so i like to eat. a lot

monday night, we head to the butcher's grill buffet again.  i can see this becoming a part of our ritual.  i feel like anywhere where you can get good food and drinks, and as much of them as you want, should be somewhere you try to be a lot.  maybe that's just me?

this time, our group has grown, and we are there for a very, very long time.  i have the group of serbians who we have come to be very good friends with, all trying to teach me the serbian language, and i'm intent on learning.  i even took out my notebook to have stasa write down key phrases so i don't forget them!  talk about an a+ student, huh?

one of the words i learn is ziveli ("jhiv eh lee") ... which means cheers!  you then go around the circle and look each person in the eyes as you clink glasses... pretty much like we do at home, but a bit more organized and sincere.  

you probably already know how the rest of the story is going to go.  basically, i got a couple of glasses of wine in me, and fell in love with the fact that i could say something in serbian.  from there, it became my new favorite thing to do... and every five seconds, i was saying it, making everybody stop what they were doing and go around the (not so small) circle of us.  nikola pretty much wanted to kill me.. can't say i blame him.

two hours later, or so, i was still munching away, and the guys couldn't believe that i was out-eating them.

guess they don't know me that well yet... ;)

xox k

kicked out

the day after charlie left was the next game, and it was the first of two where we weren't allowed to have fans because of what happened at the last home game.  to make matters even better, it was against the number 1 team in the league, so fans would have definitely been a plus.  because we are family of the players, we have always been allowed to go watch regardless of the penalties against the fans, so stasa, nikola's wife maja ("maya") and i went to the game anyway.

we found our seats and were ready for the game, when this guycomes up to us and tells us that we can't stay.  we tell him that we are the player's wives (a little white lie never hurt anyone), but he insists that we have to leave because we're not on the list.  meanwhile, keep in mind that there are two cypriot women who came with another - "too good for everyone else" - player, (i say women because they were old as heck), who are still in their seats after having spoken to this guy.  it's pretty much just the five of us in the section we're sitting in at this point.

cico starts to talk to the guy about how we are there with apoel and we have always been allowed to stay, but the guy says that they wont start the game until we've left.  stasa tells him that we will leave when "everyone else does."  she was intent on the fact that we were not going to leave if the other player had (another) advantage over everyone else with his prima donna treatment.  the guy turns to the women and tells them in greek that they have to go... probably something along the lines of "these assholes are talking shit" (greeks love to swear).  they leave, so we do too, and we decide to go to second cup and get coffee and ask them to put the game on the tv.

it ended up being a pretty nice time.  i had just met maja when we got there because she only got to cyprus two days prior to the game, and it was a good time to get to know her a little.  she is serbian, and her english isn't the best, but it is definitely understandable.  because she knows she's not perfect with the language, though, she is very shy to speak it.  with stasa there to speak serbian to, we didn't do much talking directly to each other, but it was alright because i wasn't exactly conversing with her in serbian, either, ya know?

at the end of the day, we lost the game (though we gave up a good fight), and we headed back to the gym to meet back up with the guys.  when we pulled into the lot, we saw a bunch of people coming out of the gym who had obviously been there watching the game.  we weren't exactly the happiest campers, as i'm sure you can imagine.  come to find out, there was a "list" that we needed to be on (bullshit, i'm sure, since i know for a fact that the people we saw weren't connected in any way to the committee or to the camera crews).. note to selves, make sure we're on this make believe list for next time!

ya win some, ya loose some, eh?

xox k

the grand finale

saturday was charlie's last day :(

luckily, she was a smarty pants and booked her flight for later on in the day so that we would be able to get the most out of it before having to send her back on her way.  the down side was that ben's practice was situated at a very inconvenient time, where we would have to leave her a few hours before she really needed to be at the airport, but we all decided to make the best of what we were given.

we woke up super early and were in larnaca before 11.  we walked the beach for quite awhile, and were amazed at how warm the day was turning out to be!  we popped into starbucks, but got our coffee to go so that we could take them over to the sand and sit by the water enjoying the scenery and the weather.  for the first time since october, i was completely comfortable just sitting in a shirt with no sweater... in fact, i was hot, and wishing that i'd worn something even more summery!

as we finished our drinks, we all agreed that we were pretty hungry and could do with a bite to eat, so we perused the street front to chose a spot to go into and decided on an indian restaurant.

when we sat down, we noticed that this indian restaurant aaaaalso had a sushi menu.  bingo!!  we all know what i'll be eating for lunch then, huh? ;)

after our (very yummy) lunch, we set off for a little bit more of a walk, and ventured down the street where there was an old castle.  we circled the entire castle trying to find the entrance, only to find that it was on the side where we were originally facing.  the problem was that it was closed on weekends... what fun is that?!

5-year-old benjamin wasn't very excited about the fact that he wouldn't be able to go inside and play make believe.  he likes to act out the attacks of the olden days, envisioning fleets of boats sailing in to attack, etc.  poor benboy.

after a bit, it was time to head back to the car to take charlie to the airport.  i was not excited, to say the least.  we drove past the salt pond with the flamingos, and then arrived at the airport.  as much as i tried to drag out the goodbye, we really couldn't do it for too long because ben was on a pretty tight schedule for practice.  then, like the blink of an eye, she was gone.  or technically, we were.. but still. 

i guess it's right what they say... all good things must come to an end... :(

xox k

the cyprus life

because we had spent the night out, the next morning we had a bit of a lay-in and enjoyed not waking up early to an alarm.. we woke up late to an alarm instead.  taking it easy, we each showered and got dressed and tried to game plan for the day.  

by the time we were all set and reconvened in the kitchen, it was just shy of noon, so we thought we'd head for a walk around the corner to the best gyro spot ever.  when we get there, though, it's closed!  not really sure of our next move, we walk next door to a little coffee spot that ben & i haven't ever been to, and sit down for a coffee.

this was probably the most organically "greek cypriot" thing we have done since being here... sitting down for coffee in a tiny little local coffee shop where nobody spoke english.  i think, honestly, it was the first time we had run into a language barrier since being here!  with hand motions and words that are the same in pretty much every language ("caffe"), we manage to order our coffees... but wind up with hot drinks when we had actually intended for cold.  oh, well.

after enjoying our drinks and paying, we check back at maria's (the gyro place) and they're open!  perfectly just in time for lunch, as we were starting to really feel hungry.  we introduce charlie to maria, order, enjoy our meal, and then decide to head into nicosia to the coffee beanery for more coffee.

ben & i had been spending quite a bit of time at the beanery because we loved the way it was set up with an outdoor patio down on the grass where you can sit on a couch in the sun and enjoy your drink. i guess we had spoken a lot about it to charlie, because she was excited to head over and see what all the fuss was about.  we spent the next few hours in the sun sipping our coffees and talking about life, and in reality, it couldn't have been any better!

there aren't many things that beat the sun, a nice coffee, and the best of company!

that evening, we lounged around with a bottle of wine while benjamin did his basketball shenanigans, and then we enjoyed a nice homemade meal together.

...just livin the life!

xox k

gray skies in ayia napa

tuesday, we woke up and it was pretty cloudy skies, but we decided to head down to ayia napa regardless, figuring that it would be better for charlie to see it on a nice so great day than to not get a chance to see it at all.

we head down, and our first stop is nissi beach - the one that everyone "raves" about.  we hop out of the car and it's windy as hell... gray skies.. chilly.. but all is good because we're at the beach.  we spend the next half hour messing around at the shore, taking silly pictures, and just enjoying life.

from there, we head over to a gorgeous beachy cove that ben & i found at the end of a random street the last time we were down there.... the spot where i found all the tiny shells!  while we're there, the sun starts trying to come out, and it's not quite as cold, but then all of a sudden, it starts to rain & we're back in the car.

we take a little trip down the main street to show charl the shops and restaurants, thinking that maybe we'll find somewhere to sit for a coffee, but we find that they're all shut down and boarded up for the winter.  we knew ayia napa was a major tourist area, but we had no idea that everything would just stop and close up shop during the off-peak months.  our only option was really to head back up to nicosia and take it from there.

we wind up heading home and opening a bottle of wine to spend our evening with while ben had practice...

... all's well that ends well, eh? ;)

xox k

a day in the life

the next day, we don't have much time between practices, so we figure we'll play it low key & enjoy the local area. 

when ben gets back from his morning practice, we head over to old nicosia to show charlie the adorable old town that used to be all there was to nicosia back in the day!  we walk around for awhile, check out most of what there is to see, show her the ledra street border crossing where you can enter the turkish-occupied side of cyprus (we don't cross because we don't have our passports on us), and then it's pretty much time to head back so ben can eat and get ready for practice.

charlie and i had arranged with stasa to meet at the gym when the boys go for practice so we could head for coffee, which was pretty much the standard procedure for stasa and i most days.  we get to the gym, say goodbye to benjamin and hop in with stasa to head off for coffee.

when we were at the butcher's grill the other day, we noticed a sign on the table that said they do a buffet on monday nights that is all you can eat, and all you can drink wine and beer.  we had gone for their lunch buffet before, and it was really extensive and yummy, so we decided it was pretty much heaven on earth and that we couldn't miss out on it.  we mention it to stasa and cico, and they said they might meet us there, but that they weren't sure.

we head over to the restaurant and get seats.  not sure whether we were expecting company or not, we just figured we'd start to eat.  a bit later, they came!  we spent the night eating and drinking and laughing, and when we couldn't possibly stuff another bite into our tummies, we left for home.

it was a really nice day, as uneventful as it was, because it was pretty typical of what we're up to on any given day, and charlie got a chance to see how we really spend a lot of our time.

xox k

cyprus in a day

charlie's first day here was absolutely beautiful outside, so we decided to take complete advantage of it by tripping out to aphrodite's rock in paphos, where we had gone before with eboni and kevin.  we set an alarm and woke up early to be on our way so we could make the most of the weather.

to get to aphrodite's rock, you have to drive right past limassol, so we figured we would pop to the limassol shoreline to show charlie and have a coffee, rather than making a separate trip down there on a different day.  we sit with a coffee at the outdoor section of coffee beanery and enjoy the sunshine and the chance to take our sweaters off and just enjoy, and make a game plan for the rest of the day.

we decide to take a walk along the coast, and stop to take some pictures along the way.  the wind picks up a bit and i'm cold (as always), but charlie is loving the sun on her skin... especially considering that it was currently snowing in london, where she had just come from!!

after a good wander around, we decide to hop back in the car and head on to our next destination stop.  aphrodite's rock is one of, if not my definite, favorite place on the island, and i was so excited to show it off to charlie.  we finally get there, and i'm ecstatic because charlie thinks it's just as amazing as ben & i do... although, in reality, i think it would be very difficult to not be obsessed with this place!

we head down to get closer, and charlie and i decided to take our shoes off and play tag with the water. she calls it paddling... i think that's kinda crazy since there are no paddles involved, but it's not the first time those silly british people make zero sense ;)

we wind up sitting for a bit, and when we notice that the sun is pretty low on the horizon, we figure we should be on our way to paphos so we don't miss out on the sunset there!

we hop back in the car and are off to finish the last 20 mins of the trip to paphos, where there is an awesome seafood restaurant right on the water where we plan to eat.  we get there just in the knick of time for the sunset behind the warf.

we enjoy an amazing dinner - one of the things we tend to do best - and then decide to head back home, where we have a great night sleep after an even greater day touring cyprus with charlie!

...and to think, this is just the beginning!

xox k

day in larnaca & CHARLIE!

on saturday, feb 4th, charlie was coming!!!  we had spoken with stasa & cico and decided that we would all spend the day in larnaca, since we were picking up charlie around 7:30 or so.  cico told us about a salt pond down there where we could see flamingos, and i told him that i didn't have too much faith in this idea of his.  we planned to meet at second cup, the coffee shop, and follow them down with nikola too, and that was exactly what we did.

when we got there, the flamingos were pretty far away, but they were definitely there.. i apologized to cico, who was like, "come on kim, would i let you down?"  eh.... here's the picture of the flamingos.. you decide for yourself ;)

feeling a little let down, stasa and i decided to be our own flamingos.  it seemed like a good idea at the time..

from there, we headed to the mosque across the street to have a look around.

according to the sign at the entrance, "the building of the mosque in its present form is dated around the 18th century.  it is built over a tomb which according to tradition belongs to umm haram, foster mother of the prophet mohammed.  it is the main muslim pilgrimage site of cyprus and among the most important holy places of islam."  not too shabby, eh?

from there, we headed over to a semi-main area of larnaca, where there was a beautiful beach with a restaurant on the sand, etc.  we stayed for a few minutes, and then moved on to what i guess is the larnaca main street.

after having coffee and lunch with some of cico and stasa's friends from serbia, we spent the afternoon wandering around the streets and exploring the larnaca marina.

we walked by a children's park with a mini roller coaster, merry-go-round, etc, and being the 5-year-old that i am, i thought it would be fun to hand out in fred flinstones' car.

the best part of all of this is that as if it wasn't enough of an amazing, day, we still had yet to pick up charlie!  somewhere around 6:30, cico, stasa, and nik figured they would head back up to nicosia, so ben & i hopped in the car to head to the airport.


because we were a little bit early, we grabbed a coffee from one of the little shops in the waiting area, and decided to play hangman while we waited.  that's one of my favorite things about ben.. whenever we don't have something "real" to occupy our time, we so easily revert back to our child-like tendencies and find something to amuse ourselves with :)


before we knew it, charlie's flight was on listed on the board as having landed!  in true childhood form, i was jumping up and down with excitement, eagerly awaiting the minute when she would walk through the doors.  fiiiinally, she did, and we decided to sit for a coffee before getting back into the car to head back north.

somewhere along the journey, the subject of food came up (are you really surprised?).  ben & i had decided to hold off on groceries until she had gotten here so that we could all go together and plan out what we'd eat for the week,  so we figured that rather than trying to cook up something with the scarce supplies that could be found at the house, we should head to butcher's grille for a nice dinner out.

by the time we got home, everyone was pretty exhausted from a busy day: charlie with her travels, and ben & i with our excursion through larnaca.  we got home, and hit the beds... hard.

nothing like a week full of excitement to look forward to in the morning!

xox k

just a bunch of hooligans

the next game was against aek again, but for a cup game, separate from the standard league games.  it was home, and we had to win it by at least 4 points to win home court advantage for when we played them in the first round of the playoffs for the league.  you can ask me the details of how it works and why, but i really just don't know.


the game was going well, but as usual, the end of the game meant we dropped our level of play and allowed the other team to make a major comeback.  with three seconds left on the clock, the refs made a terrible call, that could have very well meant the difference between us winning by enough points to get the advantage and having to play away for the first round.


the crowd. went. insane.


trashcans thrown over the railings onto the courts.  screaming, yelling, whistles, air horns, fire crackers.


the aek players all jump the railing and run for the locker rooms to make sure they're safe and the fans can't attack them.


the refs run out, and the crowd swarms after them.  one ref is held against a wall by a guy with his fist around the neck.


absolute madness, and i was trying to take pictures.. typical.  these guys were trying to see through the tunnel to find the refs and throw things at them, i think.

so, while we're waiting for the game to continue, it's basically a joke in the gym.  one of the players, dullis (don't know how to spell) is actually sitting up in the stands with his girlfriend.  you can see him in the pic above, starting to climb over the railing.

ben's lounging in the middle of the floor, staring into oblivion.  even after they start to get reorganized, stasa and i are down against the railing talking to the guys, etc.  there was pretty much nothing professional happening at all, to say the least.

finally, the game resumes (for the 2.6 seconds that are left on the clock) and we win, but not by enough points to win the advantage.

c'est la vie..

xox k

shopping and a road trip

a few days later, the boys had a game in larnaca against a team called aek ("ike").  stasa and i decided that we wanted to make the trip down to watch the game, but that before we went, we wanted to go downtown and do a little bit of shopping.


ben and i had to go to the bank, so stasa and i arranged to meet at noon at the starbucks downtown and then head from there.  ben dropped me off, and stasa was already waiting, ready to go.  we spent a couple hours wandering around the shops and ended up with a couple of cute finds each.  when it was about time for the guys to go to the gym for the bus, we grabbed a taxi to head back to stasa and cico's apartment, and then went to the gym with cico.


finally, the guys were boarded on the bus, we had the car turned around and ready to follow them, and we were ready to go!  the trip down was interesting, following behind a massive red bus that was weaving in and out of traffic and around the roundabouts like a crazy person, but we made it down there safe and sound.


stasa parked the car, and we were off to find our way into the gym (which is way bigger and much nicer than ours, by the way).  we get in and find seats, and are ready to go.  the boys start warming up, and a police officer comes over the the two of us.  he asked if we were here supporting apoel, which obviously we were, and told us that it would be safer for us to move to the other side of the gym.  i couldn't help but think that this was going to be an interesting night...


anyway, he walks us down a set of stairs, through a few back hallways, and stasa and i are kind of looking at each other like, umm is this the part where he kills us?  we go through a set of double doors, and we are on the court!  he leads us across the court - literally - and then through more doors, up more stairs, and into the seating area opposite where we were before.  we were two of like ten people sitting on that side, and there were gates separating us from the other side.  fans must be pretty crazy, eh?


now can i just say, this gym, nice as it may be, is absoluuuutely freezing.  freezing!  we were sitting for a few minutes before we realized it, but then our fingers and toes started to go numb.  because it was a nice day out, i was dressed completely inappropriately for the temperature, in a mid-thigh dress and a cardigan, and i pretty much wanted to kill myself.  at halftime, we went outside so stasa could have a cigarette, and it was literally warmer out there than it was in the gym.  i wish i was kidding.  we would up going to the car to get her huge winter coat to use as a blanket, and for the second half of the game, we did just that.


the end of the game was a nail biter.  we had a pretty big lead throughout most of the first half, but apoel has been pretty notorious for messing it up towards the end of the game.  low and behold, they did it again.  the last minute or so was back and forth points where apoel and aek shifted a point here and there for who was in the lead.  stasa and i were going absolutely mental watching and trying to figure out what the outcome was going to be.  


luckily, we won!


we headed back to nicosia, again following the bus, and the committee ended up giving everyone money to go enjoy a meal or drinks or something to celebrate.  we headed to bennigans, a nice irish restaurant kind of like an applebee's type place, and spent a few hours relaxing and enjoying the night!


i'm really starting to get used to this lifestyle!  a girl definitely can't complain.... ;)


xox k

thank god for new friends

one of the guys on ben's team is called cico ("chicho").  he's a little older than we are, from serbia, has played in the nba, lived in canada, the list goes on... he has a pretty interesting life story.  at nina's 1st birthday party on christmas eve, i met stasa ("stasha"), his girlfriend.  her english was so perfect that i assumed she was canadian and they met while he was living in toronto.  later, i learned that would be his ex-wife.. talk about putting your foot in your mouth!  (i obviously apologized later to stasa... who completely understood).


anyway, stasa and i crossed paths again at a basketball game after eboni left and exchanged phone numbers & full names (for facebook... what else).  a couple days later, our phones shut off because we left them without credit for too long and the company wanted to reuse the phone number, so it was lucky that we had thought to figure out the facebook thing too.  because of the phone situation, we had missed out on a few days where we would have been able to hook up, but decided to just chat the next day at another game about what we could do to get together.  we would up saying that we would meet at the gym the day after the game and head for coffee while the guys were practicing.


the next day, we met and headed off to second cup, a coffee shop, and spent two hours chatting away over frappes.  talk about an international friendship made easy, the language barrier was the least of our problems.  over coffee, we chatted about tons of different things and conversation came so easily.  


i thought cico's history was an interesting story, but stasa's might just top it!  i learned that her father, zarko paspalj, was one of the first european basketball players to play in the nba.  when stasa was born, he was still playing basketball, so she grew up in a few different countries - none of them serbia.  the majority of her childhood was in greece, and greek was her first language, but she went to international school and honestly might speak english better than i do.  it wasn't until 6 years ago that she even learned serbian!  (she's fluent in that, too, now).  not quite a boring upbringing, eh?


you can imagine that with all that, we had quite a lot to chat about... the hours flew and before we knew it we had to head back to the gym to meet up with the guys.  we decided to keep meeting up frequently, sometimes for shopping and sometimes for coffee, and the void of not having eboni and irie around anymore grew just a bit smaller.


what's the old childhood rhyme?  make new friends, keep the old.....?


xox k

a scavenge/sendoff

as much as i didn't want it to, the time came when we had to say "see ya later" to eboni, kev, & irie.  their flight was in the middle of the night, so they didn't have to leave the apartment until 1am or so & we decided to pretty much hang out until just before they had to go.


over the course of the few months she was here, eboni had acquired quite the collection of kitchenware (whereas i refused to spend money on things that i knew we won't be taking with me when we leave).  kevin had suggested that we go over with a couple bags and take everything with us that they wouldn't be bothering with taking with them.  after awhile of hanging out, we decided to get down to it, and pretty much cleared out their cupboards.  my spice rack is now completely stocked with duplicates of popular spices and new ones to try.  we also have a large stove pan, baking dish, new knives, a cheese grater, sauces... and a comforter & two fleece blankets.  


most of the night was spent talking about kevin's new opportunity in france, how excited they were, our time left with apoel here in cyprus, etc.  the entire time, we were playing with irie and refusing to admit that it was going to be quite awhile after that night before we'd be able to see her again.


can i just say, if i haven't already, that irie is the cutest little muffin in the world.  not only that, but she is SO smart.  when the time came that we had to say goodbye, i picked her up, was giving her hugs and kisses and telling her how much i was going to miss her.  irie understood EVERYTHING.  i put her back down on the living room chair, and she kind of nestled into the corner of the chair with a really sad, shy look on her face, and didn't want to go to ben because she knew it was going to be more goodbyes.  she wound up letting her pick him up and say goodbye, but she was not happy about it... at all. 


apparently, after we left, irie kept calling for us and saying she wanted us to hold her... hearing that made me want to cry!


now that they're in france, she calls me on her barbie phone... doesn't get much cuter than that! :)


xox k

irie's 2nd birthday!

for irie's 2nd birthday, kevin & eboni decided to have a little party at papafilippou, an ice cream shop that also has a little indoor arcade area with children's rides and an outdoor playground.  the gathering was intended to be the same group that we had spent new year's eve with, all the couples with kids plus ben & i, but little baby nina had an earache, so we were one couple down.

benjamin and i know how much irie loves to copy everything her mommy does, so we thought it would be cute to get her a little kitchen play set so when eb was cooking, she could make her own meals, too.  we ran to the store to pick it up, and then headed over to papafilippou to meet up with them.

we spent the day playing with the kids on the playground, drinking coffee, and eating lots of cotton candy (or maybe that was just me).  irie was totally into this whole concept of the day being about her... it was her birthday, and everyone was going to know it.  she is already a girl who knows what she wants, but on this day, she was definitely miss diva... i loved it!

telling someone to stop doing something, i think..

eating globs of frosting off the top of her cake..

and opening the her gifts (this is the kitchen set we brought).

somewhere in conversation, kevin announced that they were going to be leaving cyprus.  he hadn't been too happy here since the coaching change, and i don't think the coach was too fond of him, or something like that, but they basically decided to part ways.


as happy as i was that they were going to be moving on to different things that would hopefully make them happier, i couldn't help but to be really really REALLY sad that i was losing my cyprus partner-in-crime.... and my irie :(  through the time we'd spent together, eb had grown to be someone i genuinely enjoyed spending time with.  i can imagine that in this lifestyle, there are probably women that spend a lot of time together because it's convenient, they both speak english, they're both basketball wives or girlfriends, or whatever it may be.  i honestly think, though, that if eboni and i met in a bar in the states, we would have become friends regardless.  plus, i am completely, totally, uncontrollably obsessed with her daughter!  (minor detail)


in any case, it was an amazing day with friends that i'm certain will be in our lives way longer than our time in cyprus will last, anyway.


guess she wont be needing her kitchen set, huh? ;)


xox k

crossing the border: turkish nicosia

crossing into the turkish occupied half of nicosia was a very bizarre experience for me.


on new years day, ben & i grabbed our passports and set out for old nicosia, where we could walk down ledra street to the place where you can cross the border on foot.  my anxiety about crossing this border was pretty crazy.. worried about all of the stories i'd read about how intense it is to cross over and how serious the hatred is between the two sides, etc.  i decided to suck it up because to be in cyprus, living in the only divided city left in the world and to not venture over would be a shame.


after we passed the end of the greek side, we found ourselves in a united nations buffer zone.  this is basically an area where no country has jurisdiction... empty space.  as you walk through, you see tall buildings that are completely devastated from the past war when the turks invaded the island.  in the past, this was an area where united nations officers were on guard with guns, patrolling the area.  photography was (technically still is) off limits, and anyone caught attempting was arrested.  thankfully, things have calmed down a lot since then.  if i had only known that ahead of time, i would have been fine.


currently, people are camping out in the buffer zone in an attempt to unite the two sides.  i'm not sure i know enough about it, but i don't really understand how they intend for this to work.  regardless, it's pretty cool.  there are tons of tents between buildings, people huddled around a fire in a garbage can, and reggae music playing as they just hang out, chat, and enjoy themselves.  to be honest, it kind of reminded me of something you'd see in the musical "rent."


i didn't take pictures of the people or the tents because i wasn't sure how they would respond to it, but all over the walls, on the tarps separating the street from the crumbling buildings are drawings, inspirational sayings, peace signs, names, etc.

i think overall, the buffer zone was my favorite part of the day... it was a really hippie-ish and just so... cool.  can't really come up with a more creative word.


after crossing through, the rest of the day was pretty strange.  the clouds rolled in and it started raining on & off.  not only was it new year's day, but it was also a sunday, so most of the shops and restaurants were closed, and there weren't really many people around.  we decided to take it for what is was and just wander around taking things in and making the best of what we were given.


as we got down towards the outskirts of the walled city (nicosia), there were more people out in an area kind of like a town square, for lack of a better way to explain it.  we were walking and checking out our surroundings, and i couldn't help but notice that people kept looking at me.  at first, i figured it was because ben & i stood out as tourists.  on second notice, though, i realized all of a sudden that i was the only woman in sight.  the only one.  as in there were NO other women.


i can't really describe the way it made me feel.  i've never felt like such a minority before; i was the odd one out.  here i am, in a foreign country, walking around a part of the city i've never been to, and realizing that there are only men out and about in the city.  talk about feeling out of place!


i've spent hours googling and trying to research why i could have possible been the only woman out that day, but i really can't come up with any answers.  are they not allowed out on sundays?  is it standard that they be inside on sundays cooking and cleaning?  was it just irony that at that point in time none were out?


i have a feeling this is a question i will never be able to answer, and yet never be able to fully put to rest.


any answers/ideas/thoughts are toootally welcome....


xox k

new year's eve

new year's eve this year was a little different than normal.  considering we're in a foreign country, i guess that was to be expected from the get-go, though.


rather than spending the night at an overpriced bar or club and running around in a tiny dress like most other years, we were invited to spend new year's eve with a few couples from ben's team at one of the cypriot players' homes.  yorgos and his wife giota decided to have a small get together with the two couples other than themselves who have daughters (kevin & eboni being one of them), and the two of us.  apparently new year's eve is a pretty big holiday here, traditionally more of a christmas, actually, when they give and receive gifts and spend time with family.  it was a small gathering that yorgos and giota were having, and benjamin & i thought it was really nice that they decided to include us :)


we got there and hung around for a bit, chatting and enjoying a couple drinks, and then it was time for dinner.  oh.  my.  god.  was it time for dinner.  let me just preface this by saying i come from a large italian family and i have seen some pretty crazy feasts before.  the dinner that giota made for the eight of us seriously rivaled meals that i've seen made for holidays when 20 people were eating.  there were pitas with houlomi cheese (AMAZING greek cheese).  there were saladS.  there were rice disheS.  there were veggie disheS.  there were meat disheS.  and there were dessertS.  did i mention there were eight of us?  8.


the thing that made it even more crazy was that the food was unbelievable!  and what made me think giota may actually be a robot of some sort?  SHE DID IT ALL IN TWO HOURS!  honestly, something must be in the water here because it was just ridiculous.


after dinner, we relaxed for awhile playing with the kids and watching the "new year's show."  quotes around it because, well, in contrast to the meal, it was subpar.  some raunchy greek man singing and gyrating his hips on stage with women in little leather outfits on stage for way too long.  the countdown was up in the corner and nothing really special happened at midnight.  not quite the same show that we get in the states, but it's okay because my tummy was happy.


there is a tradition in cyprus that a cake called "santa claus cake" is cut following the stroke of midnight on new year's eve.  in greek, it's called vasillopita.  it's pretty much the same as a pound cake type dessert, in which a coin (they used a 2 euro coin wrapped in aluminum foil so it didn't dirty the food) is baked.  after midnight, the head of the house cuts the cake (in our gase, it was yorgos).  the first is cut for jesus, the second is for the house, the third for absent family members (still not sure if this means the ones that have passed or literally ones that are just absent at the time), then the head of the house, and then just clockwise around the room.  the person who finds the coin in their slice of cake is the person who will have the most luck that year.


benjamin & i decided that it's a pretty neat tradition, and that it might just wind up being one of the things we pick up from cyprus and integrate into our lives.  we were thinking about how cool it would be to gather traditions from each of the places we travel to and carry them on once we've gone... a neat way to keep our experiences with us as the time goes by, i think :)


the car ride home was an interesting one.  we had followed yorgos to his house, but he obviously wasn't leading us back to ours.  one of the other guys there, voulla, took the directions from him and was sure that he'd be able to maneuver back.  i'm still not too clear on whether or not voulla was drunk, but with his wife and daughter in the car, i can only hope he wasn't, but his driving wasn't too convincing.  i counted three times that we got to an intersection or roundabout when we went in the opposite direction than where the sign said to go to get back to our town.  once, we got stuck at a red light that they had gone through, and voulla literally stopped in the middle of the road (a two lane, busy street) while he waited for us to catch up.  it was definitely interesting.


at the end of the night, i honestly felt like the new years we had was an amazing life experience that not many people get to enjoy.  yes, it would have been easy to find a club offering a special new year's eve open bar or something, but to spend a very important holiday in cyprus with people who live here full time, learning the traditional celebrations was a once in a lifetime.


totally relishing every opportunity to learn more about cyprus culture, and beyond excited to do the same in every other country we get lucky enough to travel to!!


i know it's a bit belated, but i hope the new year is finding everyone else as well as it's finding us...  :)


xox k

frustrated

just in case anyone was wondering, attempting to figure out what you've been up to for the last two months living in a foreign country when it's been something new every day for about 60 days since you last blogged anything and your computer hard drive crashed causing you to lose the calendar on which you've been marking every move is not fun.


did i mention that iCal, though reinstalled, refuses to open to let me edit/try to piece my life back together?  i'll get back to it soon, though, promise!


*sigh* such difficulties all this modern technology creates in our everyday lives.... life is tough. ;)


xox k

all star weekend/dunk contest

at the end of the week was the cyprus all-star game, dunk contest, and three point competition.  we found out mid-week that mister benjamin would be competing in the dunk contest cuz he's kind of amazing.


when we got there, the dancers were warming up on the floor, and i seriously could not stop laughing.  it got to the point where ben had to warn me that their mothers might have been the row of ladies sitting a bit down in front of us because i just couldn't stop.  honestly, i thought the dancers at my college were uncoordinated, but this group brought new meaning to the whole no rhythm thing.  the best bit is that eboni is a professional dancer who majored in dance in college, so we were having a pretty good time enjoying the show.


the all-star game started, and it was being played as americans verse europeans.  everyone thought the americans would sweep the game... well, you know what they say about people who think.  (i don't really have a smart answer for that one).


i'm not so sure this is how things happen during the nba all-star weekend, but for the cypriot one, the dunk contest was held at the halftime of the game... meaning that some of the players spent their "rest" time competing.  makes perfect sense.


the whole thing didn't really make that much sense to me, to be honest.  some guys were given more tries than others to make their dunks, and one was practically running the contest himself, telling the judges who to let go again, etc!  it was madness!  debenjamin's turn came and he did some fancy shmancy thing with the ball over his head and stuff (i'm really good with the basketball lingo).  he made the next round and did a spinny aroundy thing... made the next round and did something else.. and then was the semi-finals.


my. boyfriend. jumped. over. kevin.  it was intense.... i don't have a picture of it because i was videotaping, but i can just say that at the end of the video, while he's hanging off the rim, the camera is anything but steady because crazy girlfriend was going psycho in the stands!  kevin basically threw the ball up in the air as ben jumped over him, B caught the ball in the air, and dunked it.  it was amazingness, and it got him into the finals.


i missed his last dunk - the one for the finals - because i was saying goodbye to someone, but he got 10's across the board from the judges.  he wound up as runner-up, but i'm convinced it's because the judges were having a love affair with the other guy he was against (he was the one who was practically running the competition).  c'est la vie.... i was one proud girlfriend!


since i was taking video instead of pics, this is pretty much the only good photo we got from the night... ogo took it for us from the side of the court:

check out the muscles on that guy, huh?! ;)  i did, however, manage to get tons of pictures of miss irie, who i am (still) completely obsessed with.  have i mentioned that yet?

i think i might just keep her...


xox k