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.”