6/13/08

What a change it is to be occupied with class all week! The first several days of our time here were full of exploring, going to the old city, figuring how to shop for groceries, and enjoying what have become our favorite establishments, Zorbas bakery and Papafilipou ice cream. Then Monday came around. Class started, a routine was established- and all that taxi-ing had left a dent in our pockets that was deep enough to keep us from returning to the old city for a while. One day, one day I will walk downtown. When is the question.

Classes have turned out to be… interesting. Still hard to judge for sure, but it seems like our Art History professor is barely older than most of us, and has never taught before. But, Art History is Art History, and we have a good textbook- I will learn Art History. Early Christian Thought is, well, hilarious. Not funny so much, or comical, but enjoyable to the point that I am amused. Our professor is of an unknown background, very obviously involved in work with the Orthodox Church, and incredibly passionate about history and religion. And typography…? The first day of class he walked in, put his worn academic briefcase on the table and asks, “Anyone here from Ohio State?”. Oh boy. Of course I got excited. Excited enough, actually, to preemptively shout, “me!”- followed by the truth. We chatted a little about the Blue Danube restaurant close to campus, and he told me a randomly personl story about the owner’s wife.

He has this indistinguishable accent, based in something very Eastern European, and sprinkled with Greek, English, and what I think was a bit of Scottish. He traveled all his life, studied in Athens and taught Byzantine and Slovak studies at OSU for several years in the ‘70s. Cyprus is his adopted homeland, from what I can tell, and although he complains of the heat and mentioned that Cyprus is no place to live (it is all tourism, he explained), he seems to love it, if only for its historical and religious antiquities and fascinations. Everything we talk about has a connection to this island, and every word we use “comes from the Greek words….” His favorite topic by far is monasticism. So we talk about monasticism A LOT; whether it relates to our lecture, or not.

On our very first class-free day of the week, today, a couple of my roommates and I embarked on our very first independent Cyprus travel adventure! Early this morning we boarded our service taxi at Papafilipou, and headed to Larnaca for a day at the beach (on the Mediterranean!!!). Service taxis are such an awesome concept. Instead of having to hire a private taxi and paying the metered rate, you can reserve a seat on a Travel Express “bus” (van), which picks you and any other passengers up and takes you to your destination in a common city for a flat, individual rate. In our case, Nicosia to Larnaca for seven euro. Compared to what we would have paid to split a taxi car, and the fact that the two cities are a good forty minutes apart without traffic, that is a steal!

As we drove into Larnaca, other passengers were dropped off in whatever geographical order the driver had planned out. We had no idea what was going on, because everyone else spoke some splintered version of Greek and English, but we trusted that we would get to the beach in one piece. The first stop was to let the guy sitting next to me off at what I assumed was his work… we had left around 8:30am, and we dropped him off at a store of some kind (ice cream maybe?); I was so relieved. He was kind of a bigger guy, maybe late thirties, and conveyed whatever his attitude was through his posture- taking up more than his share of my seat in addition to his and half holding onto his seatbelt like a rebellious teenager trying to be better than the safety rules. There were two signs in our van, no smoking and wear your seatbelt. This guy at least pretended to act like he knew he was supposed to; our driver smoked like a chimney.

Driving deeper into the city, we passed what must have been the turn off for the airport. I only know this because of the reaction of the passenger in the front seat. He raised his voice and his hands, motioning to the opposite side of the passed roundabout; “Why you not turn there! I go to airport, it only 3 km!”. He and our driver continued to argue, through the city, dropping two other passengers off and finally making our way to the airport. Its sounded like, after a couple phone calls and wristwatch checks, that he was late to meeting some other people, and was mad at the driver for not taking him there before the other stops. Finally, our driver said to him, “This is my job! You do not tell me how to do my job! If you need to be there at certain time, you call private taxi! This is service taxi, I chose where we go!” That was that, the passenger got out, and we were driven back to McKenzie beach, a couple miles back.

We’d been told that the Larnaca beaches are inferior to Ayia Napa beaches, but I absolutely loved where we went. The water was calm, but brought in waves, it was the Mediterranean, which in itself is a wonderful sight to behold, and the temperature was perfect. Hot air, cool water, clear water, boats and barges farther out and plenty of people walking the beach. We swam and swam, and let the sun dry us while we took naps. I hadn’t been far out in a body of water like that in a while, and was somehow giddy at the idea that I floated so well. Eventually I realized how the floating had affected my sun exposure when I wound up with a weird neck/chin burn- probably from my incessant goggle-less breaststroking between the waves. After too much sun we headed to one of the beach-side restaurants for fish and chips, and surprise complimentary watermelon. That fruit has never tasted so good. Naps usually follow sun and lunch, but we had a while before the service taxi would be returning. Great, we thought, we’d just find a bit of shade and lie down in the grass. Well. There are no big trees on the coast. Just palm trees. We ended up curling up in the narrow shadow of a palm trunk, adjusting our position with the setting sun. Nice nap though!

The day ended with a quiet ride back to Nicosia, sharing the taxi with several other girls in our program who we found at the beach that day. The sun wore us out, and it was early to bed, only to rise early the next morning for another road trip- this time to Paphos!