Cyprus

Mood: AntsyTheme Song: “Guilty Until Proven Innocent” - Jay Z and R. Kelly (hit Shuffle on my iPod, this is what I got!)

Wanted to take some time to talk about Cyprus, which was beautiful. Unfortunately I had some sort of British dysentery the whole time, so I spent a great deal of time in the resort’s lovely well-appointed ladies rooms. :( We flew into Pahpos airport, which is on the south coast. Apparently there is another airport on the other side of the island too. On the drive from the airport to the resort, I noticed that Cyprus - at least to my eyes - reminds me alot of a combination between Northern California (the lush hills combined with rocky mountain) and Hawaii (smell of ocean, beachfront). It was an interesting juxtaposition.

The resort itself was really beautiful. (see photo above) Although they must have been running a Centrum Silver special because there were old people EVERYWHERE. And it wasn’t even that warm out. Nothing like starting one’s day by walking past really old people in really small bathing suits. Looked like chicken livers and chicken skin everywhere! (This confirms my desire to have my consciousness transferred into a robot body as soon as said technology becomes available. I’m fairly confident this will happen in my lifetime). Another thing that was interesting is that there were stray cats all over the place - I think I counted four at one time. They weren’t feral or mean, just little cute kitties all over the resort. I guess Cyprus has a cat problem or something. It doesn’t help probably that tourists (read: me) like to feed them. But they’re sooo cute. I was disappointed they didn’t meow in Greek though. I wanted the kitty to open its mouth and say “νιάου νιάου”.


The first full day we were in training, we had what the resort calls a Full Mezze lunch. Which consisted of 2.5 hours of people continuously bringing food. Now, this would be a dream situation for my little brother, as well as several other males in my life. But for us, given we were on a work schedule, it was like a food nightmare. First there was the greek salad (yum, minus the olives). Then came some seafood. And more seafood. And then some more seafood. Then came some chicken. And lamb. And then some more seafood. And then some meat. And then side dishes. We had to call a time-out to stop the dessert procession. The poor resort employees really did look offended that we didn’t want more food. And poor me, sitting there with dysentery, I couldn’t really take advantage of anything on offer. And I love mediterranean food!


The other big adventure was the night we all went out for a group dinner. So it was me (American), a Brit, a Welshman, three Israelis, two Lebanese, and a Maltesean. And we go to this Cyprian restaurant. It smelled heavenly walking in and I was actually really hungry. I was feeling a bit better and so I ordered the greek salad to start. Which came out HUGE. Like Cheesecake Factory-size huge. After a few pieces of bread and that salad, I was ready for bed. But I soldiered onward and decided to try what was described as a local version of beef stew. It was a bit chilly outside and I thought Oooh comfort food. Yeah, not such a good idea. It was horrible! I spent the rest of the evening cracking up laughing and trying to figure out how to hide the food so the waiter wouldn’t see that I wasn’t eating it. The waiter had really given me a hard time for not finishing my salad, convinced something was wrong with it. And I had the whole “picky American” stereotype to deal with as well, and so me thinking the main dish was uh-scusting was not helping. It tasted like beef…covered in cinnamon and some other weird spice and then sauteed in tomato sauce for like 54 years. I am sure someone finds that combination lovely - but it wasn’t me!!


 All this talk of food has made me hungry, so I’m off to grab a late lunch. More later!

Federman out!