. Embassy was opened here in 1962 shortly after Algeria received its independence from France. The country has been a stalwart, vocal supporter of the global war on terrorism.
Rock the Casbah
In addition to visiting the Embassy, we also reserved a couple of hours yesterday afternoon after meetings to see the city and part of the country and to visit the Casbah, one of the oldest and finest inner-city sites on the Mediterranean. This famous place, built in 1516, is a maze of streets and narrow alleys and amazingly constructed houses, historical structures and markets. Think of the French Quarter meeting San Francisco. We also stopped by Tipaza, a beautifully preserved group of Phoenician, Roman, palaeochristian and Byzantine ruins. We had a security detail that accompanied us for the entire visit here in Algeria.
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Au Revoir Alger, on to Fayetteville
I'm en route back home via Germany and will land in Texarkana at 9:05 p.m. Thursday night. I have to be in Fayetteville Friday morning at 7:30 a.m. for the final session and graduation of Leadership Arkansas, so I'll immediately hit the road up Hwy. 71 upon landing tomorrow night. This has been a very impressive and productive trip, and I've learned as much from the Algerian MPs (members of Parliament) as I hope they've learned from me. I'll be posting a full summary over the weekend.
Update: Here's an Algerian forum discussing the trip. Someone more fluent in French will have to translate for me.
posted by Steve Harrelson @ 6/24/2009 06:37:00 AM | Permalink |
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