troodos mountains

turns out the team decided to have practice on saturday, but they were doing it at 11:30 "to get it out of the way"... aka to ruin the day.  ben gets home around 2:30 and we decide to still try to make do with what we've got, and are going to try to trek up into the troodos mountains to hunt down the caledonia waterfalls. one of the times that i googled "things to do in cyprus" (which i tend to do on a fairly regular basis), the falls came up & the photos looked absolutely breathtaking.  don't know about most people, but i'm a big fan of pretty places.. i decide it's a must-do.


anyway, we hop in the car with a faint idea of where to go (the google directions were deemed easy enough to copy on my hand rather than take a picture of), and are off to make a quick stop in nicosia - i really can't remember what it was for, to be honest with you - and then to be on our way.  after we stop, we're back on the road, and have decided to just follow road signs for troodos since we're not in the right starting point for the directions.


we get a ways down, and are off the motor way and onto smaller roads.  we get to a spot with a pull-off from the road and a map of the roads through the mountains and stop for a look.  ben & i are looking at the map, i can't really remember exactly the name of the area that the waterfalls are in, but i know it isn't kykkos (where there is a gorgeous monastery), and i'm pretty sure it starts with a p.  pygros?  pygros.  we go with that, set a route starting with a right turn at the fork in the road, and are back on the way.  all that i really know about where this waterfall is is the name of a hotel that it's very close to, "edelweiss," and the name of the street where we can find the hotel.  talk about good planning....  


we're off twisting and turning through the mountains, climbing crazy steep hills and traipsing through small towns and "built-up" areas of the mountains.  each corner we turn unveils yet another stunning view of rolling hills, villages, churches, and skyline.

it's amazing what they've been able to build on these crazy steep hills!  there are even pubs with their adverts painted onto the stone walls... wall that were built so you don't fall off the sides of the streets (in some places, they don't even have these!! eeeek!)

and if that wasn't good enough, they even have GAS STATIONS!  on the side of the mountain!  how the trucks get up there to refill the fuel is absolutely beyond me, as there were areas of the streets that our tiny itty bitty car could hardly even make it through.  not to mention that people here still park like idiots on the sides of the streets like they do in all the other parts of the island, not caring about those who might need to get through...  or sideswipe their car.  

we continue on up the hills, and are reaching the highest point just before the sun begins to set.  we literally took the road all the way to the very top of the highest hill of the troodos.  at the top was an area fenced in by barbed wire that i imagine has some sort of military function.

we were under the impression that there was a some kind of vantage point at the top where you could have a look around your views, but there's not.  what we had been seeing from the distance was not an observation tower, but rather a massive golf ball. 

k, fine... i'm sure it has some real purpose, like holding water or something, but tell me it's not a giant golf ball, right?!?

we keep driving.  the sun is beginning to go down & we've still not found my waterfall.  we're starting to make a decent on the other side of the mountain range, and our views are spectacular.  

we continue on and it isn't long before the sun starts to set.  even the very beginning of the sunset is astonishingly gorgeous.

we finally find the edelweiss hotel, nestled into this tiny little village, and i'm really proud of us for figuring it out.  

we go inside to the front desk to find out how we find the waterfalls, and the guy there tells us that it's about to be dark and the path is 2 kilometers long and is not lit.  plus, we wouldn't be able to see the waterfall really even if we made it through the path.  we figure he's probably right and decide to come back another day to see the waterfall.  regardless of how excited i was to see it & the fact that it was really the reason we came on this expedition in the first place, we have really done a lot of sight seeing already and we're happy with our afternoon, so it's not too heartbreaking.  later, when we got home, i looked up how much it would cost to spend the night in the quaint little edelweiss hotel.... 22 euros. 

somewhere along the line, we passed road signs leading back to lefkosia (the ones we follow for home) and decide that it's probably the faster route back, rather than backtracking the winds and twists and turns that we took to get up there.  just as we're back on our way, we pass a clearing in the trees where we can see the sunset clearly.  i have never in my life seen a more gorgeous sunset than the one that night.

we follow the signs back down the mountain and to a two lane main road that will take us where we need to be.  it's not long before i recognize where we are:  we've come out back at that map where we stopped earlier.... but from the other side of the fork in the road.  had we gone left, we would have been there in no time!  no regrets, though, as the sights we saw that day were priceless.  next time we're intent on seeing the caledonia falls, though, we know juuuust where to go!

famous last words, right?

xox k

ayia napa take II

thursday, saturday, and sunday are all supposed to be days off because they had so many games so quickly in a row, and we decide we're going to make the best of each one.  on thursday, we kind of had our hearts set on heading down to the beach, despite the fact that the weather report was pretty dreary (meaning there might be some clouds in the sky).  ben being from england means that clouds aren't a reason to stay away from the beach, and me being absolutely obsessed with beaches means, well, that i like to go pretty much rain or shine.  or hail, or sleet, or blizzard.  you get the point.


we head down to ayia napa and off in the distance we see some blue sky.  fingers crossed, right?  ben's convinced that it will turn into a beautiful day, but such is typical of his ever-optimistic personality.  


as we get close, i remember that the last time we went, we stayed on the motor way for too long, so i suggest we get off at the next exit.  it turned out to be one exit too soon, which wasn't a big deal, and in the meantime, we pass this quaint little church sitting on a hill with a beautiful view of the sea.

across the street is this house that i ask ben to buy for me.  he laughed.. i wasn't kidding.

we get down to the shore and decide to make an attempt at checking out a different part of town than we did last time.  we take a side street down to the beach a little quicker off the main drag than we had when we went before, and wind up in a beautiful little cove area.

at first, it was really cloudy, but we weren't about to let it ruin our day.  the sun shining through the clouds was absolutely beautiful, and the rock pools along the water proved to be very entertaining for my child of a boyfriend.  


as we're walking, i look down hoping that maybe this will be the beach that i finally find some shells on, and i see one!!  a closer look, and i realize that there are thousands of tiny little shells mixed in with pebbles lining the shore.  that's pretty much a wrap, because i could have spent hours on end sifting through the pebbles in search of the little guys.  ben is crouched down, too, helping for awhile and then goes back to throwing rocks into the water or whatever other pastime a toddler would be intrigued by.  by the time i stop, i have hundreds. guess i shouldn't be the one to talk!

after a bit, it winds up that ben was right, and the sky begins to clear.  the entire cove turns a breathtaking color of aqua blue that these photos wont even begin to depict.  it was crazy, because it was like from every angle you looked, the sea took on a different color.  i haven't done a single thing to enhance the colors.

we decide it's time to move on, and head back to the car to move it somewhere where we wont have to worry about it being towed (we left it at the end of the street in front of a tree when we came through to this spot).  we wind up deciding it's easiest to put it where we did the last time we were here and then have a wander around again.

on the way to park the car, we pass a chinese/japanese restaurant that looks quite trendy and decide that's where we'll eat when the time comes.  in all honesty, it's only about 4pm but i'm becoming pretty hungry.  shocker.  the sun is beginning to make its decent in the sky, and i am getting really excited for another gorgeous coastal sunset.

once we park the car, we figure we might as well just do an early dinner, and set off walking the mile or so back to the restaurant.  as we walk by a little path down to the water, i catch a glimpse of the sun beginning to set, and think that we should head down it just to catch the sunset before we continue on to dinner.  we start down the path, and three adorable street cats come out to play, two of them tiny little kittens!  i seriously fell in love with these little guys, especially this one, who i named ashe.

we stop to play for a bit, dangling ben's key lanyard for them to paw at, scratching their backs, cuddling with them, and then continue down the path... and they follow!  we're literally headed along with three cats pouncing after us trying to keep up.  one runs ahead and pauses for us to catch up and then continues like that all the way down the path.  it was so freaking cute!

we get down to the end of the path just as the good part of the sunset is starting and keep playing with our new friends while we enjoy the scenery.  just as the beautiful colors were at their peak, the kittens decided to sit and watch along with us.

really, how cute is that??

once i decide i'm over it, we head back up the path, kitties in tow, and say goodbye when we reach the street so we can go eat.  we finish our walk to the restaurant, are seated, and enjoy another fabulous meal together before heading back home to nicosia.  in reality, it didn't wind up to be such an early dinner after all.

beautiful scenery, beautiful food, beautiful company.  i have nothing to complain about these days!

xox k

we close early on wednesdays...

ben & i wake up on wednesday morning with a plan of attack.  we're going to eat, shower, & head out to ikea so i can make this place a home. 


it was really pissing me off that there was no mirror in the room because it was impossible to do my hair. anyone who has known me for more than a day knows that i've never been a "hair-doer" type of person.  i had finally decided that i was going to become one, and now look what happens! no mirror.  to be fair, i do straighten it a lot, so i suppose i would have needed one regardless, but still, it was like bad karma or something.


in the states, we have outlets in the bathroom that "trip" if any water gets into them.  they're perfectly safe, because you test them on a regular basis and make sure that the power will cut off properly, etc.  apparently in europe, that's not the case.  an outlet in the bathroom is completely unheard of & is sooooooooo dangerous, so none of my hair tools can be used in the bathroom, where the only mirror in the apartment was located.  


i also found out that somehow i hadn't realized that my appliances needed an adaptor in order to work here because the plugs are all funny looking and don't work with the US ones.  we picked one up earlier, and i tried to straighten my hair and noticed that my straightener was smelling funny.  apparently i needed not only a plug adaptor, but also a wattage adapter if i didn't want to set the place on fire, because the power comes through stronger in europe than it does in the states.  different money, different languages, and now different plugs?  really couldn't make things easy for me, could they?


we head out to ikea about three hours after we had intended to leave, which anyone who has known ben for more than a day can see how that happened.  maybe it was more like one hour late, but three makes my story sound better. we get in the car with a photo of the google mapped route to get there that we took on his ipod, and decide that it will suffice to get us where we need to be.  luckily, this part actually went right! we get to ikea, park, & go in.


first of all, can i just say i am a complete & total ikea junky.  i know the stuff isn't exactly top-of-the-line, but honestly i couldn't give two shits... i love it. and the size of the building?! i could spend four days in there, and not even stop to eat.  again, if you know me, that is really saying something.  we get to walking around, and in no time i'm lugging about the equivalent of my body weight in sheets, duvet, pillows - the works.  okay, fine, ben's lugging it.  people who see him coming literally just move.. it's like seeing shrek & buddy the elf morphed into one, performing a balancing act and running over small children in the process. i would have moved too. 


we've made it about halfway through the store when some guy comes up to us to tell us they're closing in 5 minutes.  i'm sorry, what??  it's 3pm.  evidently they "close early on wednesdays."  little do we know this will soon become the story of our lives.  we hurry to finish finding what we need, find a carpet that looks fuzzy and comfy and are on our way, but not before i ruined the display by taking the one that was hanging up, caused a scene, and was reprimanded by someone in greek. apparently ruining a display is frowned upon.. who knew.  in my defense, i didn't see the pile where you're supposed to take them from and thought that was what i was supposed to do.  we leave before realizing that we don't have a mirror.


on the way home, we pass an electric store & decide to pop in to see if they have the wattage adaptor i need for my hair dryer/straightener.  the front door is open and there are guys working on the steps outside, so we kind of make our way around them & head inside.  we're greeted by a really sweet little girl who tells us that they're closed because it's after 3, but kind of still asks us what we need. this very large, mean-looking, greek man then comes over & proceeds to tell us again that they're "closed, but you, uhh, need something?" ben starts to explain the situation & what we're looking for.  side note, you should see him talking to people that don't speak english very well! he's, for some reason, under the impression that if you use your hands a lot and flail them around, all of a sudden VOILA the person understands the language.  it's really great for a laugh if you ever need one. this guy winds up writing down the name of another store for us to go to that will be able to give us the adaptor thing we need. why thank you sir!  still finding it weird how most people here look absolutely terrifying and miserable, but wind up being the most friendly, helpful people ever.


when we get home, i'm so excited about these sheets & my desire to burn the other ones, that i don't even stop to wash them before putting them on the bed (sorry, mom). we go to unroll the carpet and put it down to find that it's only a meter squared & looks like a joke on the floor.  room looks great, though, and much more homey!

it appears as though we'll be going baaack to ikea tomorrow to exchange the rug & find a mirror.  in the meantime, ben has to get ready for a "friendly" game (aka scrimmage), so we make some food, relax, and then are on our way to the gym! game was good, he played well, and its another breathtaking sunset to end this crazy adventurous day! 

i did say i wanted to come here for the adventure, right?


xox k