Sunday January 29, 2006 – Sunday, Lazy Sunday

Well we’ve embraced the culture of Cyprus…no need to rush to do anything on Sunday, because pretty much everything is closed. Luckily our local coffee shop and the Cyprus version of 7-11 (So Easy) were open for me to grab a mocha, a couple pastries and an International Tribune. The morning/afternoon was lazily spent watching Cyprus’ tennis savior in the Australian Open, getting our dose of weekly news, watching a movie, taking a nap, and a strolling around the neighborhood.

Since our fridge still looks like we’re in college (two oranges, cheese, a bit of salami, water, milk, and juice) and stores aren’t open on Sundays, we broke down and ordered pizza from a pizza menu (in Greek) that had been put in our mail box. Once delivery guy arrived, we learned that Mammma (three “m’s” are correct) Mia’s pizza is Pizza Hut (evident by the Pizza Hut and Mammma Mia branding on the boxes). The hoodwinkment was even more disappointing when it became evident that Pizza Hut here is no where near as tasty as those sinfully good Pizza Hut personal pan pizza’s from high school days.


(Sunday's stroll along the coast)

Saturday January 28, 2006 – Traversing the Green Line

The firm rented us a full size SUV today so the group of us (six people) could embark on a one hour drive to Nicosia (Lefkosia) for the day. The catalyst for the trip was an invite by Aldriene to join he and his wife (Melody) for dinner in the capital of Cyprus. Nicosia is the largest city in Cyprus with a population of approximately 200,000 people. The city was built in the 7th century and since was controlled at one point by the Franks, Venetians (built the imposing walls around the city), Ottomans/Turks, British… Currently, Nicosia is a divided capital with a “Green Line” (United Nations demilitarized zone) separating the Turkish north (invaded in 1974) and the Cypriot south. There is one checkpoint in which Turkish, Cypriots, and tourists can pass between the two countries for a day at a time (must return by 5:30 PM). Sandbags, rubble, vacant buildings, and barbed wire skirt the entire border which we were able to follow as we traversed through narrow, cobbled streets.


(UN Watch Tower, Paul at Border)
Besides the cobbled “Euro streets,” the remainder of the city had a relatively cosmopolitan feeling wide avenues and paved streets. We visited the Cyprus Museum; fourteen rooms of archaeological finds throughout Cyprus (pots, figurines, coins, statues…) and relaxed at a café before heading to Aldriene’s and Melody’s home. Prior to going to Aegean, we chatted for an hour over wine and appetizers. Aegean is a truly Cypriot (we were the only “tourists”) restaurant tucked into a restored building in the middle of the old city. It seems that at a true Cypriot restaurant, the more experienced/regular at the restaurant orders for the whole table, in our case it was Aldriene. Once ordered, the wine is poured and assorted plates of food (salad, hummus, tahini, souvlakia (meet kebabs), kleftiko (slow roasted lamb), souvla (bbq’d lamb), moussaka, keftedes (meatballs), halloumi (white cheese made from goat’s milk)…) keep coming over the course of a couple hours. Meals are followed by a fresh fruit plate and coffees.




(can't escape Starbucks and McDonalds!)

Friday January 27, 2006 – Everyone’s Now a Fan of Tennis

Marcos Baghdatis
I’m guessing that most of you haven’t been watching the Australian Open, but in Cyprus it is a HUGE deal. Marcos Baghdatis is a Cypriot professional tennis player ranked 50th in the world, who just made it into the finals. The local sensationalist English newspaper “The Cyprus Weekly’s” (…we buy it each Friday for because it has the TV guide so we can map out the English movies for the week) front page headline and opening sentences today were:

“Never-say-die Marcos: The Dream Continues” – “Cypriot hero Marcos Baghdatis achieved another giant killing act yesterday by reaching the Australian Open final after dumping fourth seed David Nalbandian out of the tournament.”

All work in the office stopped as most everyone shuffled down to a standing room only cafeteria to watch the end of the semi-final match. After winning the semi-finals, people were driving around Limassol honking horns, waving flags out of windows, cheering… Apparently, a street is going to be named after him in Limassol (his home town). Today I saw a shop that just began selling screen printed t-shirts with Marcos’ face on them. It was really kind of endearing how the whole island rallied around him for a semi-final match and will more than likely plan their Sunday around the finals.

Wednesday January 25, 2006 – Knights of the Round Table

Today I donned a tie to join "C" in the office to do a little pro-bono work for all the free meals I’ve been included in over the past two weeks. Long story short, the firm is trying to develop a comprehensive worldwide training program, and today’s brainstorming session focused on how instructor quality could be enhanced. Just prior to beginning the “Cyreal Life” I taught training for a week, so I was invited to shed some light on the instructing process in the U.S. The day was spent in a “Knights of the Round Table” fashion in a conference room with the cast of characters. After earning my gold star for participation, we were rewarded with another Cypriot attempt at Mexican food at El Pueblo.

My non-statistical study of two restaurants bolsters the theory that nacho cheese Doritos are the mainstay of Cyp-Mex cuisine. However, I do have to admit that the Doritos have grown on me. I ordered the relatively tasty (in relation to NYC Mexican) chimichangas and "C's" veggie fajitas consisted of stir fried squash and onions. Although "C" works with these people all day, our dinners out together in the evenings are always full of laughs and stories.

A new addition to the Cast of Characters joined dinner this evening. Aldriene is a fifty something managing director at the firm here in Cyprus whom has been a part of the project for the past 6months. He is a self proclaimed expert on all topics and literally has an answer for everything to the point of being humorous. However, his stories are fun to listen to regardless of the b.s. tossed in here or there and he is a genuinely nice guy. He has four or five cars and avid smoker of Cuban cigars. He is not the most technically savvy of people and has been known to inadvertently erase files and blame Lotus Notes.

Tuesday January 24, 2006 – We Won’t Leave the Light on for You, B Movies, and a Guilty Conscience

Business Hours
Coming from NYC where you can get just about anything at anytime, business hours in Cyprus are a shocker. Businesses are open Monday through Friday from 8 AM to noonish, closed for a siesta from noonish to 1:30/2 PM and then close again at 5:30 PM. Banks are open 8:15 AM – 12:30 PM and post offices 8:00 AM – 1:30 PM. Banks and post offices are closed on weekends and other businesses (shops/stores) are open on Saturdays from 8AM to 2PM. Everything is closed on Sunday except for some restaurants, coffee shops, and movie theaters. Although a minor inconvenience for those used to other hours, Cyprus does have a great “work-life” balance. Unheard of in the US, lap-tops are all closed promptly at 6PM at the firm and everyone heads home.

Television
In case you were wondering, we have five television stations all in Greek. However, usually in the evenings there is one English movie on television and a half hour of BBC news. Last nights movie was some horrible English B movie on killer bats…but when that’s the only thing in English, it starts sounding pretty good :^) Sunday night we were lucky enough to have a choice of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Good Morning Vietnam. We have found a friendly neighborhood DVD rental spot for evenings when we aren’t out and about.

Recycling
Being a Californian, where throwing away a plastic bottle/soda can conger up feelings comparable to “Catholic guilt,” I begrudgingly threw away a bag of plastic bottles, juice, and cereal boxes today. Recycling apparently doesn’t exist on Cyprus. When "C" mentioned a shredder/recycle area for paper in the office, she was met with an odd look. She added “a company takes it away and turns it into paper again” and was answered with “we don’t have that here.”

Sunday, January 21 - Speedo Wearing Brits


On Sunday, we headed back to Pafos during the day to see the main tourist sites:
a) Tombs of the Kings – an ancient cemetery (3rd c. BCE) with hundreds of subterranean burial chambers cut into the rock. My souvenir was a nice little bump on the noggin from head butting a 2000 year old doorway.

b) Agia Kyriaki and St. Paul’s Pillar– this small church was built in the 12th century (still in use) to memorialize the spot where St. Paul was given 39 lashes for trying to convert the governor to Christianity.
c) Kato Pafos Archaeological Site - a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the tremendous mosaics that adorn floors of lavish villas (now ruins).
d) A late lunch of greasy fish and chips (since Cyprus is a sea of pasty Speedo wearing Brits in the summer, there are a ton of British pubs) tided us over until our early evening stop at a coffee shop. Coffee shops here by the way aren’t the normal “Starbucks,” but hip spots with music, cool furniture, games (backgammon and chess are popular, but we found Connect 4 and byo’d a cribbage board), full of Cypriots smoking and chatting for hours.

Saturday January 20, 2006 - Stellar Euro Driver

Saturday morning began with me trekking out to National/Alamo rental car to pick up our Nissan Micro for the weekend. And lucky for us, since Cyprus is an ex-British commonwealth, driving (and shifting for that matter) are on the left-hand side of the road. I was confident in my hand/eye/foot/pedal/wrong side of the road skills even though:

a) My previous international driving experiences were less than stellar – Grenada: shaved at least a year of both our lives (we’ll leave it at that), Germany: backed/bottomed out into a cornfield, Fiji: wrong way in a roundabout, Italy: rear-ended a DHL delivery truck at 3 miles an hour for no good reason (mild confusion with the brake/clutch stuck in traffic on a hill), Sicily: scraped (6 inches) the side of the car trying to squeeze through a winding Euro street…to name a few. And
b) Per one of our several travel guides: “Cypriots can be reckless drivers, ignoring red lights, and overtaking on bends.”

I made a "C" pickup back at our flat and then we were off. "C's" invaluable map reading and occasional “my side” reminders (drive on the left side when making a turn) were key to our incident/accident/stall free day weekend. We were moving along at a steady clip on a somewhat curvy road under the posted “60 kph” and I was thinking that it seemed a little fast. Based on ‘b’ above I figured the Cypriots just drive like maniacs, and then I realized mph were the dominant numbers on our speedometer, while kph were itty tiny. Following my Nascar debut, I reduced my speed to kph.

Our Saturday drive made the following stops along the way:

a) Kourion – an ancient hilltop city with a 3,500 seat Roman theater, several remains of residences with original mosaics, and great Mediterranean sea views.

b) Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates – complex of temples and shrines to the sun god Apollo.

c) Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite's shores )– legend has it that Aphrodite was born from the sea foam at this beach. We also found this lost NASA astronaut.

d) We dropped in on two beautiful resorts – Columbia Resort and Aphrodite Hills InterContinental.
e) We finished with an evening stroll and in the city of Pafos (located on the western coast and founded in 320 BCE). Like the locals, we also partook in watching of a football match while we drank our tea/hot chocolates/cappuccinos.

Friday January 20, 2006 – Tier or Two Below Sizzler

Tonight we were invited to join the Limassol office’s promotion party at Draft Bar, a brewery/restaurant whose specialty was a changing daily brew as well as serving Mexican food. The beer tasted like a bad Corona and the “Mexican food” appetizers were nacho cheese Doritos and a selection of dips – white nacho cheese (reminiscent of Madison Square Garden or any sporting event), sour cream, some sort of processed avocado surprise, salsa/spaghetti sauce, and a few others of unknown origin. But we were starving, so we feasted on the fine bounty of a Cypriot’s version of Mexican appetizers and enjoyed the conversations with the “Cast of Characters” (less Nichos). The interior and atmosphere was oddly reminiscent of the Los Gatos Brewing Company.

There had seemed to be a reoccurring trend over the past week – a steady decline in dinners since Neon Phaliron. We were taken out to dinner this past Wednesday night to Scotty’s which was touted over and over again as the best steak house in all of Cyprus. While the atmosphere was nice and the menu cover flaunted the owner’s pursuits in steakhouse restaurateuring in London, the steak quality was a tier or two below what Sizzler could muster up. I think this could have something to do with not seeing one cow on this island so far. Even though the meal lacked a little bit to be desired, the conversations and laughs continue to be terrific.

On a side note, I haven’t purchased anything other than our “full fat” cow milk at the grocery store. The continued patronage to the “thick milk” is that it seems to be the only one which has anything written in English and the remaining brands have photos with goats on them. There’s something a bit more reassuring about nuzzling up to a cow udder than a goat’s…although the concept of drinking any animals milk is odd in general.

Following our gorging on chips and dips, Steph, Kane, Inigo, "C", and I went to Mez Tabla, a small “mom and pop” restaurant for a fine Cypriot meal. “Pop” served us our meals along with a few jokes and niceties. "C" got this amazing chicken tandori and I got the hugest chunk of lamb I’ve seen at a restaurant (definitely an Anytown, USA portion not a Euro one). Hopefully this marks the turning point in our dinners in Cyprus!

Levanco Tower #1 (part 2)

Here are some more photos. Note that there are three bedrooms (one master with bath, one with a twin and LOTS of closet space, and one with two twin beds), another full bath (including bidet), and another view of the living room.

Levanco Tower #1 - The Apartment

Here are some pictures of the apartment. We're on the sixth floor of a seven story building, with two Euro sized elevators. It's about a 5 minute walk to the office, and about 15 to the water.


The view from the apartment, the living room, hallway to the bedrooms,


Paul making dinner (spaghetti with lemon chicken) - it's a big kitchen!

The Office
It's brand new, and full of firm branding. All the walls are painted in the colors of the firm, including the bathroom. Every detail down to the coasters and flower vases in the cafeteria carry the firm name. It's the cleanest office I've ever been inside, with three cleaning women present all day constantly working. People don't leave paper and files all around. Employees also keep Cyprus business hours, which means they are at their desks by 8 am, go home at 1 for lunch and return at 2:30 (they all drive home), and leave promptly at 6 (5:30 during non-busy season times). I've never seen a firm office leave all at the same time. Even during a fire drill, people don't leave their desks at the same uniformity as these people. Good for them for getting home to their friends and families. My project team however, so far has been working until 8.

Tuesday January 17, 2006 - Adventures in Euro Appliances and Electronics

Room Temp Boost
Being the rugged, football watching, mechanically inclined, man’s man (hopefully you can sense the sarcasm) that I am, you’d think that after being in Cyprus for three full days I would have been able to figure out these wall heaters in our flat. Luckily today I think I’ve mastered punching in the navi-coordinates from the rotary gurter to keep them operating. Every electrical outlet on the walls throughout the apartment have little switches on them to turn on the power. However “pushed in = on” doesn’t apply to every one scattered throughout the apartment as some are just the opposite. Compound this with these circa 1985 wall heater’s roughly two hour warm up time and their confusing two dials “Automatic Input and” “Room Temp Boost.” Hopefully you can picture the frustrating evening switch flipping/dial turning trial and error in a chilly tile filled apartment for the first three days here.
















The Switch
After a couple days of luke warm showers, we were advised to “turn on the water heater” by Kang and Inigo. I searched our flat high and low for anything remotely looking like a Euro version of a water heater to no avail. Luckily they chimed in with an essential clue the other day and mentioned that there is a lighted switch of the bathroom that has to be turned on about an hour before you want a shower – i.e. no visible water heater. So we’re happy to report the mornings have been starting off much better with the “switch” discovery.

Laundry Man Extraordinaire
Monday was my first attempt of running the washing machine. Not to toot my own horn, but generally I consider myself a laundry man extraordinaire. However, the complexity of the buttons and knobs, lack of instructions for our make and model, and any writing in English (or Greek for that matter) on our Euro washer – I was prepared for quite a struggle figuring it out how to get it going. Fresh from my long emotional and trying battle with the heaters, I was fairly confident that a) there would be soapy

foam all over the kitchen b) there would be smoke or at least an electrical burning smell

or c) nothing would happen. After reading the instructions for some other brand of washer and trying to compare it to the hieroglyphics on ours, I determined that again I would have to rely on trial an error. I chose the first compartment for detergent, pushed the following buttons– on, two different buttons that looked request for a lot of water, “E” – I think it stands for energetic, turned one dial to 600, one dial to 60, and the last dial to 1. After lots of spinning with no water, I adjusted the last dial to 6 – and lo and behold water, soap spinning, and in the end a clean mattress cover.

Sunday January 15, 2006 – The Cast of Characters

I’ll attempt to keep my long windedness under control in this my Blog #2 entry. So on our first night here we were taken out by the firm to a great restaurant called the Neon Pharilon –our English/Greek dictionary by the way doesn’t have Pharilon in it, so I can’t provide any clarification on what it means. The dinner was a fine welcome to Cyprus meal with wine, hors d’ovres (the best calamari I’ve ever had among others), fresh and tasty seafood, dessert, and espresso. This meal was our first introduction to the “Cast of Characters” (note – all the names have been tweaked a bit) in our Cypriot reality show:

Nichos – probably the hottest partner in firm worldwide. He is about 6’ 4”, blonde, young forties, athletic, with a million dollar smile, sharing a small resemblance to the perfect looking Russian in Rocky IV, except not as beefy. He is the Cypriot water skiing champion, runs 5 kilometers a day on the beach, farms and is a bee keeper on the weekend (yes white suit and all)…and is the lead on the project "C" is working on.

Steph – is an early/mid thirties senior manager from Germany with a raspy smokers voice and a great personality – full of sarcasm and laughs regularly. She is in charge of the day to day goings on of the project has been on assignment in Cyprus since April.

Kane – is our age, Chinese, raised in Malaysia, and attended university in Melbourne. He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay (national language of Malaysia), and English. He is well read, open minded, and fun to talk to as discussions are often interrupted with random movie quotes or references to current events. He has been on assignment working on the project since May.

Inigo – hails from Sao Paulo, Brazil and is as nice as all the others on the project. He is always mentioning how cold he is and is bundled up in a jacket and a scarf because his body hasn’t been able to adjust to the 50 degree mornings and evenings.

The Adventure Begins

Under true P&C fashion, we were ill prepared for the hobbling Russian car service driver to pick us up at 3PM, which I negotiated up from Cathy’s desired 2:45 departure. Suitcases were not being filled until roughly about 8PM (we did however have all the “loose ends tied up,” shopping completed, etc.) the night before, after Cathy picked up an overflow suitcase from TJ Maxx. Under normal “vacation packing” circumstances this would have been ample; however, 6 months requires a bit more packing than the typical swimsuit and sandal vacation. By the 11 PM mark, the apartment was relatively spotless – dusted, vacuumed, mopped, dishes washed, closets consolidated…the only thing which didn’t make the cleaning cut was the bathtub (sorry Jackie). However, I’m happy to report that it was by no means a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy nightmare. I was a Cathy’s right-hand packing assistant until about 3AM when I lost steam and broke down and took a nap until 8AM. Long story short, we were hustling 5 bulging bags and a backpack out our front door at exactly 3PM to our broken legged Russian driver.

He somehow managed to muscle all our bags into the trunk of the Towncar after jettisoning his cane to aid in maneuverability. And we were on our way to JFK to begin our Mediterranean adventure. The only bit of excitement of the airport experience was the carry-on bag fiasco reminiscent of Meet the Parents - “There will be no checking of the bag...” Being that I knew we were going to pack way more than our normal one backpack and one/two carry-ons, I did check online with British Airways to verify the amount of bags we could toss in the belly and drag on board. For future reference, you are allowed two “big guys” in the belly and one carry-on under 13 pounds. On no other trip had any airline checked the weight of our carry-on and I was convinced that our 35 pounds of cameras, CD players, accessories, and a few clothes were home free. However, check in lady (actually very nice) took one look at our two bulging carry-ons and said “We’re going to have to weigh those.” We were prepared to check one, but there had to be quite a bit of shuffling between the one carry-on and luckily the extra backpack we packed in a suitcase. It was almost comical as we removed everything except two pairs of jeans, two t-shirts, and a CD player from the suitcase to meet the weight requirement and put it our “personal item” – the backpack. After cruising through security, we shifted the 30 pounds from the extra backpack into the carry-on.

The 7 hour flight from NYC to London was uneventful – movies, fine steerage class dining, and cramped snoozing. Our 1 ½ layover in London turned into just about 3 hours because of a water leak of all things in the galley of the plane. This was just a harbinger of delays to come as after passing out for 4 hours we were greeted by a landing tease at Lanarca (where a firm driver was waiting along with the key to our smoky and laced doilied flat). Due to a “storm” – nothing more than 15 minutes of rain we later learned – our plane was redirected to Paphos 20 minutes away. After landing, the Cypriots grabbed their carry-ons and waited impatiently for the doors to open, choosing to ignore the captains continued announcements that he was awaiting instructions on whether we’d stay and disembark in Paphos or fly back to Lanarca. 25 minutes later, people were coaxed back to their seats, carry-ons and bags crammed under seats, as the powers that be determined we’d fly back to Lanarca.

Our first impression of Cyprus was the Larnaca airport (largest in Cyprus), which felt like a smaller older version of any airport in a European version of an “Anytown, USA” city. After arriving 3 ½ hours late, we were concerned that possibly the driver with our apartment key may have left and consequently causing us to miss the greasy lamb falafel dinner that our house mother had been slaving away on all day (see apartment section below). Actually Cathy was supposed to head into the office about 4:30 (at this point it is 6:30) after we dropped our luggage off to meet the team in the office. Following loading up all of our worldly possession (link to photo) and oddly zipping through customs with just a hello, we were pleasantly surprised to see our driver with a sign with Cathy’s name on it. He also was able to cram our entire luggage collection (with overflow into the front seat) into the Mercedes taxicab for our 45 minute ride from Larnarca to our new home of Limmasol.

It was unfortunately evening so we couldn’t get much of a feel of the countryside of Cyprus, but we excitedly chatted about our new adventure for the ride. Upon reaching Levanco Tower #4 (our apartment/flat complex) we were met by the firms normal driver “Frank” (name has been altered to protect his identity – just kidding) who paid our driver, helped us will all our bags, and presented us with groceries (cheese, salami, bread, “full fat” milk, and large six pack of water) since most stores would have been closed by then. “Frank” headed up with luggage in the “two butt” elevator and we followed in the next elevator pass to the sixth floor.

Let me digress for a moment about our Cyprus living condition expectations. Most of your know that were fortunate enough to live in London for three months college. During our stay, we each shared a small 10 x 15 foot studio 83 old cramped Euro steps from the ground floor with a roommate. The kitchen consisted of a hotplate on top of a toaster oven and a mini dorm fridge. Consequently, we adjusted our Cypriot living condition expectations to a very low level. We jokingly imagined arriving to our flat being greeted by a doting 75 year old Cypriot house mother, whom we’d be sharing a smoky lace adorned antiquated flat with for the next six months. So you can imagine our excitement (even with the circa 1985 furniture :^) when we opened the door to a three bedroom two bath apartment almost twice the size of our apartment in NYC.

When you open up the front door, you enter into the living room (link to photo), followed by a hallway which leads to kitchen, bedroom # 1 (I guess you’d call it the master bedroom as it has an attached bathroom), bathroom # 2, bedroom # 2, and bedroom # 3. The kitchen is literally four times larger than in NYC, and it has dual sinks, a microwave, a washing machine and dryer, and our first ever dishwasher since living with our parents. Who’d have guessed that our first dishwasher would be in Europe? There is even a small balcony attached to the kitchen – fresh herbs for cooking here we come. “Frank” left us after coordinating with Cathy’s work team to meet us downstairs in 45 minutes for dinner.

Seeing that I’ve already managed to probably bore you with two full pages of our first hours in Cyprus, I’m going to take a break and get this posted, with a “to be continued” for our big dinner with the team. We’ll get the photos of our apartment posted here shortly as well.