We quickly planned out the few days we had together in Cyprus, tue-sat, and made the most of it; however, it really wasn’t about what we did and saw but more about the moments where we would tell stories and laugh so hard we cried, or being exhausted and thinking it was hilarious to wear certain attire around the city and even funnier when we ran into people we knew, ha! Shoot, traveling an hour to the beach to get out in the cold rain wearing our swimsuits was pretty entertaining as well. So here goes nothing…
Wednesday we got up and took a bus into city center and being typical Cyprus of course the bus was late, after all they just started a city bus system within the last six months. A group of about 10 of us went cinnabon, what we have in the states, so that was our first stop in city center. After that the other girls wanted to go shop and we’re not too keen on shopping so we took off by ourselves. We journeyed across the green line into the north, The Occupied Republic of Turkey, and I got so excited I said, lets travel to Kyrenia! So we sat at the little service taxi station waiting for enough people to fill a van and realized we really didn’t have enough time (class from 4-9pm), the workers were inside so we just made a quick 1-2-3 plan and made a break for it (totally unnecessary but hilarious) so within a second the Turkish men we’re yelling at us but there was no turning back, until the next day when we wanted to travel to Kyrenia! We got a real good laugh anyways, but I think the next day they were the ones really laughing.
We got in the service taxi (taxi that makes many stops and picks up others) and we were with the cutest, oldest, most wrinkly Turkish man with a little hat I’ve ever seen and a few other men. We kept stopping as bus stations, laying on the horn until someone joined… long story short this drive that took us 20mins with 7 Americans going directly to Kyrenia turned into a goose chance into the sketchiest areas of the north I’ve ever seen. Two young females in a rickity old van with 7 Turkish men winding up a one way road, passing Turkish army signs & army guys with guns, then no one at all and after an hour of this Tiffany turned to me and whispered, “are we going to die?” without hesitation I replied, “Yes.” Don’t be alarmed, we didn’t die. However by the time we made it we were both about to vomit within seconds. Guess the joke was on us after all! ; )
Once we were safely in Kyrenia, I took Tiff to my favorite and cutest little shop for some local bakeries. We got hallumi pitta boats, so delicious with freshly squeezed lemonade... all consumed overlooking the water from the third story of course. Then we adventured along the harbor were we heard the typical “gorgeous girls!!” “beautiful girls!” “come for a drink! You thirsty?” “Germany? Sweden?... ooooh Americaaaa.” you get the picture, it was quite funny. But it gets better, one came over to take our picture after he saw us struggling (which was really Tiffany trying to take a nice picture of us and me making a funny face in the background and almost peeing myself laughing). He took our picture and invited us for a drink on him and then he said in his broken English, last weekend you here? So embarrassing he recognized me and then I recognized I was wearing the same exact clothing! Called it time to go and told Tif and of course that lead to tears of laughter.
We explored the Kyrenia castle… skirt flew up in the wind flashing Tiffany, always an eventful time with us. It was nice though, we had the same interests and both agreed an ice cream stop was necessary. The dungeon was pretty cool. Then we took a taxi to a monastery overlooking the city, the same one I went to the weekend before. I wanted to buy some beautiful Turkish bowls and by the time I took 9359 years to do that the other place had just closed. We sat on a bench waiting for a taxi to drop someone off but instead I asked if she just wanted to walk down, she shrugged her shoulders and said sure, why not. So off we went on this walk, that I thought was about 4k’s (so not, more like 6 or 7) but it was eventful. First we passed a parked taxi, dogs scared the sh*t out of me (never been scared of a dog but if it would have got out it would not have been ok) saw a Turkish army guy holding a gun (also scared me) saw a dead cat…. Ok this walk sounds horrible but it really wasn’t! Beautiful view, exercise, free and constant conversation. But can I say the cat was in a ditch hard as a rock, all four legs sticking out, puffy and surrounded by flies, Tif thought I saw a dead body or something by reaction! We made it home(barely) and we were starving, went out for gyros for the second night in a row from the local place next to my apartments and it was sooooo good, Tiffany loved them!
Anyways to cut back to Wednesday when we ditched the taxi, we wondered the streets of the North. It was crazy, you could be walking down a road without any problems and then you’d make another turn and realize that was not the best choice. However, we did end up in a mosque. Going to a mosque with school friends vs. with Tiffany is quite different, we… ok maybe mostly me, think we’re pretty funny and it gets us into shenanigans. We put on the full dress and took off our shoes, I liked it to say the least – check out the pictures!
Friday we knew we had to make time for Halloween costume making so we took a short day trip to Larnaca beach. We found two friends at the bus stop doing the same thing and that’s when we got there in the rain. I thought it was hilarious, a “that would happen to me” moment but we really didn’t care, it’s always eventful regardless. So we walked the beach walk and decided KFC sounded and looked delicious! We basically made a trip for KFC, keeping Cyprus classy people : )
We got back and it was nap time, food time and costume time! I posted about Halloween so I won’t say too much but we had such an incredible time. Everyone was dressed up and the process of getting ready is always fun. However, the next morning came early and Tiffany had to leave me, sniffle sniffle. It’s okay though, in a few weeks we’re exploring Egypt together! Pretty incredible “friend” for a lack of better words, about 8 years and counting…
Feel free to click on pictures for a better look or view all... hope you enjoyed the pictures, they took forever to post! :D
Still laughing at the stories, and I can just see the cat scenario!!! And let me tell you, the dressess and scarves are to die for!! LOVE IT.... Only you and Tiff!!!
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