6/1/2008-6/4/2008

I'm alive! All joking aside, I'm happy to report, as well as happy to be, in one piece after a very long but very fun journey from Columbus to Nicosia, Cyprus. My luggage has not experienced such good fortune, but that's a story for a later time.

After leaving home at 9:30am on Sunday, I arrived in Chicago at, well, 9:30am on Sunday. The hour I gained gave me nothing but extra time in the airport to wait for Katie to arrive. I had imagined that this time would be well spent eating what I remembered to be some fantastic Chicago airport food, making a few calls and reading. Nerves and excitement had kept my hunger that morning to a minimum, but by the time our landing gear hit the tarmac, I was starving. As I set foot inside the terminal, I was greeted by the unmistakable aroma of Cinnebon. I have not had Cinnebon in years, most likely in that very airport. I'm not sure I can explain the desperate need I felt to find that Cinnebon...but as I followed signs for baggage claim, I suddenly found myself outside security, and consequently outside any realm of edible satisfaction. O'Hare International Airport must not believe in post-baggage claim hunger, because they have 1 lonely Starbucks on the ground floor of terminal 3, and not a table in sight. Trust me, I searched. Boy, did I search. I went upstairs and my choices were: turn left, go outside; turn right, go through security. Meanwhile, my bags and only my bags arrived on the corral next to the Starbucks. I guess everyone else had connecting flights....?

So I decided not to wrestle with a backpack, a purse, 2 rolling bags with any kind of food or beverage, and opted to just wait until Katie arrived to eat. Three relatively quick hours rolled by with the help of $6.25 24hour internet service (worth it since we would be in the airport until 5:30pm) and Katie arrived in an similar state of hunger. Given the previously described circumstances, we headed for the train to the international terminal where we were certain to find at least a McDonalds. We found the terminal, checked our bags, received our British Airways boarding passes and were soon sending our carry-ons through an X-ray machine. As I took off my shoes and placed my quart sized plastic baggie full of no more than 3oz liquid containers on the conveyer belt, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the most appetizing array of international food in a food court across the way. Once on the other side of security, I noticed that we had missed it entirely, just by going through security. Fantastic luck. Surely there would be more food inside the terminal. That only made the most logical sense. But, of course, I should have learned that O'Hare International Airport does not plan for hunger logically. We settled for cold, pre-packed sandwiches from a kiosk conveniently located directly in front of a huge glass wall looking into, you guessed it, the food court. Now that is just mean.

Four hours later, we boarded our flight to London. This would officially be the start of my international travels, and was full of people speaking with British accents, and American high schoolers taking some kind of group trip. We sat next to and behind members of a very nice Indian looking British family. Katie had the window (though she promised I could lean over as much as I wanted to look!) and it looked like I would be between her and the dad of this family. As we went to sit down, some little switch happened, and I found my self next to his daughter instead. So cute, she looked to be about 6 or 7, and she was impeccably polite. I have a hunch she wanted to sit by the big girls (us), and her parents indulged her. I guess that means we look pretty wholesome!

The best thing about the flight was definitely the flight progress maps. At one point, I looked out the window, saw some coast, said to Katie, "I bet that's New England!", and then found out it was! So cool. It had been so long since I had been on a plane that big, and I was pleasantly surprised by the little tv screens for every seat, the blanket and pillow and socks and eyemask for sleeping, and the food! I had, impressively, salmon with hollandaise sauce, which tasted great but really did not agree with my stomach. I should have known better... but the salad was great!

After sleeping (kind of) and temporarily losing my glasses case (it was right next to me), we looked out the window to see bits of Ireland and finally England on the ground below. At the airport, we wound around Heathrow, zigged and zagged through a maze of hallways, trying to find our departing terminal. Since our next flight was on Cyprus Air, and British Airways had booked it for us (they canceled our original flight), we hoped to make it through security in the other terminal without boarding passes. Finally, we discovered the bus/shuttle, and our driver announced, "Terminals 1 and 2. Your journey will last 10 minutes". So excited, I had never been on a journey through an airport before. I loved his voice, and his word choice. It really made the whole ride so much more exciting when framed as a "journey".


Well we ended our journey at terminal 1 and commenced our second journey to conquer security! Luckily it seemed to be completely irrelevant that we had no boarding pass, and we finally found the Cyprus Air desk. A couple clicks on the computer and we were handed 2 vibrantly yellow tickets, set to leave again in about an hour. At this point, we were both outrageously exhausted. Heathrow, I graciously discovered, is an intelligently designed mecca of airport food options, among other shopping curiosities. My stomach, however was not agreeing with the idea of food, so instead I overpayed for a bottle of water. Katie purchased some delightfully creative orange juice, which in what I would consider a stereotypically British way was made from "the juice of 10 lovingly squeezed oranges". Awesome.

The rest of the day was pretty much a blur. We made it to our flight, and I without a window to peek my imagination now and then, I slept through the whole thing. Landing in Cyprus was an interesting experience, though, because as we looped around to land from the east (we came across the island from the west first), it looked like we were going to be getting pretty close to the sea before long. Like really close. As the plane got closer and closer to the tarmac, all I could see out the left-hand side of the plane was water. And more water. And closer water. Then I looked out the right side of the plane. All land. Whew.

Getting off the plane was surprising, and amazing. No indoor terminal in Larnaca! We stepped off the plane straight onto those neat rolly stairs, and were greeted by a panorama of the Mediterranean meeting flat, dry, dusty coast. The heat hit me like a brick, but it felt great. A quick shuttle ride to baggage claim (which looked more like a 1 story warehouse) led us through customs, where it seemed like simply having a passport with your picture on it was good enough to enter the country. No questions, no checking of bags, nothing. I like Cyprus!

Ok, so here is the bag story. I'm standing with Katie and our new friend Nicole at our baggage claim, a few people deep, waiting to see our luggage scoot by on the conveyor belt. I notice from the other side that someone's bag has been tied up in an industrial strength plastic bag- and then I realize that it's mine. Joy. Having no idea what that could mean, I decide to wait until it comes around again because it was impossible to fight through the crowd to reach once I realized it belonged to me. A couple minutes later, another, larger, similarly colored, similarly bagged piece of luggage arrives. Fantastic. So for some reason, both of my bags had met some sort of misfortune which required a second layer of protection to be added.... I could only imagine. Here comes the first bag again. I wiggled my way up to the corral, awkwardly picked up this giant piece of plastic with no handles, and realized that I could see the content of my bag through the plastic. Aka, it wasn't zipped. Whatever, I would deal with that later, I needed to watch for my other bag. So I watched, and looked, and looked and watched, and searched, and walked around, and asked some people...and never saw it again.

Now, how in the world does such an obvious piece of baggage just walk away from a situation like this? No one is going to accidentally take it, because its the kind of thing you definitely make sure is yours before walking away with it. Naturally, this would happen in the country where I speak absolutely nothing of the language, and while most people speak English, its kind of an awkward situation to explain. "Lost baggage?" Yes...but I saw it. "Saw it? It was here?" Yes. "But it is gone now?" Yes. Exactly. Pretty dumb, huh? "Ok, fill out this form. We will try to find, and send it to where you are staying." (imagine Greek accent, its so much more entertaining). "You stay in Nicosia?" Yes. "Where?" Uhhhh. Hold on. Of course I have no idea what my address is, but its on a sheet in my purse, and luckily the lady I was talking to knew better than to have me read it, so she just took it out of my hands and copied down the one I pointed to. Same with the phone number. "Ok, we will call you if we find it." Fantastic! That's what I was hoping for...

Off I go, one checked piece of luggage in tow, and embark with Katie and Nicole on a journey (that bus driver in London has no idea the impact he had on my vocabulary use) to find out how we are getting from Larnaca to Nicosia. Either there would be a group from our program waiting for us, a taxi with our key and phone waiting for us, or we would have to get our own taxi, and maybe figure out how to get to the GLS office before they close. Outside, we found GLS people! YAY!! We're the last to arrive, but they waited for us and we finally got on the bus and drove to Nicosia with about 30 other people.

Apartment! We were some of the last to get dropped off at our apartment, and 3 of the 4 other girls arrived with us. I had the key to get us inside, where we each had bags of orientation stuff, cell phones (!) and every one else's keys. It's a really nice place, seems very new and has just what we need. a living room with couches and tables, a table to eat on, a kitchen with an oven, microwave, fridge and washing maching (the clothes kind), 3 double rooms and one and a half baths. That's right, six girls, one shower...this should be fun! There is one very unique aspect to our apartment; above us is a music school. So around 10am piano lessons being, with some drums and voice thrown in there, continuously until about 10pm. The music is really comforting though, because during those quiet times of the day, we can usually hear scales and classical piano from upstairs.

That night (monday), we all met up at the university for some food and a little introduction from the program coordinators. I was expecting some great, light, Mediterranean food- but when we arrived I was really surprised and a little disappointed. A little slice (hehe) of home instead- Pizza Hut. I'm getting tired just remembering that day- we went home after dinner and crashed. Our bodies were exhausted and jet lagged. Oh yeah, and I didn't have any clothes, because they were all in my mysteriously missing bag.

Tuesday was spent getting familiar with the area and each other- our sixth roommate had arrived early in the morning and we met her when we woke up. First order of business- finding an ATM to take out Euros. We live in a really nice neighborhood, and the main street, October 28 St., is a couple blocks away. Katie and I took a little direction from some other girls who had been out earlier, and we finally found one. Success!

Next order of business: food. I was surprised to learn that supermarkets are more common here than small specialized markets, and we have a Carrefour right near the university. After a short nap, we ventured over there and picked up a few things. All I wanted was hummous, and of course in Cyprus it is one of the most normal things to eat- I could not locate it in the store for the life of me. Well, I finally found some at a bakery that night- a very cool bakery which is somehow classy AND open 24 hours a day. Couldn't ask for more...

Today I finally got to know the city a little bit! We had all really been wanting to find an open air market to buy fresh fruits and veggies, and hoped to go down to the old city and find one. Our university has this deal with one of the taxi companies that gets us a flat rate of 7 euro for a carfull ride down to the center city, so we gave them a call and showed up with 2 cars to shuttle the 6 of us down there. We were dropped off in Eleftheria square to find our way around!

Ok, first I need to explain Nicosia's city center. The quick run down is that the old town Nicosia is actually inside 16th century Venetian walls, and is just a maze of cobblestone streets and sidewalks, lined with old stores and new stores, tourist stops and authentic Cypriot businesses- and the UN buffer zone. We were dropped off just inside the wall, and had no idea where anything was. Adventure begins!

We headed to a neat, hole in the wall clothing store that a couple girls had seen as we drove to the square. We kind of cautiously looked through the shirts and other items on the racks, while the woman who I assume owned the place started to try to talk to us. Though probably not the best etiquette, we just kind of stared at her, not sure how to try to figure out if we could speak English. Eventually she says, "English?", to which we enthusiastically nodded our heads. She asked us where we were from, and why we were in the city, and how long we were going to stay... seven weeks, we said! "seven days...?" oh, no, weeks! "..weeks? weeks!". She was so nice, a very cute older Cypriot woman. We asked her if she knew where we could find a market, and where to eat- of course she told us about the supermarket first, and then guided us to a restaurant down the street a little ways for lunch.

There is far too much of the next bit to tell that I could not possibly add it with this first post, which is already outrageously long. My apologies for that! Tomorrow I can catch up more on today, since we won't be doing much outside the University and I can catch my adventurous breath.