Wednesday, November 15, 2006
I got a job and I'm goin to Athens
Around September 20th or so I applied for a job at the Unit for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture which is a project of the Cyprus Neuroscience and Technology Institute http://www.cnti.org.cy/ and is funded by the European Refugee Fund and the Cypriot Government. I never heard back from them, and in the meantime as you all know, I had other interviews and became very discouraged at my opportunities to ever work in this country. Last Tuesday, however I got a call to come in for an interview -that day. Long story short, I got the job. They are going to get me a work permit and I go to Greece this Monday for a 5-day training at the Medical Rehabilitation Center, Athens. Wish me luck! I'll need it - I have to learn Greek. Fast.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Not till you abandon all thought of seeking for something...will you be on the right road
If I had a dollar for every time one of us said to the other, "This can't be a real road," I'd be rich.
This weekend Barb and I decided to get out of the big city and do something different. At home, we have this tradition of going wine tasting every fall in Shenandoah Valley. And seeing how Cyprus is about as internationally known for its wines as Virginia we decided to carry on the tradition here. Unfortunately, our oldest child, Velvet had just came home from the vet and needed to be given 3 types of medication daily and a wound on his leg cleaned twice a day. We debated what do to and ultimately decided that it was a beautiful day and we weren't about to let being thousands of miles away, or a sick cat, get between us and our wine weekend tradition.
So, we packed our suitcases, a litter box, a bag of cat meds, a cooler of tuna (the only thing Velvet is eating), and of course the little man himself, into the convertible and off we went. We checked into our hotel, assured the woman that the cat would stay in his box (yeah right), got Velvet situated, and headed out on the great wine tour.
It was Friday at 2:30 PM when we arrived at the first winery, which was still actually in the town of Limassol. There, we were informed that they only give tours and tastings at 10 AM Monday through Friday. Of course, when else would people want to drink wine?? Ok, on to the next. Same thing. So we decided to head out to the villages where the real, authentic vineyards and wineries are. My friend had given me a little wine guide pamphlet from the Cyprus Tourism Organization that supposedly led the visitor from one winery to the next. I had looked at it ahead of time and mapped it out, highlighting the route we were going to take and everything. Well, that turned out to be about as useful as if Velvet had told us the way.
We finally saw a sign for a winery on the side of the road so decided to check it out. Next thing I know the road in front of us pretty much dropped off. But I was driving and thought, "hey that looks like fun!" It looked sort of like the log flume, without water. So down we went. When it led absolutely nowhere, I just made an quick little18 point turn and tried to head back up. I floored the car in first gear and just out of habit tried to put it into second gear and that's when the car stopped. Vertically. So I freaked out, put the emergency break on the hardest I could (great smell by the way), said "good luck" to Barb and got out. I don't know how she did it, but being her brand new car, she was going to find a way to get that car up the hill.
We did manage to find one winery but it was deserted and looked like it was out of a horror movie so we left. After several other road leading nowhere experiences, we had pretty much given up but decided to keep driving to our destination village and just explore. Right after we decided to stop looking for wineries, what do we see? A "Free Wine Tasting" sign. We thought it was a mirage but we headed toward it anyway. At the end of the "road" there was a little winery and three men standing outside by a truck. We sat in the car trying to decide what to do. It didn't exactly look like the wine tasting facilities back in VA. But we had been spotted so we had no choice but to get out of the car and ask if they really did have wine tasting.
"You want to taste wine? Come."
A half hour later, we left with a box of 11 bottles of wine, and a "present" of a bottle of Zivania (compare to rubbing alcohol) and package of homemade cypriot sweets. As he carried the wine to the car for us he invited us to his restaurant in another village down on the coast for dinner and told us to call him if we needed a place to stay! I don't think they get many American visitors there.
Later that night we had nothing better to do so we drove to the village and found our way to his restaurant. But when we stepped in the front door there was obviously a private party going on and we definitely weren't part of the family. Maybe he wasn't aware of that when he invited us or maybe he just thought we'd join the party. Either way, we turned around and left. But since we had driven all the way to this village we decided to stay and find somewhere else to eat and ended up finding a really cute little taverna with a fireplace and really good meze. So it was worth it. Plus it is fun to explore the cypriot villages. You get to see a lot of things that you don't see in the cities.
"Not till you abandon all thought of seeking for something...will you be on the right road..."
The next day we had similar experiences looking for a "nature trail." We saw them on the map but couldn't actually find them in reality. We even found the parking lot for one with a big map of the trail. But looking around, it was nowhere to be found. So we just picked a direction (up) and started walking. Who needs their stupid nature trail when you're following a determined Barbwho won't stop until she's at the very top of the mountain. We saw some interesting things along the way, like a creepy church shrine thing randomly in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain, cacti, goats, and nice scenery. Going down the mountain without a trail was a little more difficult than climbing up it. I don't have any pictures of that because I was using both hands to grip onto anything I possibly could that wouldn't crumble in my hands to try to make it to the bottom in one piece.
We're home now safe and sound in Nicosia, rejuvenated from our weekend outdoors. And Velvet is doing well, even bragging to Luna and Pandora about the vacation that they missed out on.
This weekend Barb and I decided to get out of the big city and do something different. At home, we have this tradition of going wine tasting every fall in Shenandoah Valley. And seeing how Cyprus is about as internationally known for its wines as Virginia we decided to carry on the tradition here. Unfortunately, our oldest child, Velvet had just came home from the vet and needed to be given 3 types of medication daily and a wound on his leg cleaned twice a day. We debated what do to and ultimately decided that it was a beautiful day and we weren't about to let being thousands of miles away, or a sick cat, get between us and our wine weekend tradition.
So, we packed our suitcases, a litter box, a bag of cat meds, a cooler of tuna (the only thing Velvet is eating), and of course the little man himself, into the convertible and off we went. We checked into our hotel, assured the woman that the cat would stay in his box (yeah right), got Velvet situated, and headed out on the great wine tour.
It was Friday at 2:30 PM when we arrived at the first winery, which was still actually in the town of Limassol. There, we were informed that they only give tours and tastings at 10 AM Monday through Friday. Of course, when else would people want to drink wine?? Ok, on to the next. Same thing. So we decided to head out to the villages where the real, authentic vineyards and wineries are. My friend had given me a little wine guide pamphlet from the Cyprus Tourism Organization that supposedly led the visitor from one winery to the next. I had looked at it ahead of time and mapped it out, highlighting the route we were going to take and everything. Well, that turned out to be about as useful as if Velvet had told us the way.
We finally saw a sign for a winery on the side of the road so decided to check it out. Next thing I know the road in front of us pretty much dropped off. But I was driving and thought, "hey that looks like fun!" It looked sort of like the log flume, without water. So down we went. When it led absolutely nowhere, I just made an quick little18 point turn and tried to head back up. I floored the car in first gear and just out of habit tried to put it into second gear and that's when the car stopped. Vertically. So I freaked out, put the emergency break on the hardest I could (great smell by the way), said "good luck" to Barb and got out. I don't know how she did it, but being her brand new car, she was going to find a way to get that car up the hill.
We did manage to find one winery but it was deserted and looked like it was out of a horror movie so we left. After several other road leading nowhere experiences, we had pretty much given up but decided to keep driving to our destination village and just explore. Right after we decided to stop looking for wineries, what do we see? A "Free Wine Tasting" sign. We thought it was a mirage but we headed toward it anyway. At the end of the "road" there was a little winery and three men standing outside by a truck. We sat in the car trying to decide what to do. It didn't exactly look like the wine tasting facilities back in VA. But we had been spotted so we had no choice but to get out of the car and ask if they really did have wine tasting.
"You want to taste wine? Come."
A half hour later, we left with a box of 11 bottles of wine, and a "present" of a bottle of Zivania (compare to rubbing alcohol) and package of homemade cypriot sweets. As he carried the wine to the car for us he invited us to his restaurant in another village down on the coast for dinner and told us to call him if we needed a place to stay! I don't think they get many American visitors there.
Later that night we had nothing better to do so we drove to the village and found our way to his restaurant. But when we stepped in the front door there was obviously a private party going on and we definitely weren't part of the family. Maybe he wasn't aware of that when he invited us or maybe he just thought we'd join the party. Either way, we turned around and left. But since we had driven all the way to this village we decided to stay and find somewhere else to eat and ended up finding a really cute little taverna with a fireplace and really good meze. So it was worth it. Plus it is fun to explore the cypriot villages. You get to see a lot of things that you don't see in the cities.
"Not till you abandon all thought of seeking for something...will you be on the right road..."
The next day we had similar experiences looking for a "nature trail." We saw them on the map but couldn't actually find them in reality. We even found the parking lot for one with a big map of the trail. But looking around, it was nowhere to be found. So we just picked a direction (up) and started walking. Who needs their stupid nature trail when you're following a determined Barbwho won't stop until she's at the very top of the mountain. We saw some interesting things along the way, like a creepy church shrine thing randomly in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain, cacti, goats, and nice scenery. Going down the mountain without a trail was a little more difficult than climbing up it. I don't have any pictures of that because I was using both hands to grip onto anything I possibly could that wouldn't crumble in my hands to try to make it to the bottom in one piece.
We're home now safe and sound in Nicosia, rejuvenated from our weekend outdoors. And Velvet is doing well, even bragging to Luna and Pandora about the vacation that they missed out on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
