Welcome to Cyprus!

It's been five days since I got here and everything has been great!

We only got the internet yesterday so I need to catch everyone up on what I have been doing. Well first of all I'm pretty sure none of us have fixed our jetlag because we continue to go to sleep in the early morning and lets just say now I have just woken up from a nap. "We" is the four of us girls in our wonderful apartment, Kelly, Kelley, and Lauren (my roommate : D). We have been so busy since we got here that I have barely noticed the lack of television or internet.

We landed in Lanarca on Thursday afternoon and took the group bus to Nicosia, the captial, which is where we live. Some of the advertisements are in Greek and some are in English, and some are in both. Its kind of luck of the draw but we have been making out well so far. This most likely due to the fact that our next door neighbor had been helping to show us the ropes. His name is Martin and he is from all over, including Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Jamaica. It makes for one very interesting and entertaining accent.

Our program coordinators are all extremely friendly. They fed us Pizza Hut twice so far : P but any free food tends to be appreciated greatly because everything is expensive here. I've been adapting to the Euro and trying to budget myself so I have the money to travel places.

Our first night was an early one but we still managed to swing by the bar for our 'Welcome to Cyrpus' drink and then we returned home because someone was coming to fix our heat.

We also had no hot water for a few days but we've been working it out. You also can't flush toilet paper and we have to conserve water because there is only one tank for the whole building and is refilled three times aweek. Oh and you have to "turn" on the hot water about a half hour before you want to take a shower. These are things we were so grateful to have Martin around for otherwise we would be lost.

We spent our first full day sleeping until two and then we set out to explore our new city. Everything is extremely safe here with the crime rate being about 1/6 what it is in the United States. However everyone drives out of control so we always have to remember to look right, left, right because they do drive on the left.

Going to the grocery store was an adventure all in itself. Apparently you have to get a scanner sticker before you go to ring out so instead we were laughed at. O well were just stupid Americans : P. They also have convientant escalators for your shopping cart which I still think are fantastic. The weather is wonderful so far. Its been sunny everyday and usually I just wear a light coat when we go out. It feels great to want to be outside and not huddled under my cubbers all day : )






After our shopping adventure, we spent sometime getting to know Martin next door. He invited us to go out to a club called Bling. Alot of the other American girls went too and it was alot of fun but also exhausting probably because the clubs here don't even open at all until midnight and stay open until 4 am. We were also introduced to Martin's friend Anwar, half Irish and half Jordanian, who has also been helping to show us about. And if 4 wasn't late enough, the 24 hour bakery, Zorba's, is a great place to go at all hours of the day. Bottom line, me and Kelley watched the sunrise from our balcony at about 8am. Sorry if I'm including too many details but I just want to tell everything about everything because it has all been so amazing thus why we never have the want to sleep.

On Saturday we had an afternoon tour of downtown and the old city. The streets were adorable with little shops and cafes. It was our first real exposure to some of the ancient architecture. The old city is a few km in diameter and is sourounded by venetian walls built in order to keep invaders out. It even had a moat that has now been turned into a park. Our tour guide took us to a Byzantine church that was beautiful.

After our tour we came home to make dinner and hang out with some our new friends. I haven't laughed that hard for that long in I don't know when. I'm not sure if it was all that funny or if we are all dillusional from never sleeping but either way it was the start of another great night.

Martin has a little green hatchback which Kelley, Anwar, Martin and myself decided to take to go to McDonald's! And let me tell you, it is the cleanest McDonald's I've ever seen. They even had a parking attendent which didn't go well when Martin parked half in a handicapped spot. O welll . . . the fries we just as delicious and of course they had a playplace : ) I have more pictures than things to say so I'll put some more pictures at the end.

After our road trip to the M.C. Donald's, we all went to the ice cream place down the street thats kind of like a huge arcade also. The highlight was the bumper cars which are outdoors and open year round.

The nights here last forever. After bumper cars, fooseball, airhockey, and icecream, we spent time at the bar and then more hanging at our pad. It was another 4 or 5 am night, I think.

Sunday was a long day of orientation which wasn't that exciting but our cooridnators are hella funny so it was good. After that, we had a free dinner at a nice Greek restaurant which was basically shut down for all of us.

Afterwards we went to Anwar's apartment and broke our promises of going to bed at a reasonable hour.

Monday was mostly free with just a short tour of the campus in the afternoon. We went grocery shopping again which is super convienant and less than a block away. We also only live about 2 mins walking from school, maybe even less.

We decided to cook our first real meal which was delicious thanks to Lauren. During dinner we were invited by some other international students from all over to their house for a party. We met tons of people from Spain to Nigeria and are planning to go to one of the guys house tonight to watch the inauguration. Last night we were up till about 5 again. O geez we never ever sleep. Today we had some History of Cyprus things this morning and now we haven't been doing much. Time to shower now that the hot water should be heated up. Hope its not too much detail and that it took so long. Hope everyone enjoys it and I will try to do my best to keep up with it. Scouts honor!

Oh and there are cats everywhere and I love it.