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

christmas day

this christmas was very different from the usual, to say the least.  growing up with a big extended family has always meant HUGE christmas eve dinners with like 5 courses followed by a late afternoon christmas day dinner just as big.  to go from that to ben & i sitting at the kitchen table in our sweats enjoying our meal just the two of us was ... a change.


we had decided that just because it would only be the two of us didn't mean that we wouldn't enjoy a really nice meal with traditional dishes that kind of signify christmas at home.  i decided on caesar salad, bruschetta, scalloped potatoes, garlic string beans, smoked salmon with garlic toasts, and pork roast.  yes, for the two of us.  at least there was one thing that wasn't different than our past christmases!


some of the cooking i had gotten out of the way the night before, so the majority of the day we spent on skype with our families which was amazing.  we watched them open the gifts we had sent, and spent awhile just chatting like we were actually there.  it was great.


finally, we decided to eat... i set the table and put all the food out, and then realized there was no way we were going to make a dent in the food!

benjamin was very excited about his pork roast!! don't worry, he didn't actually eat the whole thing right then & there!

i can't lie, though... i was pretty excited about my food, too!! ..and that i didn't have to get changed to sit down for dinner ;)

an hour later.... well, you get the picture.

...looks like our first christmas dinner was a success!


xox k

baby's 1st birthday

christmas eve was nina's first birthday!  at 12:30, we were going to have a get-together at gloria jean's coffee.  personally, i've never heard of celebrating a child's birthday at a coffee house, but it just goes to show how integral coffee is to europeans!  


ben's back had been bothering him for a couple days, and he got a text from his assistant coach saying he needed to go to the trainer for treatment... at 12:30.  we decided that he would drop me off at gloria jean's and then head for treatment, and come back when he was done.


when i got there, i was the only person who's first language is english.  of the 7 of us, 3 were fluent in greek and 4 in serbian (one speaks both, and i can only pick out a few choice words in either).  i can't lie, it was pretty interesting trying to act interested in conversations that were only taking place with bits and pieces here and there that i could actually understand and contribute to!


finally, eboni, kevin, and irie showed up, so the problem dissipated as the conversations turned more towards english.  ben got back about an hour later, and the group of us spent hours in the shop while irie, nina, and semina (the 2 1/2 year old daughter of another couple that was there) colored on placemats, played with dora, and jumped up and down.  

tell me they aren't the cutest?? finally, we all decided it was time to head out.


at the end of the day, it wasn't quite the christmas eve i'm used to, but no complaints here for a great afternoon expanding my comfort zone and enjoying the company of our newfound friends!


...someday, i swear i'll learn greek.


xox k