It's the Real World:Cyprus

The first flight I was supposed to be on out of Pittsburgh had mechanical problems so I spent four extra hours sitting in the airport waiting for it to get fixed. It ended up not being ready so everyone who was supposed to be on it had to take the next flight into New York. The plane was tiny, completely full, and they paid people to get off because it was too heavy.

JFK is HUGE. I only had to wait a few minutes before getting on my plane to London, which was nice. New York City is amazing to see from the sky at night. This flight was much better. I even got wine w/my dinner (hehe mommy ) and since it wasn’t very full and the two seats next to me were empty, I got to lay down and sleep a little.

Heathrow is huge too, but since our connecting flight to Cyprus was leaving pretty much as soon as we got there, we (all the kids on the NY group flight) had a bus take us straight to out terminal. We got on the plane and 5 hours later touched down in Larnaca, Cyprus!!!

My luggage was left in London, as was everyone else’s who flew in from New York. That really sucked. If I wasn’t dirty enough from the day and a half of sitting on planes, I now had to wait two more days until it would arrive. All the other girls in the house were really awesome and let me borrow their stuff and gave me clean clothes and everything… <3 roomies!

Ohhh…. And when I finally got it I plugged my straightener in for the first time and left the room for about 2 minutes or so. When I came back the room smelled like burnt rubber…part of it had overheated and melted. Stupid.

Cyprus is amazing. I feel like I’m at the beach every morning when I wake up & look out the window. The beach is ½ hour away…rough, I know. There are palms and citrus trees everywhere. One of my roomies, Alex, made fresh lemonade from the lemons. The weather here is out of control... a bad day here is better than the best day in PA. There are on average 300 sunny days here a year…which is okay with me.

So, our house = even more out of control. We’re seriously living the Real World: Cyprus. Most everyone is living in apartments right outside the Intercollege campus, but 11 of us were put in Maro House. There are 3 guys living on the bottom floor, and 8 of us girls on the top. It’s an absolutely beautiful and huge place. We have brand new everything, and there are 5 bedrooms and 4 baths.

Everyone on the program is really cool and we all seem to get along great so far. We kind of have to, I guess, because no one knows each other and we’re thrown into this crazy situation for four months. The program directors and professors and everyone I’ve met so far are really great too, and live pretty amazing lives.

I can honestly say I am a good driver by Cypriot standards. They drive on the left side of the road, and like MANIACS.

The Cypriot people are pretty nice, noone seems to smile much though. It seems to be pretty half and half. Some people don’t like us because we’re the loud, awful Americans and others are super friendly and helpful. We’ve been trying to learn the basic words in Greek. We always get laughed at when we try to talk to the locals in it but they seem to think it’s cool when we actually try.

So far I’ve tried some of the local food…souvlaki is kabobs, only they put the meat on pita bread with some veggies. It’s decent. We had a cooking demonstration by a local chef and professor to show us how to make some Cypriot food, too. We went out for coffee one night. I tried the local Frappe and it was really good.

We had a nice dinner out as a whole group one night and then went out to a few clubs/bars. The whole drinking legally thing and not having to pretend to be 21 is ridiculously nice. Wine is really cheap, which, you know…is kinda cool.

The U.S. dollar isn’t worth crap here. The only thing I have to say about taking a trip to Europe…win the lottery first.

So far we haven’t had any classes. They start on Monday. Up until now it has all been orientation stuff. We had a geography class, a cooking demonstration of local food, and other stuff like that.

Ok, enough for now but I have tons more to tell so I'll write more again soon!

You should know,
that wherever i go,
You're always on my mind.

I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is “Who in the world am I?” Ah, that’s the great puzzle.