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!