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.