Last night around 9 PM Barb and I decided to go eat dinner at a cute little outdoor restaurant in the walled part of Nicosia, also known as the old city. We debated whether or not to get meze because we weren't sure if we were hungry enough for it. With meze here, you don't choose which plates to order like you do with meze or tapas in the U.S. You order meze for two and then you just wait as they bring plate after plate after plate of surprises. You never know what or how much you're going to get but it's always a lot. But it is the most awesome food ever so no matter how full you are, you just have to keep eating! So we ordered the meze and some Keo (local beer) and ate and drank until we were ready to have the waiter roll us home. We even ate the snails, because we are trying to broaden our horizons or whatever. But as we were finishing up a white-haired man probably in his early 60's came over and shook our hands and asked us if we were enjoying our dinner. We assumed he was the manager or cook or something so we just said "Yes, thank you, "but he just kind of stood there.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked us. Barb and I just looked at each other and then back at him like, uh...are we supposed to? Turns out he is the mayor of Nicosia and he and his wife were sitting down at the table behind us. Everyone else at the restaurant was clearly aware of this.
He sat down at the table with his wife but continued to talk to us, introducing us to his wife, telling us whats good and what we should've ordered, and asking us if we wanted more beers on him. We've read numerous times that when a Greek Cypriot offers you something, you just don't turn them down. Especially if it has to do with food or their company. Plus were not the type to turn down free beer, so even though we were stuffed, we said sure. But that turned into "Would you like to join us?" Uh oh...food AND company-related; we knew had no choice. So sure enough we got up from our table and went to sit at theirs. Michael the mayor ordered beer after beer after beer for us and insisted that we try all of their food, because even though we might've had it before, we had to try it with yogurt, or lemon, or this or that. So, we did. At this point we were so stuffed we thought we were going to be sick. Then they ordered dessert (a whole 'nother story). But anyway, they were really interesting and very sweet people and they gave us a whole history lesson on Nicosia and Cyprus and talked about their children and grandchildren and their house in the mountains and their other house on the beach, etc, etc. This man, prior to being Mayor of Nicosia was the founder of Cooper Greece and Cooper Cyprus (of Price, Waterhouse, and Cooper). So, needless to say it was fine with us when he picked up our tab in addition to all of the food and beer we had of theirs! Basically we had two free dinners and about a keg of Keo on the mayor.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Day 8 (I should really come up with more creative names for these, huh?)
I just want to say thank you to the few of you who read that day one blog posting and emailed me. I guess I didnt really realize how pathetic I sounded; besides I didnt think anyone really read these things. But I'm really glad to know that friends and family care and really are just a click or call away. I think that one of the many lessons that I'll learn over here is about true friendship and how it doesnt matter how often you see someone, or what you do when youre together, or how many arguments you've been in, or what weirdness has ever gone down, or even how long you've known someone. Friendship will prevail if two people want it to, and thats important to remember.
By the way, things are going much better on this end. I actually feel like I've been here forever. If the entire two years goes by as slowly as the past 8 days have, I'm in trouble. Or maybe that's good. We'll see. Besides, I've been told that once I get a job or a life or whatever, my days will go a lot faster.
Barb's doing well. Her job is pretty exciting because almost everything she's been doing in DC for the past three or four years was essentially preparing her for this. So I can imagine that must be a good feeling.
We saw the house that we'll be moving into. It is insane. 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 2 living rooms, a huge outdoor patio with a built-in grill. So please know that anyone is more than welcome to come visit. Seriously! We certainly have the room.
Im getting worried that I won't be able to get a job over here. We've heard from a number of different people that local companies don't hire non-EU people very often. Now that Cyprus is part of the EU, they give priority to EU citizens (after Cypriots of course) which puts me pretty far down the list. Pretty much if you are an American, you gotta know someone. So I'm working on the few leads that I have and if those dont pan out I'll have to go join all the Russians that work in the resort towns on the beach. Apparently you dont need to know English OR Greek to do that.
I have found stuff to do to keep me busy though. I've been going to the gym a lot. I found 2 yoga studios, but I haven't gone yet b/c they haven't been open. The city is a ghost town in August; everyone is on "holiday". Its a little bizarre actually, that stores just completely close down for weeks at a time because people go on holiday. Silly Americans and our carefully planned vacation days, getting approval from our bosses so we dont ALL go on vacation at once. What do we know?
Then, just in case your store hadn't closed for the month of August, it was a Cypriot holiday on Tuesday. Lucky for us, Barb gets off on all US and local holidays. And because of all the hard work the embassy did during the whole Beirut evacuation thing they were given Monday off too (note: Barb wasnt even here yet for that so bonus for us). So since Barb had a 4 day weekend (and my life is a weekend), we went to a town called Limassol and went to a bunch of bars and clubs, spent the night at a hotel, and went to the beach the next day. That night we walked and walked to try to find the only gay bar in the town and when we finally got there it was about the size of my closet (all these years to come out of it...) and there were MAYBE 10 people- including us-sitting at the bar. The bartender said it was because it was a holiday weekend and people were out of town. I thought about lecturing him that it couldn't possibly hold more than 20 without being a complete fire hazard, but I didnt know how to say all that in Greek. Oh well. At the next bar we went to, we had finished our beer and were about to leave when a waiter stopped us with two new beers. Apparently the bartender didn't want us to leave yet. Either that or he felt bad for us because he knows how freakin overpriced everything in this country is!
Everything is crazy expensive here. Prices appear to be comparable to dollars at first glance but when you have to double that number, and THEN add some, its pretty ridiculous. Nicosia is home to the most expensive (or maybe second most expensive, I forget) Starbucks in the world. Certain things (like vegetables and pork...random) are really cheap. But then there's syrup which cost the equivalent of almost $10 for a normal size bottle. Who knew?
Barb and I are both getting accustomed to driving on the left side of the road a lot faster than I expected. We've been going out driving just about every night taking turns driving and navigating with a map. Its a good way to learn the city and to practice our new found driving skills. Secretly I think its just a competition to see who will wreck the rental car first. The drivers here are seriously crazy. And just to make things more challenging, the road signs, where they exist, are no bigger than our neighborhood road signs, but in Greek with English under it. So you cant read the name of the street until you are on top (or usually past) the street. Parking is great though because unlike DC, there are virtually no rules. It doesnt matter which way your car is facing, how far from the curb it is (in fact most are parked with two tires ON the curb), how far from a corner...Nothing! I feel so naughty.
Well, this has been a long update and Ive probably lost most of you by now, so Yea Sas!
By the way, things are going much better on this end. I actually feel like I've been here forever. If the entire two years goes by as slowly as the past 8 days have, I'm in trouble. Or maybe that's good. We'll see. Besides, I've been told that once I get a job or a life or whatever, my days will go a lot faster.
Barb's doing well. Her job is pretty exciting because almost everything she's been doing in DC for the past three or four years was essentially preparing her for this. So I can imagine that must be a good feeling.
We saw the house that we'll be moving into. It is insane. 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 2 living rooms, a huge outdoor patio with a built-in grill. So please know that anyone is more than welcome to come visit. Seriously! We certainly have the room.
Im getting worried that I won't be able to get a job over here. We've heard from a number of different people that local companies don't hire non-EU people very often. Now that Cyprus is part of the EU, they give priority to EU citizens (after Cypriots of course) which puts me pretty far down the list. Pretty much if you are an American, you gotta know someone. So I'm working on the few leads that I have and if those dont pan out I'll have to go join all the Russians that work in the resort towns on the beach. Apparently you dont need to know English OR Greek to do that.
I have found stuff to do to keep me busy though. I've been going to the gym a lot. I found 2 yoga studios, but I haven't gone yet b/c they haven't been open. The city is a ghost town in August; everyone is on "holiday". Its a little bizarre actually, that stores just completely close down for weeks at a time because people go on holiday. Silly Americans and our carefully planned vacation days, getting approval from our bosses so we dont ALL go on vacation at once. What do we know?
Then, just in case your store hadn't closed for the month of August, it was a Cypriot holiday on Tuesday. Lucky for us, Barb gets off on all US and local holidays. And because of all the hard work the embassy did during the whole Beirut evacuation thing they were given Monday off too (note: Barb wasnt even here yet for that so bonus for us). So since Barb had a 4 day weekend (and my life is a weekend), we went to a town called Limassol and went to a bunch of bars and clubs, spent the night at a hotel, and went to the beach the next day. That night we walked and walked to try to find the only gay bar in the town and when we finally got there it was about the size of my closet (all these years to come out of it...) and there were MAYBE 10 people- including us-sitting at the bar. The bartender said it was because it was a holiday weekend and people were out of town. I thought about lecturing him that it couldn't possibly hold more than 20 without being a complete fire hazard, but I didnt know how to say all that in Greek. Oh well. At the next bar we went to, we had finished our beer and were about to leave when a waiter stopped us with two new beers. Apparently the bartender didn't want us to leave yet. Either that or he felt bad for us because he knows how freakin overpriced everything in this country is!
Everything is crazy expensive here. Prices appear to be comparable to dollars at first glance but when you have to double that number, and THEN add some, its pretty ridiculous. Nicosia is home to the most expensive (or maybe second most expensive, I forget) Starbucks in the world. Certain things (like vegetables and pork...random) are really cheap. But then there's syrup which cost the equivalent of almost $10 for a normal size bottle. Who knew?
Barb and I are both getting accustomed to driving on the left side of the road a lot faster than I expected. We've been going out driving just about every night taking turns driving and navigating with a map. Its a good way to learn the city and to practice our new found driving skills. Secretly I think its just a competition to see who will wreck the rental car first. The drivers here are seriously crazy. And just to make things more challenging, the road signs, where they exist, are no bigger than our neighborhood road signs, but in Greek with English under it. So you cant read the name of the street until you are on top (or usually past) the street. Parking is great though because unlike DC, there are virtually no rules. It doesnt matter which way your car is facing, how far from the curb it is (in fact most are parked with two tires ON the curb), how far from a corner...Nothing! I feel so naughty.
Well, this has been a long update and Ive probably lost most of you by now, so Yea Sas!
Friday, August 11, 2006
We're here (cyprus, day 3)
Our trip here was long. Altogether we were traveling for 27 hours. Yup. Me, Barb, our 6 pieces of luggage plus 3 cats! First stop was Boston where we got to see the cats and meet Sean for dinner, which was especially nice b/c our flight to Zurich was delayed. In fact it was delayed so much that we wouldve missed our connection to Athens so pretty much everything had to be switched around so we could make it to Larnaca at the right time to be picked up by this guy from the embassy whose number we didnt have. It all worked out though. The cats were admitted into the country with (almost) no problems. We got in around midnight and home around 2 AM and first thing the guy told Barb was that she was expected to be in a meeting at work at 8:30 AM. Yes, he was serious. And Barb went. And I slept. A lot.
Now I'm sitting in our apt in nicosia. It is just a temporary place for about 3 weeks until the people move out of "our" house and it gets cleaned and painted. The temporary apartment is huge - it could fit 2 of our dc houses in it. And supposedly the house is even bigger. It's weird, we aren't going to know what to do with the space. I hope we don't lose the cats! This apt is right across from the embassy so that's been really convenient. Barb can walk to work, come home for lunch (and wake me up b/c I can't seem to manage to get my ass out of bed before 1 PM, damn jetlag), and I can go over to the embassy to use the gym, post office, etc. Our house won't be as convenient but I guess it will have its own perks, we'll see.
The weather is awesome. Hot during the day but around 5 PM there is a wonderful breeze that totally cools everything down. There are palm trees everywhere, flowers, fruit growing on trees...it's beautiful. Not that I've been awake enough to really enjoy it, but jetlag can't last THAT long, right?
Now I'm sitting in our apt in nicosia. It is just a temporary place for about 3 weeks until the people move out of "our" house and it gets cleaned and painted. The temporary apartment is huge - it could fit 2 of our dc houses in it. And supposedly the house is even bigger. It's weird, we aren't going to know what to do with the space. I hope we don't lose the cats! This apt is right across from the embassy so that's been really convenient. Barb can walk to work, come home for lunch (and wake me up b/c I can't seem to manage to get my ass out of bed before 1 PM, damn jetlag), and I can go over to the embassy to use the gym, post office, etc. Our house won't be as convenient but I guess it will have its own perks, we'll see.
The weather is awesome. Hot during the day but around 5 PM there is a wonderful breeze that totally cools everything down. There are palm trees everywhere, flowers, fruit growing on trees...it's beautiful. Not that I've been awake enough to really enjoy it, but jetlag can't last THAT long, right?
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
cyprus day one
Well here I am. What the hell am I going to do? I'll find myself. I'll meditate on the so many things that I need to. I'll be a better Buddhist. I'll meditate on letting go. Not grasping. Not holding on, not chasing after. I read a plaque on the boardwalk that said happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it the more it gets away from you but when you just sit down and stop chasing after it, it will come land right on your shoulder. Or something like that. Anyway, that is exactly the lesson I need to learn. Before leaving for Cyprus I was chasing something and running from something else at the same time. But I've been forced to stop. Being pulled in different directions really has an impact on the mind and body. My stomach hurts. There's tremendous pressure on my chest and emptiness in my heart. I can't get a good night's sleep and I'm always either dead tired or so hyperactive I can't even do anything productive. I can't turn off my mind. I'm scared I won't be able to find silence. Stillness. I'm scared that I won't be able to stop the chase. I'm a million miles away physically but how can I bring my mind to where my body is?
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