Nicosia [GP:Nicosia], Cyprus. Sunny, 36 degrees.
Well, I’m here and adjusting to life as part of a group (a very, very, very tired group expected to make an appearance at a reception in nary half an hour).
Lots of adjustments today. Adjustments to being away from home – unexpected homesickness and single-dom (even if temporary). Adjustments to the way things work again – no toilet paper in the toilet, for example. Adjustment to things I was really never used to in the first place – my shower has no cold water during the day unless one lets the water run for a long time because the supply pipes run across the roof, and in midday that means that the water is near scalding. Adjustments to the way life runs here.
Nicosia is a nice town. It’s small, fashionable, desperately trying to be somewhere and everywhere else. It’s much more Anglified than Greece, which is probably a rather silly statement given that Cyprus used to be a British colony. The Cyprus accent has thrown me for a complete loop. During our layover in Athens I was very proud of myself for understanding a very large chunk of what was being said around me – the crash coursing I did before I left paid off. Then we got on the plane in Athens to come to Larnaca and there were a group of young Cypriot boys being obnoxious in front of us, and I thought for a moment that they were Spanish, or possibly even Brazilian, because I simply could not understand a thing they were saying. The old woman next to me – a yiayia from Kavala (in the north of Greece, near Thessaloniki) clued me in, but admitted that it was really hard even for her to understand the Cypriot dialect sometimes. So far, in wandering in the old city, MY accent has confused people, including a poor waitress who didn’t understand the phrase “Mia ‘stimgi” (One moment) when trying to take our order. Her boss got it, she didn’t. Also, Ohi (no) is pronounced O’i here. Weird. Very weird. I think that Ioli – our Fulbright program officer – had lulled me into a false sense of security because her accent is much more mainland-ish.
At any rate. During our wanderings in the old city this evening, we found the “lookover” point along the Green Line, which bisects the old city – and Nicosia, and indeed the rest of the country – between the Turkish north and the Greek south. Amidst stern warnings not to take photographs for venture past a certain point (why is not specified, although I have a creepy feeling it involves land mines) is the eerie vista of a street that has been left untouched since October 1974. Inside the now dirty windows of the abandoned shops, one can imagine shelves still stocked and desks with papers in place, waiting for their owners to come back. Despite the recent changes, there is still a great amount of animosity over the events of the past. Nowhere is this more evident than in the giant flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, landscaped cleverly into the side of a mountain overlooking Nicosia. It’s the first thing one sees coming up the highway from Larnaca and the south, and is a constant reminder that this peaceful holiday destination has more than its fair share of skeletons in the closet.
Tags: Cyprus, fulbright_program, homesickness, nicosia_cyprus, Travel
