Why is Cyprus so expensive?

I've been asking myself and everyone else here that question for the last five weeks and continue to be perplexed. We've been told and have come to terms with Cyprus' status as "the second most expensive country in Europe." Everything is basically twice the price that we would pay in the US, and more than we've ever paid on vacation in Europe. However, even with the high costs, Cyprus is lacking most of the charms, orderliness, and finesse of other high priced European destinations (I hope I don't get deported for writing that :^) There is virtually no public transportation, many buildings and infrastructure have seen better days, you'll be hard pressed to find manicured landscapes, you can't flush toilet paper, cable television hasn't been wired to 1/2 of Limassol (the second largest city in Cyprus)…that's just the beginning of things you wouldn't expect from such an expensive country.

Some things are cheaper, like international phone calls, housing (but of course our references for housing costs are New York City and the Bay Area), and local produce (a shocking 5 avocados for $2). There are lots of tax advantages here (a haven for "offshore accounts") so I'm guessing that income tax would be lower. The VAT is hovering at 15%, which adds to the shell shock for us. It's an island, so just like Hawaii, imported groceries cost much more. Gas, rental cars, dining out, cappuccinos, electronics, etc., are more expensive than what we pay in the US. A paperback book in English will cost $16. A People or other celebrity magazine in English will be at least $7. Day to day services like a men's haircut at $12 are comparable to the U.S. Clothes aren't much more expensive (unless you want expensive American or European brands, like Levi's, Diesel, and for some reason Timberland). However, the quality of clothes generally seems to be lacking, so there's no reason to go on a shopping spree here. It is possible to find "deals" in this peculiarly expensive country like these recent purchases at the Big and Tall store (for $.50 and $1.50, respectively):

What economic criteria are responsible for this situation? I still have no idea. No one can explain it. It just is. Theories exist on the internet, and good luck to those who can figure it out. I learned from a colleague here who lived abroad for many years that it is far better not to convert prices back into U.S. dollars. I'm trying to put that advice into practice but it's quite difficult. For our friend Kane, being from Malaysia, everything is 8 times as expensive here as he is used to…so we probably shouldn't be complaining.

Wednesday February 22, 2006 - Mosaic Mania

So main concrete Monday - Friday activities since being what a friend from Australia called a "house-husband" include getting "C" up and rolling in the morning, laundry, dishes, yoga, reading, blogging, exploring, dinner, mosaicing… In case any of you are wondering we have been bucking local tradition by successfully flushing our toilet paper our so "emptying the used toilet paper can from the bathroom" is not on the honeydo list :^) What started out as a once a week 3 hour class in mosaics has turned into come in whenever you want to the workshop. I finished up project #1 (a small 7" x 12" mosaiced towel holder sort of thing) and have now started on a table top. I'll post pictures of project #2 when I head back in.

Since becoming known in Limassol as "Pau_, the DaVinci of Mosaics" (yeah right), my teacher has noticed my inherent skill and has included me in a mosaic installation project at a chapel at a large resort (currently under major renovations) in the area. Actually, I'm just an extra set of hands interested in learning how to mosaic which equals free happy labor for her. She (Orea) is a Cypriot in her late late 30's and is very nice, very artistic, and very patient - all making for a great teacher. When Orea first mentioned how old she was, I was ready with the "you don't look a day over 40" until I heard 38 and I didn't have a reply- my brain wasn't quick enough with the "you don't look a day over 35" response. I think the years of smoking like a Cypriot might have added a few years. She along with her one new employee (Mike - 28 from the UK) picked me up about 8AM and we worked until 1PM installing the mosaic. Orea had already designed and adhered the mosaic to netting at her workshop so all we had to do was plaster it into the floor (a little harder than it looks). I'm heading into the workshop tomorrow to help with the mosaicing of the border that will be installed in the chapel as well.

This is the hotel where the "chapel" (for tourists). It is located right next to the pool so I'm picturing untanned wet Brits sprawled on the cold marble floors trying to escape the heat. The chapel is the small curved structure behind the truck.









The empty floor.

Mortaring the mosaic to the floor.

Plastering the face of the mosaic (filling in the spaces between the pieces) and cleaning up the edges.

The finished mosaic.

Sunday February 19, 2006 - Eros Orb Feast

We were invited to join Nichos (partner), his wife, and daughter, and the rest of the PwC team to his parent's farm for a barbeque. The farm is located about an hour from Limassol on the border with Northern Cyprus. The main road to the farm actually runs adjacent to the barbed wired, demilitarized zone and tower watched (UN, Cyprus, and Turkey are all peering on from different towers) border. Right near the farm you can gaze across the border and see what used to be quite a large pre-1974 city that since the invasion sits pilfered and abandoned.

After Nichos got the bbq fire started, he took us on a tour of the working citrus orchard where we could pick to our hearts content. The farms includes orange trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees, lemon trees, tangerine trees, avocado trees, honeybee boxes full of honey (those white boxes), and a large vegetable garden. Along the walk we found a chameleon and a cute little baby porcupine that Inigo inadvertently kicked after one of the dogs dropped it at his feet.

The barbeque consisted of farm raised lamb and chicken along with lasagne, salad (from the farm), olives (from the farm), stuffed olive leaves, bread, potatoes… FYI: a Cypriot doesn't mess around with boneless skinless, marinading… - just take a whole chicken/chunks of lamb, hack it into pieces, and ram it onto giant kebabs. The lambs "money makers, rocky mountain oysters, etc." considered a delicacy in Cyprus had also been lanced and barbequed. I, continuing with my "When in Rome" motto, was Nichos' lone wingman in the Eros orb feast. So from Tweety birds I have digressed into eating cute little baby lamb balls - what kind of monster have I turned into??? My penance you ask… a moratorium on kisses for the next several hours. The hearty bounty was topped with homemade tiramisu, this magnificent chocolate cake with a kit kat (?) crust, and caramel flan sort of dish. I have a request in for the recipes so watch for them on Justin's digital recipe box.

Saturday February 18, 2006 - A Divided Cyprus

Kane, Steph, "C", and I piled into a rental car for our trek from Limassol to Nicosia to meet up with Aldriene and his wife Melody. Aldriene had arranged for a minivan cab to take the six of us on a tour of non-U.N. recognized region called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and claimed just about half the island for themselves. While the Turkish Cypriots (of Turkish descent) were allowed to stay, Greek Cypriots were forced to flee and become "refugees" in the Southern half of Cyprus. The Greek Cypriot refugees lost all their property in the North (taken over by Turkish Cypriots), which continues to rankle Greek Cypriots. Again there is a lot more detail on the dispute, but that is the real quick summary (of course the Greek Cypriots weren't exactly guilt free either). It was just in 2004 that Turkey began allowing Greek Cypriots to even visit the North.

Since arriving in Cyprus, Aldriene had been mentioning that once you cross the border it will feel like you travelled back in time 30 years (that's 30 Cypriot years which probably equals 75 American/European years). All of us had this vision of black clad Turks with bad teeth trailing behind a donkey carrying a load of vegetables. However, we didn't notice that much of a difference in the level of sophistication once we crossed the border until we ventured farther a field to some backwater villages.

The first stop was St. Hilarion Castle, an 11th century fortification built into steep mountain crags. We then headed to Bellapais Abbey for a taste of 13th century gothic architecture and sweeping views of the Mediterranean. En route to Kyrenia Castle, we were all beckoned by a pastry shop. Without much of a delay we determined that we should pretty much buy a few samples of everything in the window (oink oink) and polish them off with a Turkish coffee. Waddling on, we were impressed with views of Kyrenia harbour from the castle walls and the remains of the oldest shipwreck (300 BCE) ever discovered.

















Before again gorging ourselves on another big PwC team dinner in Nicosia we visited Aldriene's old village. He hadn't been back to the village since his family escaped to southern Cyprus in 1974. It was a pretty moving experience reminiscing with him and sharing in his grief over the decline in the village. Particularly moving was the graffitied and practically destroyed church which had been neglected for thirty years.

A Few More Israel Photos

The photos have been uploaded to the Israel blogs - thanks for your patience :^) We finally had high speed (well somewhat high speed) internet at home so hopefully we'll get things posted a bit sooner. Since we can only add 4 photos per blog entry, I thought I add a few more here:




View of Temple Mount and the "Dome of the Rock" from the old Venetian walls (ramparts).








These Palestinians were prevented from entering the Jerusalem's Old City to attend Muslim services at the Dome of the Rock. Due to security concerns Israel was only allowing males over the age of 45 in - under the assumption that younger males were potentially more unruly. This is the closest they could get...so that is where they prayed.







This is the view from Masada (the Dead Sea is to the upper right in this photo (you'll see it better in the blogs below)). This just gives you the idea of how dry and barren it is in the region. King Herod and later the zealot's whom made Masada famous from withstanding a Roman siege for what some say years, channeled water from nearby mountains to fill giant cisterns carved into Masada.












Just me covered in mud in route to the showers. I thought the classy plastic tubs of dead sea mud were a nice touch to our "Day at the Spa."

Sunday February 12, 2006 - Magnificent Pitas

We walked the ramparts of the old Venetian walls surrounding Jerusalem to get a bird’s eye view of the city. Following the lofty stroll, we visited two museums excavated complex preserving a 385-foot section of the Upper City near the Temple Mount dating back 2,000 years) before gorging on two magnificent pitas filled with falafel, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, hummus, tahini, and bell peppers. After our late lunch, we grabbed our bags and headed to Tel Aviv to meet up with Meital and Hillel (friends/colleagues from my two previous trips to Israel for work last year) for dinner and gelato. It’s hard to explain, but there is really a difference between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Jerusalem feels amazingly intense with a large population of Yarmulkes wearing Jews, throngs of Arabs, soldiers with rifles, ancient/fascinating history…while Tel Aviv feels like any European city. You don’t feel any religious fervor (rarely see a Yarmulkes) nor see any firearms, but appreciate its coastal and cosmopolitan atmosphere.

Dinner was fun – great food and company. It didn’t feel like a year and half passed since I saw them last. We shared many stories and laughs before all going our separate ways. We had to leave for the airport Monday morning at 4:15 AM.

Saturday February 11, 2006 – Low Sodium Please

We joined a busload of tourists to visit Masada and the Dead Sea (the lowest point on Earth at 410 meters below sea level - and dropping each year) at 9:30 in the morning. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to schlep us to Masada where we had thirty minutes in the gift shop where our guide had arranged “special prices,” then a rushed hour tour of Masada. We really could have used an additional thirty minutes up there to wander on our own to absorb everything, but we were unfortunately at the whim of our guide. I didn’t make any friends when after he announced that we had to head back to the aerial tram, I asked, “Do we get any time to walk around on our own up here?” He answered that we “were on a very tight schedule,” etc. etc. I countered with, “Well you arranged it so we had thirty minutes in the gift shop and only an hour up at Masada, which was the whole point of our trip.” He retorted in defense that “breaks were very important since we were part of a group” and that “we had seen all of the important things.” Unsure if I could rally the troops for a mutinous rebellion, I felt I had made my point and joined the forced march back to the bus.

The stop before the Dead Sea was a gift shop and Kibbutz that our guide also miraculously had a five percent discount on. We crammed an unassumingly tasty lunch down in fifteen minutes so we could again board the bus for the ten minute drive to the Dead Sea (Ein Gedi). Our guide warned that you aren’t allowed to swim in the Dead Sea to prevent salt water from getting in your eyes (requires flushing with fresh water for 2 minutes). Additionally, consumption of the 27% salt/liquid combination could land you in the hospital. We were given strict instructions to just sit back into the water – no diving, no splashing…and float.

The “sand” near the water is a mixture of salt balls and extremely uncomfortable hard/sharp sheets of salt. The buoyant floating sensation on the water was actually quite astonishing – feels like you are sitting on a couple noodles with water-wings on your arms and legs. We topped the experience off with a Dead Sea mud bath – of course I had to overdo it. Two days later I was still Q-tipping out mud from my ears.

Friday February 10, 2006 – The Pilgrimage Continues
In order to continue with the “pilgrimage” theme and escape the evil clutches of the bird flu we made a last minute trip to Israel over the weekend. Just kidding about the bird flu – we haven’t seen any chickens or other birds since we’ve been here except for Tweety (which I ate) and annoying pigeons which occasionally roost on our balcony. Although in “Europe,” Cyprus really isn’t an easy gateway to mainland Europe. Besides being expensive and a sporadic schedule, the flights to Paris/Frankfurt/Vienna (the closest mainland European cities with regular flights) take 4 hours – add on airport time (an hour taxi ride to the airport + wait time) and it is difficult to make a long weekend trip out of it. So the closer (about an hour away) and not a whole lot cheaper options include Cairo, Amman (Jordan), Tel Aviv, Athens, Syria and Lebanon (both of whom won’t let you in if you’ve been to the “Zionist State” of Israel). Since the flights to Cairo and Amman required that "C" take both Friday and Monday off, and wanting for a change from Roman/Greek ruins and islands (Athens), we headed off on a 10:30 PM flight to Tel Aviv on Thursday.

We finally arrived to our small “Mom and Pop” hotel in Jerusalem at about 2 AM on Friday morning. We weren’t terribly impressed with the two single mattresses pushed together, the cramped “get the entire bathroom wet” shower, or the skid keepsake left in the toilet (sorry for the visual), but at 2:30 AM, we were happy to have a bed to sleep in. We were up and moving by 8:30 AM to partake in the “free” breakfast. Our perception of the “not 5 star” (we’ll leave it at that) hotel changed dramatically after our “endless cup” of coffee, huge non Euro carafe of fresh squeezed OJ, toast, cheese plate, vegetables, eggs…, chatting with the very friendly staff, and a room change. The front desk worker was able to sweet talk a tour guide into giving a walking tour of Jerusalem on his day off. The excellent and informative private walking/driving tour (just me, "C", and the guide) lasted a little over four hours and touched all the major sights in the city: Mount Scopus, Mount Zion, Via Dolorosa (“supposedly” the route Jesus dragged the cross along), Church of the Holy Sepulchre (giant church “supposedly” encompassing the spot where Jesus was crucified and entombed), Temple Mount, the Western/Wailing wall… The use of “supposedly” is because the exact locations of where the events took place were determined hundreds if not a thousand years later.

View Onto Jerusalem

The Western Wall

Since Israel closes up tight for Shabbat on Friday sundown, our options for dinner were somewhat limited. Like retirees, we had eaten dinner (pasta feed), drank cappuccinos, and were back in our hotel room by 7:30 PM. We had the greatest intentions of going to the movies at 10PM (one of the few things open) , but after our limited sleep, quick paced walking tour, 8:45 AM departure the next morning, and finding the mother load of over 20 stations in English, we called it a night.

Jerusalem at Night Near Our Hotel

Sunday February 5, 2006 – “Vavla” and the “Hard Sell”

To reward those of you who struggled through Saturday’s long-windedness, I’ll try to keep this brief. Our threesome first stopped at Agios Gergios Alamanos, a small monastery whose nuns toil away making honey, dried herbs, and canned fruits. We then went in search of the top three of the top ten most picturesque villages in all of Cyprus (per our Top Ten Cyprus travel guide) – Kalavasos, Tochni, and Valva. Although there wasn’t anything terribly exciting about the town themselves, we stumbled upon wonderful little memories:

a) An abandoned mine which I really had to refrain from running into in a true Indiana Jones fashion. The entrance alone had turned into a creek of orange mine tailings and apart from growing a third ear and an eleventh toe, I would have been a ghastly mess. Our expedition was further hindered by lack of a flashlight.

b) We wandered up the turret of a vacant mosque in Kalavasos for a view of the countryside.

c) In Tochni we had another feast of a lunch at Socrates’ House restaurant. There wasn’t a menu, but we were informed that it was “meze” – a.k.a an assortment of delightful Cypriot dishes. During lunch Kane announced a little too loudly that “Our next stop is the beautiful and lovely Vulva.” Upon erupting in laughter he asked “What, what did I say.” Kane got a very brief English anatomy lesson, and he joined in the laughter.

d) We took the “shortcut” to Vavla on this winding dirt road and learned why the stable we stopped at didn’t allow horseback riding on Sundays as the hills and valleys were riddled with shotgun toting hunters. While we were in Valva, an extremely nice man invited us into his home for a 20 minute tour of a restored old typical village home.

e) We drove into the lace-making village of Lefkara and were unknowingly ushered into a tourist trap. We were directed to the free parking of the Lefkara Lace Cooperative because the “streets were too narrow to drive down.” After being invited in for what we thought would be a quick browse, the “hard sell” began: a lace making demonstration, juice service, a barrage of small talk, presentation of lace available for purchase…followed by the sticker shock ($175 for a small table cloth), Kane’s “OK…thank you…bye bye.”, her look of dissatisfaction and disapproval, a quick dash outside, and hopes that our car would still be there after we finished wandering the village.

Saturday February 4, 2006 – Bout of Heaves

We rented a car again this weekend and joined by Kane headed northwest along windy narrow roads to the pine covered Troodos mountains (about an hour away). The Troodos are known for small unassuming stone churches peppered throughout the region which contain Byzantine religious art and Christian frescoes recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites. The first church on the day’s pilgrimage, after a stop at a small hilltop town (Omodos), was Archangelos Michael.

One of the more interesting parts of visiting these churches (besides being what look like barns from the outside, but containing beautiful paintings on the inside) is the method of sharing them with the tourists. Keys are held by local caretakers who post their phone number at the church – in our case a yellow Post-it on the door. We called the phone number and five minutes later a black clad Cypriot grandmother came huffing and puffing up the cobbled hill with a key. Inside the walls of small dimly lit church were covered with frescoes from 1474.

The next stop was a peaceful tucked away 900 year old monastery (Kykkos) housing an impressive collection of Greek Orthodox paintings, religious pieces, and other knick knacks. Our oasis from the pilgrimming was a stuff your face feast of a lunch at an unnamed village restaurant. There were no menus, but a teenage boy explained the selection of items on hand and we ordered a bounty of pretty much everything the kitchen had available. The food just kept coming. Looking past the lukewarm-ness, the meal was excellent except for the house specialty of what tasted like 3 day wine “better designate a driver” marinated heavily marbled pork. Although tempted by the musty marinade, "C" refrained and focused her efforts on our mountain of potatoes as we all had to “sack up” in the human garbage disposal duties in order to not disappoint our teenage waiter.

Along our continued driving adventure on an unimproved, steeply graded, rocky, dusty road in search of painted churches (Panagia and Agios Ioannis Lampadistis), we were accosted by two smiling old ladies. When we pulled near them, they trotted toward the car with a bowl and unloaded a handful of this Cypriot version of trail mix (grains, nuts, pomegranate…). We choked back laughter of the shear oddness of the situation, said our thank yous, and moving on roaring in laughter (you really had to be there). As dusk was approaching, we somehow made a bit of a wrong turn and 15 minutes later found ourselves on the summit of Mount Olympus, the highest point on Cyprus (1,951 meters).

Upon pulling into the historic core of Limassol for a cappuccino stop there were streams of people intently walking the streets. We joined the walk thinking we had solved the elusive mystery of what Cypriots do on the weekends (literally you do not see a Cypriot walking the streets from roughly two-ish Saturday after through Monday morning). It ended up being a welcome home parade, speeches, and fireworks for Marcos Baghdatis. We were able to see the legend from afar, whom by the way is still on the front pages of the papers here.

Although "C" and I were still gorged from lunch, Kane was hankering to try dinner at “Tokyo Japanese Tepenjaki (as spelled on my receipt)” restaurant. By the way, this is one of the few Asian restaurants in Cyprus which does not claim to be a “Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Filipino” restaurant. Our low-set standard bar was met after our waiter following questioning by Kane diplomatically stated, “Well it won’t look exactly like the photo in the menu.” Luckily only an eight piece meal was ordered as we were served sushi of dubious quality and origin (the dyed fish on one roll matched the hue of the bright pink canned ginger). Considering our “sushi” and “pork” consumption today, fortunately morning came for all of us without a bout of heaves.

Thursday February 2, 2005 - Updates to some of the Cast of Characters

As the type of people was going to be working with was a total “crap shoot,” we continue to be delighted with the wonderful selection of people we’ve come in contact with. We luckily haven’t yet come across the “typical” auditor that causes so many people to leave the firm. Here’s a bit more on the characters we’ve been working with, although I doubt it will be anywhere near as funny if you were experiencing it in person.

Kane: loves pop culture, karaoke, and breaks into a muted song if even remotely relates to the topic at hand. Whenever we discuss “middle America” he does his redneck impression with “You all come back now, ya here” – in a Malaysian/Chinese accent. Usually on every other dinner he is poked fun at for sharing a tight-quartered room (bunk bed and no bathroom) with Sarah Jane (see below) on a cruise to Syria and Lebanon. She decided to go on the cruise last minute, the ship was full, and Kane nicely offered up to share his room to give him credit. The other night I suggested he start singing “Sarah Jane is not my lover, she’s just a girl crazy about me…” – sung in the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” We all know “nothing happened” but it makes for a good laugh.

Sarah Jane: used to be on the project, lived in our apartment before us, and hailed from the UK. She wasn’t adored by the Cyprus team (far from it) as she was here for two months and apparently didn’t get much accomplished. She is a sturdy big boned blonde rugby playing Brit and possibly the previous resident whom installed the pull-up bar in our second bedroom (???).

Inigo: seeing that he speaks three different languages extremely well, it’s not really fair to critique it, but… he overuses the past tense, tacking on “-ed” arbitrarily to verbs. He also displays his enjoyment or approval of something always as, “You know, I think it is very nice.”

Aldriene: continues to suffer technical difficulties in the office. Recently, he needed to print out a table he had put together in Excel for discussion with the team. "C" overheard him busy on a construction project at his desk – folding of papers, taping, stapling, etc. After a few minutes, "C" wandered over and found that he had diligently adhered together six A-4 sized sheets of paper (and even more impressively all the Excel columns lined up). "C" taught him the “wrap text” feature and reprinted the sheet on one page.

Aldriene and “Elaine:” Ellen is one of the big chiefs/head honchos at the firm and is the top dog in charge of the project. She grew up in Arkansas, but has lived in Dallas for the last 20+ years. Consequently, she is pretty much “don’t mess with Texas” through and through, but very nice. We have heard stories about the end of her previous trip (B.PC – before P&C) in which she was mildly annoyed Aldriene. His unintentional offenses included smoking his Cubans too close, putting used toothpicks on her plate, and his inability to say her name correctly. No matter how hard he tried, Ellen came out as “Helen, Elaine, or Hellaine” in his British/Cypriot accent. The week prior to her second arrival Aldriene had been practicing her name by just pronouncing the two letters “L – N.” He was doing quite well until two nights ago when trying to convince Ellen to eat the last mushroom, said “Look it has your initial on it, H.”

Since he is also relatively outspoken on all subjects with nothing being taboo, when he found out where Ellen was from, he said “Isn’t that where Clinton (his favorite U.S. president) is from.” Her answer was “don’t remind me.” At lunch yesterday when there happened to be a clip of “W” on BBC during the State of the Union, Aldriene stated, ““I don’t see how he can stand up there in front of the whole world when he lied about the pretenses of going to war…” Ellen’s stern response was, “The two subjects not to be discussed in a work setting are politics and religion.”

Monday January 30, 2006 – Eating Tweety Bird

My daily routine of painting myself silver and standing extremely still on a box for tourist handouts was altered significantly today. From 10 – 1, I joined a walking tour of the “Historical Center” of Limassol. Although I had been along a majority of the streets and seen most of the notable landmarks, the tidbits of history (Richard the Lionheart married to Berengaria in Limassol) were added to my bank of exciting conversation pieces.

Last week, I stumbled across this mosaic studio along one of my Limassol strolls and figured mosacing would be a nice addition to my repertoire. So for three hours Monday afternoon, I focused intently on advancing along my chances of getting carpel tunnel by cutting tiles in a mosaic class. Ideally, I was supposed to be cutting (more like cracking) 50 1” square tiles into four smaller square pieces with these funky sharp pliers (“wheeled nippers”). I ended up averaging two smaller squares and shards, but refrained from injuring myself – so I deemed it a small victory. With design and gluing advice from raspy oversmoked instructor, I’ve got the makings of a pretty good mosaic chachke on the way.

Dinner tonight was with the entire crew plus additions from 5 big-wigs from all over (Netherlands, U.S., Canada, Luxembourg, and Italy). We all went to this restaurant which has been dubbed by Steph as the “the little bird” restaurant. A Cypriot delicacy are these little birds (about the size of Tweety of “I thought I saw a puddy cat”) BBQ’d whole and served. They are an appetizer because you’d probably have to eat 50 of those at one point cute little guys to fill up. Hardcore tweety-bird eaters eat everything but the stomach (bones, head, wings…), but I being anything but ate the itty breasts and chomped down on one little leg as "C" looked on from across the table in mild disgust. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have partook in the carnage, but I’ll stick with “everyone was doing it” and “when in Rome…” The remainder of the meal was “normal” food – kebabs, salad, etc, but before continuing I had to cover up the remains with a piece of bread because I could no longer handle Tweety’s glances of indignation and judgment.