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

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

mother goose in town

late wednesday night (the 19th), ben's mom flew into cyprus to stay in larnaca for the week.  we planned to go down to see her the following day because it was really too late to do a round-trip journey at the time she got in.


thursday, ben had shooting in the morning and a practice at night, but the idea was to go in between, have some lunch, sit by the pool, and catch up.  mister benjamin gets home from shooting & the sole of his shoe looks like it's talking.  it is literally dangling off from the bottom of the shoe.  the first game of the season is in a couple of days, so we decide it's necessary to make a pit-stop in nicosia at the shoe place his team gets a discount at before heading down (in the opposite direction) to larnaca.


we stop, ben finds shoes that he's obsessed with, used to play in back in the day, change colors, sing, and dance, so we're good to go.


at about 2, we're in larnaca... only an hour or so after we had told sue we'd be there.  i take all of three seconds to take my clothes off and find myself a nice spot in the sun to enjoy the beautiful day. 

meanwhile, much to sue's dismay, ben didn't bring his shorts.  "i just can't belieeeeevee you're not going to take advantage of the facilities!"  she was right, though, ben pretty much looks like an idiot sitting in khaki shorts, a black polo, and a fitted hat, while sue & i are lounging in our bathing suits.

we chill for a couple hours, catching up, grab some food, and then have to make our way back home to get the big boy ready for practice.  the day flew by and was over way too quickly, but we made plans for her to bus it up to us the next day, and the whole week was in front of us, so it wasn't too bad.


pretty uneventful day, but sometimes those are the best, right? beautiful sunset to end a beautiful day :)

xox k