Cyprus: the good, the bad and it's mostly ugly part 1

“It’s the second half of the cruise and you know he hates to lose”  -Neil Young Cripple Creek Ferry

"Has your luck run out?" she laughed at him
Well, I guess you must have known it would someday"
-Bob Dylan Lily, RoseMary and the Jack of Hearts

Five months on the road, so we’ve definitely rounded the turn to the second half of our planned 9 month trip.  We celebrated Christmas and toasted the New Year with Sekt (German sparkling wine) in Saarbrucken, experiencing  many of the supposed local traditions for a lucky good year: although some locals we asked were apparently unaware of any these with the exception of drinking copious amounts of Sekt;

• we ate lentil soup for prosperity because the lentils are shaped like coins,
• ate tiny mushrooms (edible, non hallucinogenic variety, unfortunately) for luck - mushrooms are lucky in Germany,
• we had a pig’s face shaped bread from the bakery also for luck (pigs are also good luck in Germany). 
• we bought napkins decorated with chimney sweeps and four-leaf clovers again for good luck

All together for Christmas in Saarbrucken

New Year’s Eve in Germany is also called Silvester, because St. Silvester’s feast day is December 31.   We were all in for Silvester 2019. 

The morning of New’s Year’s eve we spent in the supermarket buying all our lucky foods. Everyone else seemed to have a similar but slightly different idea, as the line to check out reached the back wall of the market and took us 45 minutes to check out. But while we were buying German lucky foods that no one in Germany knew about, they were buying Sekt and fireworks (yes, there were fireworks at the market).

And at midnight we saw and heard their investments; a constant barrage of fireworks.  Colorful explosions were visible from every window.  This went on for at least an hour.   On our New Year's Day morning walk  we saw neighborhood streets littered with firework remains and one burned out apartment, they should have had the lentils (or they had the other kind of mushrooms).  

Despite all of our New Year's efforts, we have been losing and our luck seems to have run out. In particular, we have lost most of our Schengen time   https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/search/label/Schengen and we were unable to get a visa extension to allow us more Schengen time. We chose non-Schengen Cyprus as our first stop for the new year but thus far it has come up short. Why Cyprus? It is about 30 degrees warmer than our initial other non schengen choices of Bulgaria and Romania and a little drier than Ireland (we thought.)  We have been unlucky as Cyprus thus far has been disappointing. 

Part of what brought us to Cyprus was some “luck” from last year. Last June at a Minnesota Twins / Seattle Mariner's baseball game  in Seattle, Nick played a promotional game in the concourse,  60 seconds grabbing twirling, fake money while enclosed in a booth.  He got the lucky bill to “win” a free week at a resort any where in the world .  Actually what was won was  the opportunity to  endure a grueling high pressured 5 hour sales pitch for timeshares worldwide. So the next morning after  turning down every onslaught from the increasingly angry and annoyed sales people we walked out with our free week almost anywhere in the world that the company offered.  Unfortunately, the "free" week was a bit hard to find as most places required a financial upgrade, even in Lebanon and Bulgaria,  but.....  a week in late January finally came up in Cyprus, so later this month we will cash in, if we can make it that long in the rest of Cyprus  

Cyprus has been surprisingly green (it has rained quite a bit), but not very attractive, and  it compensates with a lack of charm. It most closely resembles tacky America  especially tourist resorts like Panama City, Fort Lauderdale, or even Niagra Falls with familiar chains (TGIF, KFC, Pizza Hut), seedy shopping strips and strip clubs. In the off season, parts look ghostly.

Laughing Cow slices at our Air B&B check-in?

We have been in Cyprus 9 days and have had to change lodging 7 times.  This was not planned.  It was supposed to be twice.  Our first stop in Larnaca,  check in for our Airbnb was at a minimarket, where Nick almost knocked over a row of gin bottles with a backpack in the narrow aisles.

this is not a puzzle

We arrived at 1:45 to be told to wait  15 minutes until 2 pm before we could check in.  But within 15 minutes of checking in, we were ready to check out. The room was missing flooring, the internet did not work, and as a metaphor for our feeling of being trapped; the door had swelled from recent rains and it just  had a latch,  no inner door knob so we couldn’t get out. It just was creepy.  Back to the minimarket. New room.  It had a stove that didn’t work,  internet that worked only when standing in one particular spot, a lot of twin beds and was equally creepy.  But we did learn something,  boiling eggs in the hot water kettle worked great, they were perfect.   

Standing on the balcony, the Mediterranean to the right with passing oil tankers. Across the way a forlorn looking young man smoking a cigarette and staring at the same tankers, it felt like the middle of a bad short story, and it was Epiphany (January 6th) . Back to the minimarket and our  four night stay lasted one.  
We quickly found another place around the corner, across from the beach -  it would be  closing the next morning for 2 months of  renovations.  We asked, but there was no going away party on this last open night. 

Greatly improved view at our second place, but we couldn't stay

Four nights in Larnaca quickly became two.

Larnaca did have migrating wild flamingos, which were pretty fantastic but otherwise our Epiphany was to get out of town. 

Onto Ayia Napa! A popular beach resort.  Per the travel sites, hedonistic! like spring break in Florida, but winter break it was deserted and without people the strip clubs and  chains  and cheesy themed restaurants  looked extra seedy.  
Our room did not have hot water, and the kitchenette had no kitchen. So we again changed rooms.  This room had an unobstructed view of the Bulgarian market, but no heat and a finicky toilet.


We did take a  few long walks, before the rain, and  again, the views were much better.

Onto Nicosia, the last divided capital in the world due to the weird politics of Cyprus (more on that later).

Our airbnb was on the Turkish (north) side of town,  in a lovely garden with fruit trees.

Borrowing internet from the main house in a parka and scarf

Backpacks and bedroom

It also had a  non- working stove although this was remedied the next day with a new propane tank.
It also had non functional internet for 3 days so we basically spent those 3 days waiting for the daily promised technician to come, and trying to connect to the main house internet from the porch and stay warm.

But this quaint little guest house also had no heat, a back breaking bed and little to no hot water.  On a positive note, we were able to master the Turkish washing machine.  Sounds trivial, but accomplishing these foreign washing machines can feel like graduating college.

Kitchen with now working gas stove

Omnipresent zombie cats

Orange, tangerine, lemon and grapefruit!

Cyprus is the home of many Greek myths-Mt. Olympus is here, Cyclops cave, Aphrodite was born here, but the biggest myth here is the existence of hot water in the winter.  Cyprus has a lot of solar heated water tanks, but in the overcast rainy winter they haven't done well.
Tired of waiting for the internet repairman, we again, shortened our planned stay, and moved over to the south (Greek) side of Nicosia, to a new back breaking bed and limited hot water, but better internet.

Hoping to end our unusual streak that started with supposed lucky good food choices, we sought a reversal in fortune with bad food choices resulting in some odd meals, inspired by a menu at a shuttered Mexican restaurant.

Jacket potatoes in Cyprus, why not?

beets and feta, this was actually good.

Branching out to local, canned food  

But, it is all good, we are still traveling, still on vacation.



































This week's photo of topless old man looking out window contemplating his life...
"this year will be better"