Friday May 26, 2006 – Assault of the Senses

Weekend travel from Cyprus takes a bit of logistical planning as flights to mainland European destinations are either irregular, a connecting flight, or unsuitable travel times for anyone who does not enjoy a “man of leisure” lifestyle. After a destination poll, a lengthy internet search, and a mildly annoying visit I'm sure for the travel agent (pretty much asked “where can we go this weekend leaving after 8PM on Friday and returning Monday”), we (the Brit, Canadian, "C" and I) happily settled on Cairo. Friday’s traveling was for the most part uneventful except for the unnerving boarding of an unmarked plane and the Brit’s daring consumption of the colored and shiny Egyptian Airlines mystery meat platter. One of the most humorous aspects of these “close to Cyprus” flights (never longer than 45 minutes), is the frantic rush to wheel out the beverage and meal cart…who could possibly be that famished to require a meal on that short of a flight?

Upon arriving in Cairo, we were quickly whisked off to the Grand Hyatt on the banks of the Nile. We begrudgingly settled on the “American chain” hotel after we were advised by many reputable travelers, not to skimp on a hotel in Cairo. It was very sound advice, as it was one of the few times where were happy to be able to escape the loud, bustling, smoggy craziness and pushy vendors of Cairo. We don’t by any means consider this all out assault on the senses unpleasant, as it is what gives Cairo it’s…I guess what you’d call, charm. After a quick dinner at the hotel, we called it an early night so we would be ready for our tour of Saqqara and Islamic Cairo on Saturday.

Some Hotel shots:

Nile View from Room

Pool

Prayer Directional to Mecca

Thursday May 25, 2006 – Compulsive Gamblers Anonymous and the Zucchini Bread Pandemic

The Brit and the Canadian are regular Texas Hold ‘Em players and had been dying to get us all together to play. When we arrived, the Brit had arranged to have an iced bucket of Keo beer, which was quickly complimented by two extra large pizzas. “C” and I had played poker before, while the German was completely clueless. Luckily the Canadian had printed out a little “what beats what” poker cheat sheet which the German constantly laughingly referenced before each bet and card turn (“C” and I did our fair share of glances too). We are definitely in a different league than the Brit, as he regularly plays with friends with anywhere from $500 - $1000 buy ins. “C” and I were even a little timid over the 20 pound buy in. Even though the Brit took both “C” and I out separately with two Celebrity Poker Showdown “all in” bets, we had about 2 ½ hours of enjoyment and are one step closer to compulsive gamblers anonymous.

On a side note, I probably deserved the loss to the Brit after somewhat being responsible for turning him into heaving mess on Wednesday. In a moment of Betty Crocker madness, I tripled a batch of zucchini bread, which was lovingly doled out to about half of Limassol (ok just the office, our neighbor, the mosaic studio, our travel agent…). All besides the Canadian were utterly shocked at the thought of combining bread and vegetables together. Long story short, what was viewed as a bread/dessert anomaly was quickly gobbled up and for the most part very well received. The Brit ended up queasy, nauseous… ( I think you follow where the … is going) and went home early to deal with the “situation.” Thankfully I didn’t cause an office wide zucchini bread pandemic, as the Brit was the sole casualty.

Saturday May 20, 2006 – Musical Train Wreck

The highlight of this past weekend was a live viewing of the annual Eurovision song contest at a pub. We had heard about the contest for the past month and have been building up enthusiasm and excitement for watching it. Eurovision is kind of like American Idol on a huge scale. Months ago, most countries in Europe (very broad encompassing Europe as it includes countries like Russia, Israel…) had a competition in their country to determine who their best performer/singer was. The popular vote of the residents of that country determines who is nominated to be in Eurovision. In decades past, stars like ABBA and Celine Dion performed and won the competition, but the contest over the past decade or so has kind of been considered pretty lame by most of Europe. Wikipedia probably states it best with “some viewers of the Contest view the event as a combination of camp entertainment and a musical train wreck.” There did seem to be quite a lot of hokey pop songs about love, peace, etc. but it is so wonderfully corny and fun that you have to watch. The rumor is that last year Ireland lost on purpose (won the previous three years in a row) because they didn't want to be stuck hosting the broadcast again, which is inevitably a money losing proposition.

Finland's(and overall winner for that matter) and Germany's entries:

Our little five some (me, "C", the German, the Brit, and the Canadian) got a prime outside table in front of a large projection screen. The German had picked up little Country flags which adorned our table. On Friday night, the Brit (he and the German grew up watching the show) came up with an elaborate scheme to complement the Eurovision contest with a drinking game; which is apparently par for the course for most people watching. Each of us drew five countries at random and based on the performance of those countries is how the penalty drinks were allocated. Pretty much each time your country’s singer: winked at the camera, dropped to their knees, made a peace sign, wore a hat, has a mustache, sang in their native language, played and ethnic instrument, played a piano while standing, pretended to fight, performed ethnic dancing, told audience they love them, lost a microphone, used props or fireworks, had a mullet... you had to drink two fingers (depth) of beer from a pint glass. During each countries performance, all our eyes were intently on the screen hoping for a knee drop, a mullet, ethnic dancing so beer drinking infractions could be tallied. We were laughing, shouting the aforementioned infractions, rating each performance, and drinking the whole time.

The Brit also had an elaborate equation for the penalty shots in the scoring round of the show. Each country’s population can call in after viewing all the performances (two hours no commercials) and vote who they liked best (can’t vote for their own country). There is pretty much 45 minutes of going live to each country to hear how they allocated their votes. In order not to consume penalty shots you really didn’t want any of your countries to do well – the higher the points, the more shots you had to take. The poor German had to down 15 Baileys shots because her countries did so well. In lieu of booze, I was drinking Red Bull energy drinks like they were going out of style - 7 in a 3 hour block. Like Jekyll and Hyde, I turned into a jittery crazed lunatic…actually not, but it took me until 5AM to finally fall asleep. I will never have any desire to ever consume another one of those Mountain Dewey mediciney concoctions. All in all it was a great fun evening, but Sunday was a lazy recovery day. Get ready for a P&C Eurovision drinking contest party next year, because we are definitely bringing this tradition back to the States!

In case you've got time to kill, here's a few other countries entries:
Norway - "C's" favorite
England - my favorite
Russia (note the mullet, prop (person coming out of piano), and the much anticipated dropping to knees at the end)
Lithuania
Croatia (note the ethnic dancing, ethnic instrument, native language, hats...many "infractions")

Sunday May 14, 2006 – Winnie the Pooh Wonderland

Yesterday, I was invited by Nichos (partner) along with his wife and two year old daughter to his parent’s farm to assist in the spring honey harvest. Nichos has about 25 hives that he has slowly amassed over the past 4 years or so. After donning the top half of a bee suit and jerry rigging up something to keep bees from flying up the bottom of my pant legs, I was fairly confident that there was going to be few awkward bees in my pants incidents.

The first step in the process of harvesting honey is giving the bees a little dose of smoke, which triggers a feeding instinct in bees. Following a few puffs of smoke from the smoker one hive at a time, a majority of the bees instinctively focus entirely on gorging on honey in the combs. However, there were still a few irate bees bzzzzzing around my face attempting to sting me through the mesh - needless-to-say that took a bit of adjusting to. Nichos scanned each hive looking for indications of disease or problems before selecting the honeycombed frames that were filled with honey. After amassing a pickup full of hive frames, the next stop was to a centrifuge contraption (about 3’ across) that separated the honey from the honey combs. The days work yielded a Winnie the Pooh wonderland vat of honey about a foot deep that was quickly filtered through a screen and into about 20 or so mayonnaise sized jars. We pretty much worked non-stop from about 10AM to 8:00PM with a short break for lunch. Grandma made us a fine lunch of from the farm chicken, potatoes, salad, olives, bread, wine leaves wrapped around a mixture of rice and ground beef, all followed by a fruit salad and ice cream.

Besides being Bikram yoga sweaty and tired from lugging hives around, I was surprisingly stingless at the end of the day. Throughout the day of toiling , I kept thinking of the movie Tommy Boy…”there’s bees, bees in the car…” and smiling to myself. My hard days work was rewarded with two jars of honey, two bags of oranges, and an invite to next weeks Saturday activity of orange tree grafting.

Tuesday May 9, 2006 - Life on the Open Road

Well the most exciting development in my life has been the addition of wheels. My two visits and 10 minutes of negotiations with a hard bargaining seventy something Greek lady retiree secured me an “in need of a little TLC” 21 speed mountain bike for 40 pounds… probably the best 40 pounds spent since being on the Island. There is nothing like the wind blowing through your hair, the envious glances of the new to the island migrant workers whom haven’t yet secured a bike (the only people who seem to ride them in here), and the adrenaline rush from using questionable brakes to avoid impatient drivers and side walked parked cars in a non-bike laned country. My bike (yet to be christened with a name), has considerably improved my somewhat lengthy walking commute times, freeing up some much needed time in my ever so hectic and busy lifestyle :^)

Monday May 8, 2006 - You’ll Join Me for Coffee

The loyal blog readers may remember that a couple weeks back I borrowed my 80ish old neighbor’s “steps” for my pigeon eradication project. In the very manana time of Cyprus, whenever I passed him downstairs “tomorrow” always seemed to be when he wanted it back. A few days ago was finally the day we set up for the ladder drop off – not that it was in our way or anything. I clanked the ladder down the hall and he greeted me with asking “you’ll join me for coffee?” I visited for a while as he proudly showed me all the stations he got on his satellite TV. After peppering him with questions, I learned his interesting truncated life story: born in Egypt and moved to Cyprus when he was 20, worked as a mechanic, widowed 16 years ago, with three kids, and two grandkids. After learning he was an avid fisherman (every morning), I was invited to join him anytime. He beckoned me to skuffle with him down the hall as he presented a closet spewing fishing equipment…no need for me to buy a pole.

Fast forward a day…and knowing my place barefoot in the kitchen, I made a hefty double batch of banana coconut chocolate chip bread. Two loaves went with "C" to work, one went to the mosaic/pottery studio, a chunk went to our old Egyptian neighbor, and we plowed through the rest of it. A day after the bread delivery, there was a knock on the door and Mr. Egypt returned the plate which he had filled with french fries and his catches of the day. There were these little fishies no longer than your index finger that he had fried up. He let me know that they were freshly caught and cooked (fried) and to eat them now. So I gingerly chomped down on half of one (brains, eyeballs, bones and all) with a big smile exclaiming how good they were and happily munched away until he turned to return to his apartment and I could spit the fishmeal out into the trashcan. It really was adorably cute that he brought over the little fish and fries snack for us…I guess it would be a little too much to ask for him to filet the little guys with tweezers and a razor for us next time :^) Pooky (cat at the mosaic studio) was my new best friend today as I presented her with a ziplock bag full of fishies.

Thursday May 4, 2005 - Mosaic Mania

What I thought was going to be “little project” has consumed most of my days in Cyprus. I am pretty much a regular at the mosaic/pottery studio as these waves have been the bane of my existence. I can only manage to crank out an almost frustrating three waves a day. The very methodic jig saw puzzleesque of a hobby, is actually very relaxing and I find myself wondering where the hours of the day have gone. Between waves, I help out around the studio (glazing pottery, wrapping customer purchases…) and visit with Mike (employee) and Oria (owner). I am such a regular fixture there, practically a “will work for mosaic lessons,” that on the off days I don’t show up they wonder where I am. She recently was commissioned by the city of Limassol to design and mosaic a large fountain, so I’ll be getting some more hands on practical experience here shortly.

Tuesday May 2, 2006 - Welcome to the Island Tour

This weekend included a “welcome to the island” driving tour for the new girl (“L”) who joined the firm’s group from Canada – she just rolled in last Friday. The highlight of the Saturday was definitely stumbling across a store in Paphos that sells “hot” CD’s. Since we don’t have much in the way of TV, we almost constantly have our little CD player playing. Over the past couple months our collection has gotten a bit repetitive. So at $2 a pop, we loaded up on a few more.

On Sunday, we headed to the east end of the island to Agia Napa. It is known in Europe as the “Sodom and Gomorrah” of island destinations. It is pretty much where college twenty something’s go for a week of debauchery. Per our guide book: “Agia Napa…has risen to fame as one of the world’s great dance party destinations, but there is much more than mere nightlife to this purpose-built sunshine resort. Agia Napa’s core – and the favorite evening rendezvous for partygoers – is its main square which is packed with bars and café tables. Yet only steps away from the hedonistic crowds is a tranquil oasis, the little harbor still has some of its village character.”

We were there before the big summer rush so enjoyed one of the nicer beaches on the south side of the island (“L” and I swam), enjoyed lazy cappuccino’s, and a big meze of a dinner. There is still a bit of charm tucked away behind the Bennigan’s, McDonald’s, obnoxious neon lighted pubs…

Monday was a holiday here so we had one last day of exploring. We went north across the border to the Turkish side of the island. Since the border crossings are a somewhat new phenomenon (only since 2003 I believe), guidebooks aren’t terribly clear on the process. Theoretically (in fine print on the back of our rental agreement), our rental car wasn’t supposed to cross into Northern Cyprus. We were quite prepared to have to find a taxi to cart us around in the North, but the authorities quickly whisked us through without even a bat of the eye. We were surprised how “painless” it was – the whole process took about 10 minutes, passports, buying additional insurance for the rental car…

This, being our second trip across to the Turkish side, we continue to be taken aback by the state of the Greek Orthodox churches in the small villages (which haven’t been turned into mosques) on that side of the border. Being Muslim and in somewhat poorer villages, Christian churches do not seem to get even the most minimal of upkeep.

We visited one set of Roman ruins (Salamis), supposedly the best on Cyprus and also the city of Famagusta. Famagusta before Turkey invaded in 1974 was a bustling oceanfront city; since then about half the city is deserted because Greek Cypriots are no longer allowed to live there. You could stand on the beach and gaze down along the cordoned off zone of people-less crumbling buildings. Lunch consisted of a cartload of wonderfully gooey Turkish pastries at a local shop. Famagusta also has a castle that Shakespeare’s “Othello” was from – a little Shakespeare trivia. We wandered all around the castle – into the keep, up on the turrets, into the dungeons.