EDIT: This was going to be one post, but then it got too long!
I'll be honest, I've never understood the appeal of tropical getaways. I'm so pasty white that I can get a sunburn on a cloudy day. The idea of exposing my vampire white skin to a warmer sun like a hog dog on a spit terrifies me. On the flip-side, I
love swimming, so most summers I find myself getting scorched at some point. Such is life.
Germany is still pretty cool and cloudy this time of year, so when we were looking at places to vacation for our week long Pentecost break (or Whitsun break, for you Brits), we all unamiously decided for someplace with warm weather, sunshine, and water. We first turned our eyes to Spain or Portugal, but everything was super expensive. We then thought of Greece (whose financial crisis may well end the Eurozone) because it is super cheap to go there as a tourist right now. Just as we were about to book the cheapest flight to Thessaloniki, Ryan Air (Europe's most sketchy airplane service) had a deal to their new hub in Paphos,
Cyprus.
Where is Cyprus, you may ask?
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| It's that green thing that looks like a stingray. |
Cyprus has had a long, confused past filled with violence and hostile take-overs. It straddles the worlds of the EU and the Middle East - combining the cultures of Greece, Turkey, Israel, France, and England. Everything from its food to its people is a tangled mess of cultures that made its way onto the island, and it has created something entirely new.
Oh and by the way, it's totally beautiful. So we packed our bags and headed off to Paphos!
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| On the train to the airport! |
But it took a while to get there! We first had to take a 3 hour train to an airport in
Memmingen, whose area around the airport uncomfortably enough still looks like the POW camp it was during WII. (Wow, this blog entry went dark quickly.)
Anyway, we were flying with the world's cheapest and, therefore, most sketchy airline, RyanAir. If you've never flown with RyanAir before, congratulations on not being poor! I wonder what it must be like.
Even before 9/11, airlines were getting stingier and stingier with baggage limits and fees. Then 9/11 happened and airline stocks plummeted, and being the marketing geniuses they are, almost every airline (with the exception of Southwest, the best airline ever) decided to make flying even more hellish than it needed to be by tacking on ridiculous limits on the number of checked and carry-on bags. And may the gods of flying help you if the bag you planned to carry-on is too heavy.
Oh, and they stopped feeding you. Seriously, if you want me as a customer, why would you make me pay to carry the stuff I need and then starve me while I'm trapped in a metal box with wings? If any of the CEOs of airlines are reading this (ha), I'm still waiting for you to be awesome again, since the TSA can't give me my human dignity back.
But in the annals of history (or at least this blog), let it be known that RyanAir is the Mister Scrooge of airlines. If you're a poor student, you have to cram all your stuff into one small piece of hand luggage. And they mean one piece too. Forget slipping by with your adorable purse or your soft leather man-satchel plus your duffel bag or backpack. Nope. One piece only. Rachel lovingly refers to the process of shoving your purse into your hand luggage as the "RyanAir jenga game." It's annoying, but I can deal with it.
What I can't deal with is when I'm not fed. On a 4 hour long evening flight. They brought the drink cart around three times, as if they were taunting me. 3.50 for a candy bar and 5 for a thing of chips! You have got to be kidding me!
But my mood majorly improved when we landed and we exited the airport to a warm sea-breeze and palm trees - real palm trees!
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| It's all Greek to me, seriously. |
But it was also a little past midnight and everyone else from our plane were getting onto chartered coach buses. We all stood around like, "Uhhhh what do we do now?" Luckily, the guy working the information desk was able to point us to the one Euro bus.
We got to our hostel and the supremely friendly and helpful (read: surly and grumpy) night desk manager gave us our key. We then asked to pay, since we were going to put on a credit card and we wanted to get it over with, but then the manager was said they didn't take credit. As he sat there with stickers saying VISA, MasterCard, and American Express behind him. We all stared at him. "You bring cash tomorrow and pay," he told us with indifference and then went back to sleeping.
We were grumpy, but mostly hungry, and we decided to tackle our priority need instead of wondering if we wandered into some kind of Cypriote "cash only" mob establishment. We set our stuff down in our room (which I will describe in a second), and then went back to the night manager and asked him where we could find food. He was very helpful and got a map and pointed out his favorite spot -
Oh no, wait, he didn't. He gave us a funny look and told us walk "that way" up the road.
By this point it was around 1 am. Luckily, "that way up the road" actually had a lot of restaurants. Unluckily, most of them were closing just as we walked up. After the fourth or fifth place turned us down, we were in dire straits. We had been walking for about another 30 minutes, facing rejection at each turn. Starving and tired, we got a little hysterical.
Whenever we saw a great restaurant ahead and then walked up to see it closed, this was our reaction:
At our lowest point, we seriously considered eating one the island cats that roam around Cyprus like bugs. (But apparently, if there are cats, there aren't snakes, so yay?)
We finally stumbled upon this little cafe, where an adorable little old man was cleaning up. We were calling this our last shot. Although he was closing, he was willing to make us sandwiches with a side salad. I have never been more grateful in my entire life!
He was the sweetest little old man who ever lived - he was so endearingly apologetic for not being able to "make us chips" (aka french fries). We couldn't have cared less, the food disappeared within seconds. Something must make sandwiches taste better at 2:30 am, because these were amazing! After the meal, we chatted with him a bit and he taught us some Greek phrases!
We went to bed and passed out.
Then we woke up to this:
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| Yes, that's the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. |
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| Yay sunshine! |
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| Rachel is ready to go! Also, check out our kitchenette. |
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| Helina! |
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Not sure why I was making that face, but
oh well. |
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Helina and Your Humble Blogger are ready to conquer
Paphos! |
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| Jake can't resist a photo. |
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| Our "resort" |
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| The sun deck and the pool. |
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| The girls catch some sun! |
Super-pumped to see the warm weather, we set out to catch some rays of sun and wander down the boardwalk. I was super enthusiastic and I really wanted to play in the Mediterranean - how salty is it really? Do you float easier?
My exuberance was cut tragically short, however, when I tripped and fell all over the craggy rocks by the water's edge. I sliced up my leg pretty nicely. I looked like I had been attacked by an animal. (I was going to put in a picture, but it's not attractive, and I don't want to make anyone faint.) Luckily, Jake plays a doctor on TV (and by that, I mean, he's pre-med). Helina and Rachel went to the rescue and found an attractive lifeguard, which made me feel even more embarrassed for my incompetence. Fortunately, the cuts were superficial! My leg was all bound up and I was sentenced to house arrest with no possibility of swimming that day.
Rachel took pity on me, trapped in the house/patio with only my Dickens book for class. And she went to the hostel's "Book Exchange", where she found these gems:
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| What. |
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| That's supposed to make me want to read it? |
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Definitely more my style.
I'm really digging his creepy lurking over her. |
We spent the whole day being lazy. We emerged from our hostel room in the evening to get dinner and drinks. We ate a nice seafood restaurant near the harbor, who floor was glass, so you could watch the fish go by below you. Rachel was daring and got octopus! It still had its suckers - gross! Tasted like chewy chicken, though.
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| Sunset over the harbor. |
Unsurprisingly, this humble blogger loves girly drinks. And tropical vacations lend themselves to girly drinks. As I have previously mentioned one of my favorite drinks is a Cosmopolitan, because grenadine makes everything better. But I have may found a new favorite: a Pink Treasure! It's made with vodka, peach schnapps, and bubbly Schweppes lemonade. It's a perfect summer drink! Plus, it's pink.
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| I got an umbrella and a parrot with my drink! |
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Rachel with her Sex on the Beach
(Vodka, peach schnapps, cranberry juice, and orange juice) |
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Helina with her Tequila Sunrise
(Tequila, orange juice, grenadine) |
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| And Jake with a beer...what else? |
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One of these things is not like the other...
(I don't want to know what a "Lady Rental" is) |
The next day we headed out down the boardwalk to see the harbor...
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| Chairs and umbrellas can be rented for all your tanning needs. |
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There were also many places were you could rent
jet skis, chartered boats, or go paragliding! |
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| Hello rocks, my enemy. |
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| The pirate ship party boat! |
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| Along the boardwalk...which isn't even a board walk. |
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| Looking over the harbor! |
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| Rachel must have said something... |
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I turned the super-vivid mode on my camera for this shot,
but the water really was this blue! |
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| Rachel was really happy! |
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| Hey there Helina! |
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| Jake can't resist a camera. |
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| And neither can Rachel, apparently. |
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| Your Humble Blogger and Jake. |
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| The Americanos! |
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| Jake's awesome panoramic shot from the boardwalk! |
The harbor is a crazy place - lined with little shops filled with knock-off sunglasses (Jake got a pair of Ray Bans), purses (wait...that's not a real Louis Vuitton?!), and watch (Rolex or bust). The restaurants are even crazier, especially at dinner. We experienced this the night before. The owners of the restaurants will harass you on the street and if you even show the vaguest interest in the menu, they descend upon you and try to seat you right away. Compared to Germany's lax, almost lazy, attitude which allows to check the posted menu without obligation, we were really overwhelmed. Jake got the worst of it, because he is "the man" who makes all the decisions for us helpless women-folk.
Nevertheless, the harbor boardwalk is an exciting, fun place with a lot to see!
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| You can't see all the tourists, but they're there, I swear. |
The next day, we took a bus down into the old part of the city. We got majorly lost, but that was fine by us!
We wandered through the dusty, warm streets and took in the new sights.
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| Good life choices. |
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| Fancy. |
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Helina is ready to attempt her apple pie
and custard.
Alas, it proved to be too much... |
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...And she got scolded into finishing it
by our waitress.
We helped. |
From there, we wandered around a bit more!
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| A shady green paradise! |
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| The girls. |
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| Old Turkish/Ottoman baths are still found in the city! |
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Some of the signs in the shopping "mall" were
quite funny. |
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| Ha. |
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| Not correct, but we understand! |
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Tensions between North and South still run high.
Cyprus as a whole is technically a member of the EU,
but Northern Cyprus, which claims to be its own country,
is recognized by only Turkey
as a legitimate government. |
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| Sunset over the Med. |
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| Lovely! |
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| Oh so tropical! |
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| Helina, Rachel, and Jake. |
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All of us!
No sunset, though. |
That evening, we booked a day cruise on a chartered boat. We felt accomplished! Plus, my leg was healing up nicely!
Before we went to eat, Rachel and I saw something black skitter from under the cabinets to under the fridge. We thought it was a cockroach. None of us were pleased by this possible turn of events, but we tried to put it out of our minds...
We got dinner and then went for an evening swim in the pool. Jake and I helped Rachel learn dive. Well, Jake tried to drown both of us, but that was to be expected. While we relaxed in the pool, a gigantic black tom cat, kept jumping onto our patio. We had fed him some water and some lunch meat earlier in the evening, because that's what cats eat right? Jake named him a very "Greek name" of Angelo. But Angelo kept coming back and sitting ominously close to our sliding glass door. We should have seen the signs coming...
Then, around midnight, disaster struck.
Rachel and I were upstairs getting ready for bed, while Helina was in the bathroom and Jake was cleaning up our living room. Suddenly, we hear a high pitched scream. Scared, Rachel and I poke our head out of our separate rooms, sharing a sitcom-worthy moment of confusion.
"It's a mouse!" squeals Jake from downstairs. (According to Helina, he had jumped up onto the couch at this moment.)
"No, you're joking," says Helina from the bathroom. "You have to be joking."
As Rachel and I make our way down the stairs, we hear two screams from Jake and Helina.
"There's another one! AHHHHH!"
"Oh, but's it's so cute!" Helina manages to say, in between shrieks.
And then more screaming. Rachel and I hid on the stairs, poking our heads around the corner.
At one point in our hysteria, we thought that there were 5 mice. But we knew there were about 2 scampering around our living room floor.
Jake and Rachel go to the office to tell the management that we have mice. The night desk manager expressed confusion about the plural of "mice". Once he figured out that we're trying to tell him that, yes, we have mice (or as he said "2 mouse"), he simply says: "What do mouse do? Run here, run there? Go to sleep and we look at in the morning."
We all climbed into bed, quite freaked out, and we stayed awake, trying to listen for little squeaks!
Part II: The Cruise, A Bus Tour, and What Happens to the Mice?!
