Sunday June 18, 2006 – Number One Fans

We had our first (and probably only visitors) to Cyprus this past weekend. Krystal and Curtis (along with seven other volleyball players) from the States came to participate in the World University Beach Volleyball Championships. I have no idea how Cyprus of all places managed to finagle hosting the event, but it was wonderful getting a chance to see familiar faces from home. We spent Friday afternoon through Sunday, commuting to the fabulous newly constructed state of the art, worthy of showcasing your nation in an international event, volleyball facility (hope you sense the sarcasm here) in Protaras (about an hour and 15 minutes from Limassol). Although Cyprus knew about their hosting status for two years, they only began a majority of the construction progress two and a half weeks prior. The resulting engineering marvel produced freshly graded dirt, non landscaped grounds, minimal shade, and an all together “we through this together at the last minute” feel.

We had a great time cheering on the U.S. teams and quickly earned the status of the number one U.S. fans. Not only did we (unintentionally) wear red and blue on Saturday, sport our USA Volleyball pins, and provide usage of our Cyprus mobile phone, but we were the only people from the U.S. there... making the esteemed title somewhat easy to attain. Krystal and her partner Leanne earned an impressive 5^th place finish out of 22 countries participating. One of the U.S. men’s teams finished 3^rd in the world.

During the afternoon volleyball siesta, we would join (sneak) into the volleyballers hotel buffet lunch and lounge by the pool. At one of the pool sessions, I was cordially invited by Dale (a British 9 year old) to play ball in the pool. Little did I know that my answer of “yes” would lead to 45 minutes of catch and sunburned shoulders.

In the evenings following the games, we had several enjoyable meals with Krystal and Curtis – introducing them to them to the tasty Cyprus meze gorge fest. On Saturday night, we were even invited along to join the international collection of volleyball players for dancing the night away (OK just ‘til 1:30) at an Agia Napa night club. All in all it was a great weekend and such a wonderful random surprise having friends from home here.

Sunday June 11, 2006 – "In Case You End Up in a Rough Patch”

After a bit of brainstorming of activities and perusing some free tourist handouts, we settled on a day at the “country club.” We hadn’t swung a golf club in at least a year, but seeing that we have exhausted most other activity options, it sounded like a great idea. The course was advertised as only 15 pounds for as many rounds as you’d like to play with women being half price. I guess the first red flag should have been the owner (Robin) ensuring me over the phone that the course (suitable for beginners) wouldn’t be crowded (a Sunday afternoon mind you). When we were finished playing we could have a drink by the pool and even go for a swim if we liked.

The “thought we were lost several times after ending up on mountainous dirt backroads” drive to Vikla Golf and Country Club took about 30 minutes. Upon arrival we trotted into the dusty cluttered “country club” (house conversion) and paid our “green fees.” Robin provided us our “complimentary water for the course” (refilled plastic water containers) and cutouts from doormats “in case you end up in a rough patch.” We soon realized the “rough patch” encompassed the entire weed/rock/dirt strewn course except for the irrigated greens. As much as we laughed about the barrenness of it all, Vikla was just about right for our pathetic golfing display. We had a really enjoyable afternoon and when you think about how much water is used irrigating a single golf course (700,000+ gallons of water a day in California), placing your ball on a doormat prior to every hit to save a little water didn’t seem half bad.

On the drive home, we stopped in at another “country club” to brush up on our “only did this once in middle school” archery skills. After about an hour bow and arrowing away, our far from Robin Hood display quickly lost its entertainment value. Two horses were led by “ranch hands” onto the archery facility from an adjacent barn. After putting two and two together, we quickly said: they are going to do what I think they are going to do / couldn’t this wait 5 minutes until we leave / isn’t there a more romantic secluded location for this… The metaphorical awkward “are they fighting mommy” train wreck that ensued will unfortunately forever etch Elias
Country Club into our collection of Cyprus memories.

Saturday June 10, 2006 – The Zen

Sorry for the delay on updating you on our lives in Cyprus, but we’ve had a couple nice weekends “on the island.” Now that it has warmed up we decided to take advantage of our 10 minute walk to the Mediterranean location and continue our scuba diving training with an advanced scuba diver certification with Aloha Divers. It had been two years since we had even glanced at scuba equipment, but all it took was four dives (night, wreck/deep, navigation, and search and recovery dives), reading a scuba textbook, and doing some knowledge reviews.

Although there isn’t really any aquatic life anywhere around Limassol (seriously only saw a lobster or two and a few relatively unexciting fish), the highlight of Cyprus diving is a 175 meter long ferry boat that sank 25 years ago. The Zenobia lies only about a 15 minute boat trip from Larnaca Bay (an hour away from Limassol) at a depth of 42 meters (at its lowest point) and is considered one of the top 5 wreck dives in the world. We went down to 30 meters on our two Saturday dives on the wreck and were amazed at the size of it – just HUGE. The Zenobia sank on its maiden voyage carrying semi trucks which are now visible spilling from the hull onto the sea floor. On our second dive we even were led through a large doorway into the bridge of the wreck by our instructor, Mark.

If you are interested, here are a few more photos from the dive...

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Sunday June 4, 2005 – Iceberg Dead Ahead!

Without a car, Cyprus weekends are pretty humdrum. As nothing is open, your options for entertainment include going: to the beach, to get coffee, to the movies, nowhere trying to find something on Greek TV. This past weekend we accomplished all four potential weekend activities. We lounged the mornings away reading and watching TV, went to the beach for coffee in the afternoon, and we went to our favorite theater of all time. I’d been eying this floating iceberg fun park for the past few weeks and was able to sweet talk my way into fifteen minutes of fun before closing time. I was well above the median age of ten (physically at least), but had a wonderful time entertaining myself.

Not to poke fun by any means of Cyprus fashion, but these extra tight speedo boxer briefs and fanny pack are quite the style on the beach here. Maybe I need this beach getup to fully integrate into Cypriot society?

Ever wonder what happens when you leave a glass bottle of water in the freezer overnight? I woke up to it on Saturday morning (the shelf isn't normally like that). The frozen shard o’ glass ice sheet accident waiting to happen is still in there – not quite sure how to deal with it without defrosting the entire fridge.

Monday May 29, 2006 – Mummy Tummy

Cab drivers in Cairo are astounding; they make New York City taxis look like Grandpa out for a Sunday drive. Traffic lights are ignored, without even flinching they squeeze between cars, they constantly are honking and beeping, and the best part is they drive around in rickety small 30 year old Datsuns. There always seemed to be traffic in Cairo which makes the Egyptian cabbies’ lives that much more frustrating I’m sure. Along with traffic lights being ignored, pedestrians are as well. Everyone (Grandma, kids, Mom with baby, business men…) just reenact Frogger to cross six lane streets – run between speeding cars, hesitate for a moment, then cross the next lane. I was fairly confident that we would witness someone getting hit by a car but this heart stopping method seems to work well for Cairo.

Speaking of cabs, we were taken on quite a ride today. After acknowledging where we wanted to go with a head nod (only spoke Arabic), our cabbie took us on a 20 minute joy ride around Cairo. Once I realized that even with all his best efforts (map staring, looking for a translator…) that he had no clue where he was taking us, I had him drop us off no where near our tourist destination. Instead of the 10 pound fair he insisted on 40 (all this communicated via hand signals). As a matter of principal I gave him our only 10 (knowing that the 40 was a whitey rip off and that I had nothing smaller than a 50) and got out of the car. He got out, followed us, and went to the tourist police who were near the spot where we stopped. They didn’t seem to care and unfortunately didn’t speak English either. I “la, la, la” ed and the ladies and I quickly crossed a six lane road (Egyptian style) to get back to the other side in the direction we wanted to head. He happened to find us after u-turning, yelled some Arabic niceties and spit out the window at me (didn’t hit me luckily). Good times.

Throughout the trip, we often joked about the affliction of “Mummy Tummy” – every time we dared to eat a salad, saw ice precariously floating in our drinks, ate unpeeled fruit or that funky mystery meat platter on the airplane… Luckily we were able to avoid any gastronomical irregularities our entire trip, until I got this in an email from the Brit Tuesday morning: “One word of advice....never fly with mummy tummy...just don't.”

For those of you who didn't get enough photos of the trip, here you go...

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Sunday May 28, 2006 – In the Bowels of the Great Pyramid

After a bit of a Pyramid teaser on Saturday, today we headed out to the Giza Pyramids and the Egyptian museum. The Egyptian Museum is located right in downtown Cairo and is an impressive jumble of unairconditioned mummy stuff; although much of the Pharaonic antiquities have been pilfered to museums throughout the world. You could literally spend a couple days just wandering within the museum, but we settled for a half day with Ahmed explaining the most impressive of the collections (there are more than 120,000 items on display with another 150,000 stored in the basement). There are hundreds of sarcophaguses, friezes and wall paintings, pottery, jewelry pieces…the most impressive are the artifacts from King Tutankhamun’s tomb. His tomb is surprisingly the only tomb of a king found thus far which had not been looted – this priceless collection now fills museum rooms of gold, jewels, golden thrones and masks…

Surprisingly the Giza Pyramids, a half an hour outside of central Cairo, are for the most part flanked by the sprawl of Cairo. Only one side (the direction where you see most of the photos taken) is desert. The most memorable part of the Pyramids, besides their impressive silhouette in the skyline, was going inside the Great Pyramid. After a musty thick aired crouched shuffle in the bowels of the Great Pyramid, we were rewarded by reaching the King’s chamber. Long ago plundered by looters, the only remaining ancient relic was the sarcophagus, which was too large for them to remove. Surprisingly, we were the only people in the Pyramid, which gave us some time to just soak in the grandeur of the amazing construction. The power actually went out twice for almost an eerie amount of time (3 minutes each) so we sat in literal pitch blackness in a 4,500 year old pyramid…very cool. A couple random facts for you: “until the 19^th century, the Great Pyramid was the tallest building in the world” and it’s “the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to survive.”

After an afternoon of exploring the site, we dined on schwarmas and pitas in the back of the minivan. Our last stop before being dropped at the hotel was at a family owned operation which extracts floral essences from a variety of flowers. Apparently, the big perfume companies (L’Oreal, etc.) get a lot of their floral essences from Egyptian suppliers which they in turn dilute nine times for inclusion in their perfumes. The owner of the store embarked on a twenty minute demonstration of beautifully smelling floral essences (rose, sweet pea, lily, gardenia…) by rubbing the different flavors on our fingers, arms, neck…accompanied by a bottomless glass of hibiscus tea. After a very impressive and lengthy sales pitch (tea, smell pretties, shoulder massage), the Canadian shelled out $30 for 3 ounces of “Queen of the Nile” while the rest of us just appreciated our floral scented arms and fingers.

The Canadian and I lounged the late afternoon away by the pool, while “C” and the Brit napped. We ate dinner at a restaurant not memorable for its food (enough meze already – the Cypriots, Jordanians, Lebanese, Egyptian all have their different takes on it :^), but the belly dancing show and its outdoor garden setting. We polished off the evening with drinks and a sheesha at a great Nile side bar called Sangria.

Saturday May 27, 2006 – Superiority of Small Fingers

We were met at 8:30 AM by our Giza born guide Ahmed for a full days tour of Saqqara and Islamic Cairo. In the interest of time we decided to elect for a private tour guide, which turned out to be a great decision; although a busload of loud obnoxious American tourists really did sound appealing. Saqqara (45 minutes outside of Cairo), “one of the richest archaeological sites in Egypt,” was the first stop of the day. In its heyday, this burial site covered an area of 4 miles from north to south. The Step Pyramid of Djoser was the prototype, if you will, of the pyramids of Giza built in the 27^th Century BC. Until this pyramid, royal tombs consisted of underground rooms. We also had a chance to enter a few underground tombs and were amazed by the still vivid 5,000 year old wall reliefs and paintings. Saqqara is where we first encountered the pushy vendors, selling anything from postcards (“you take, free”) to donkey rides (“here, you like, get on, free photo”). We got accustomed to saying “la, shukran” (no thank you) quite regularly and Ahmed stepped in with an Arabic reprimand to any incessant pestering.

En route from Saqarra to the Mohammed Ali Mosque (not the boxer), we made a quick stop at a Carpet School. What originally was publicized as a school where Egyptian children from the countryside could learn a trade, make a little extra money, and go to school for part of the day seemed a bit closer to child labor. I figured it was a pop in and pop out spend a few hours a day, but realistically these children (anywhere from the age of 5 – 18) spend 6 - 8 hours of their day rug making. The remainder of the day is supposedly spent in school. Apparently, the children are well suited for rug making per the manager because of the “superiority of small fingers to make the large amounts of knots needed for the rugs” (ranging from 300 per inch to 4500.) After the explanation and viewing the beautiful rugs made by a multitude of small fingers, I wholeheartedly supported a productivity process improvement of dropping the schooling altogether and increasing working hours to 12 hours a day – hope you sense the sarcasm here.

Our tour of Islamic Cairo included a stop at the beautiful Mohammed Ali Mosque (very spiritual and moving experience) and Khan Kahili bazaar. Ahmed led us through the mosque, all of us shoeless (to show respect) giving a brief history of Islam. Unlike the cathedrals of Europe, it was very acceptable to lie down on the 150+ year old Turkish carpets and gaze up taking in the art, rotundas, and amazing chandelier. The mosque provided a spectacular vantage point for smoggy views around Cairo.

Built in 1382, Khan al-Khalili is one of the biggest bazaars in the Middle East. It is a crowded maze of narrow canvas covered dirt alleyways with vendors selling everything from exotic spices to metal works to kitsch tourist souvenirs. Ahmed guided us through the alleyways pointing out the occasional historic sight, and on request led us to an authentic hand made metal light fixture shop - very gloomy and chockfull of these intricately designed pieces...best of all not a tourist in sight.

To top off the day, the Brit and I coordinated a sunset felucca on the Nile surprise for the ladies. While the Brit sweet talked the hotel into making us a picnic snack/dinner, I secured a trusty felucca and skipper which were conveniently located at a small dock near our hotel. Under the guise of bringing the Brit some pain killers for his very “clumsy, saved from landing headfirst out the van by our guide” exit earlier in Islamic Cairo, I snuck out of our room to pack mule our picnic down to the boat. The poor little backpack’s zippers ended up holding on for dear life after we somehow managed to jam it full of 10 beers, water, fruit, olives, and sandwiches. We actually had to jettison a few sandwiches as the “one of each” sandwich request was lost in translation – the four of us each got chicken, beef, and vegetarian sandwiches. After a few practice walks with clanking beer bottles, we determined it was best that I run ahead as not to spoil the surprise. Our little hour and a half private dinner cruise went off without a hitch and the ladies really were quite impressed that we were able to pull the whole thing off.