Pittsburgh Comes to Cyprus

Before I start rambling about this past week, I want to apologize a. for the Egypt blog being sooo long (approx. 4.5 pages in Word) and b. for the pictures being completely out of order. The internet is pretty slow here sometimes, especially when it comes to uploading photos, and sometimes it's out of my control where they end up. But you get the idea.

Anyway, Doug (Dezi's boyfriend) flew in last Saturday all the way from Pittsburgh :D (actually, he took a bus from Pittsburgh to Philly, flew from Philly to London and from London to Larnaca). It was his first trip overseas (how exciting!) and he was beat but starving when he arrived in Nicosia so of course we took him down the street for a gyro. We wanted to take him out to a club on Saturday night but he was too exhausted, so Kell and I went out FO FREE to 2 clubs because it was ladies night. On Sunday Doug woke up and was super anxious to do stuff, but since everything was closed we took him for a long walk. We walked to McDonald's (hoping he would be a little excited by the cleanliness or the Greek Mac on the menu) and then around some side streets and past a park. We made it back here in time for dinner, when we made grilled cheese. On Monday Kell and I skipped some class to walk all the way downtown (about an hour) with Dez and Doug so that he could see the old city. We showed him some of the cool old buildings and cute side streets that should be marked as one-way but aren't, and then we took him to another wonderful gyro place for lunch. Initially our plan was to travel to the Turkish side, but everyone realized once we were already in the city that they had forgotten their passports. So we walked around some more and made it up to the observation tower where we took some neat pictures of the whole city. We got lost walking back, even after asking for directions, and happened to stumble upon the American Embassy. Doug was so excited to see it that he took some pictures of the American flag outside, which turned out to be illegal (I sort of knew that taking pictures of embassies was forbidden since we had tried in Cairo, but for whatever reason I didn't warn Doug. Oops), so guards immediately called us over and made him delete the pictures he had taken. We had to give them our IDs and passports so that they could run a check on us or whatever, so we were forced to stand outside and make small talk with an armed guard for 20 minutes. It was all kind of awkward but very funny. We asked them how to get home and they provided us with adequate directions. Good job, US.

On Tuesday we didn't really do much except take Doug to the ESA (Erasmus Student Association) Bubble Party at night, which was his first (and only) experience with an open bar. We introduced him to all of our cool foreign friends and showed him a good time. On Wednesday we decided to go downtown again and cross the border, but this time with the necessary materials. We were able to cross the border with no problem. We walked around a bit and marveled at how different Nicosia was just over the border-less populated, more run-down, and dirty. There were a few streets that resembled a flea market, where all the shops had high-end designer merchandise for very low prices (I stopped myself a number of times from buying another purse, don't worry). We bought some chips and some super old post cards and called it a day. We traveled back into the legit city of Nicosia and took Doug for dinner at this fantastic meze place that we all love. It was completely empty (probably because we were eating at 5 and Cypriots don't normally eat dinner until 8) and they were playing Celine Dion's Greatest Hits, so needless to say it was a great dinner. Doug was pleasantly surprised by the Cypriot food :D

On Thursday we said goodbye to Doug and he and Dez left for Ayia Napa for the weekend. Kell and I went out with our Spanish and Cypriot friends and had a great night. Friday was pretty uneventful as well, until the girls and I decided that it would be a good idea to watch Titanic. WRONG. We were all crying our eyes out for the last 20 minutes and found it hard to recover. We were very pathetic. To lighten the mood we then watched Knocked Up and went to sleep.

P.S. I took my first Greek exam last week and got a 94%! And I went out the night before!
γεια σου! Μιλώ πολύ καλά ελληνικά!