Wednesday morning we arose bright and early for our trip to the North side to Famagusta and the ruins of Salamis. This was a very interesting trip, for sure. We saw all sorts of things… Both awesome and sad at the same time. 

First up was the St. Barnabas Archaeological and Icon Museum. This place actually used to be a church, but has since been turned into a museum (obviously). 

On this place’s property was a small tomb where St. Barnabas, one of Jesus’s apostles was buried. Pretty crazy… 

Our next stop were the ruins of Salamis. We visited a theater, the gymnasium and also a couple of other locations. The ruins were so awesome! We got to climb and play on them for our various photo shoots which was pretty fun, not gonna lie. I got a few battle wounds, but nothing I couldn’t handle!

The final stop on our tour was the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque. It was created as a Catholic Cathedral in 1328, but was converted into a mosque in 1571… And has remained a mosque ever since. 

Honestly, I thought it looked a bit like Hogwarts. I’m sure I’m offending plenty of people with that statement.

It was gorgeous on the inside, though. I loved all of the windows!

We spent the rest of the day just wandering around the open downtown area of Famagusta. We had some lunch and visited a bunch of the fun little shops. Then, we all piled back on the bus and headed home for, you guessed it, more editing.

Tuesday was THE Day. The day of the Meze, which is the glue that holds our production together. We’ve been filming the processes of these foods being made so that when the time came for us to sit down for a meze, we could know where a generous portion of our meal came from. 

Whit, Lance, Dr. Legg and I started out our day by taking a drive to the tavern to film some of the prep work being done.

These babies were the first things we saw upon entrance to the kitchen. They would boil these bad boys, then simmer them in a tomato sauce until they were ready to be scraped out with a toothpick and enjoyed. 

Next, we saw the creation of sheftalia, which is a popular Cypriot sausage that is made of ground lamb and pork, minced onion and mint, then the sausage is rolled out and wrapped in the membrane that lines the sheep’s stomach. YUM! 

Once we were done with the prep-filming, we sat with the restaurant owner and had a good chat while Dr. Legg took a trip back to the college to pick up the first round of kiddos to shoot entrance/exit shots with. We had a nice talk with the tavern owner… Though I always love talking to people, especially here. Their stories are always so interesting and I love to hear about how different life is here compared to at home. 

I then went home and showered and waited until it was our turn to come back for dinner. 

We all arrived here for dinner, and sat down to an almost immediate spread of food. 

Bread, Russian Salad, Tahini/Hummus, Tzatziki, Village Salad, Olives, Carrots, Potatoes, Beets… 

We had all of this before we even had drinks. It was pretty ridiculous, haha. But so, so good! 

The courses were insane. I wish I could remember everything we ate. I’m not even going to try and remember, I just know that it was an absurd amount of food. 

All of our “I ate so much I think I’m gonna DIE” faces… 

After most of the food was passed around and eaten, the one thing that so many of us were afraid of finally arrived:

SNAILS.

They actually weren’t horrible. A little chewy. The didn’t have much taste other than tomato, though, since they were cooked in some sort of tomato sauce. I had THREE! It makes me want to eat Escargot, because I’ve heard it’s just garlic and butter on them and that they’re fairly fantastic, haha. 

After a few more courses and a lackluster dessert, we all rolled/waddled out and headed home in a daze. Food comas ensued. 

Monday was almost bittersweet. We spent the majority of the morning editing. Some of us were a little more involved than others…

But when you have 6 people crowded around one computer, individuals can only do so much.

After we had edited for a good 8 billion years, we all ran home to shower and get ready for GLS Graduation. There were two awesome parts of graduation.

1. None of us were finished with classes yet.
2. The slideshow.

A member of our Tennessee clan put together the slideshow, and he definitely grabbed some of the most iconic pictures from our trip for it. It was fun to look back on all of the crazy/fun stuff we’ve done in the last month.

After graduation, a few of us hung out and had a few glasses of wine and then met everyone back at Prosilio for dinner… Which may have been even better than the first time we went. We decided this was probably because by now, we had all learned the true value of a free meal.

Bedtime came early because we had a busy day of filming and eating on Tuesday. 

I have never had a true “college” spring break. I’ve never been to Panama City Beach or any other sort of “party” town during the one week we get off in the spring semester. My freshman year I went to a town outside of Daytona Beach, but we legitimately stayed in condos owned by my friend’s grandfather. We were surrounded by old people the entire time, and on the one night we did go out, we were too young to get into anywhere for a reasonable price, so we went back home.

Needless to say, Ayia Napa at night was an experience for me.

But before we get to that insanity, let’s talk about the awesome sight-seeing we did beforehand. 

Our first stop was Hala Sultan Tekke, which is a major Muslim holy site and has been referred to as the 3rd holiest place for Muslims in the entire world, due to the fact that it is the burial place for the prophet Muhammad’s wet nurse. This place has since become a shrine for her.

The next stop we took was the Church of Saint Lazarus. After Lazarus was raised from the dead, he fled Judea and came to Cyprus. His tomb is located within the church. 

Once we finally reached our destination, Ayia Napa, we all headed up to our rooms to don bathing suits and head to the beach. Only, Emma and I got a bit separated from our group when we were stopped by a young English couple who wanted to pitch their 50 euro booze cruise to us. Once they were done with their 10 minute spiel, Emma and I hurried to find the rest of our group to no avail. Instead of trying to wander the beach for the next hour, we just turned around and went back to our hotel to hang out in the pool.

It’s always strange to be in a foreign country and know that you are the only Americans around, but sitting in a pool full of English-speakers and still being the only Americans around was pretty funny. Emma and I became friends with a group of Irishmen who were all here on holiday, and spent the rest of the afternoon talking with them. 

When the rest of our group returned from the beach, we all ran upstairs to shower before dinner and clubbin’. We went to Valentino’s, a restaurant that had a menu created by a Top Chef contender by the name of Giorgos Mavrogiannapoulos. (Yeah, Idk how to pronounce it, either.) It was a REALLY nice restaurant, and about 20 of us went there for dinner. I just had an appetizer for dinner because it was cheap, but it was delicious! Mozzarella cheese, pancetta, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes and pesto… Super awesome combination. 

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for some after-dinner drinks and then went out to the clubs.

I will re-iterate. I have never, ever been any place like this. A block away from our apartment was the strip of clubs, which was more like a maze. They were everywhere, and promoters were standing on the street offering free drinks and deals to everyone who passed. We went to a place called “The Castle” and hung out for a little bit, and then a group of 5 of us left and went exploring. We were taking a break when we ran into the group of Irish guys from our hotel, and we went to a pub with them until the rest of our group caught up. We went home, crashed into bed.

I will admit I over-indulged a bit and was not feeling my brightest and best on Saturday morning, but I survived and made it out to relax by the pool with my roomie, Lindsey. We laid out, got our tan on and read. It was definitely relaxing, and what I needed before the night we had ahead of us. 

Emma, Jessica and I had a craving for pasta for dinner, so we walked and walked until we found a reasonably priced Italian restaurant, then made our way back to the hotel to meet the rest of the group to go to the beach party. 

The beach party had a DJ and 2 open bars and was located on a tiny piece of beach nestled between two large rock walls. They somehow managed to squeeze over 3,000 people in a space smaller than an American football field. It was SO much fun, though. We danced all night, sang along to all the sweet 90’s R&B/pop music they mixed and all lost our shoes at one point. 

After that, a few of us went and met up with our Irish friends again, and stayed out until the sun came up, then came and sat poolside at our hotel before going to bed.

We awoke a few hours later to go lay by the pool and relax before our bus ride back to Nicosia. 

It was definitely a super-fun weekend, but after the 8 collective hours of sleep I got, I was ready to get home and crash. 

That’s what she said.

It’s become a running joke with all of us GLS students here in Cyprus. We like to take every opportunity we can to come up with a “That’s what she said” joke, and believe me when I say every opportunity. 

That aside, the next day on my extra-long to-do list of blogging would be the 2nd, and final, shoot my group did: The Butcher.

We went to a butcher shop downtown to watch a man make Kleftiko, which has a pretty interesting story.

In Greek, the world “kleftiko” means “thief”, “stolen”, or any of the above. In “the old days,” bandits would run around and steal sheep off of mountainsides. They would butcher them, then cook them in pits in the ground, which they then sealed with mud to keep the steam/smell from escaping. They would leave the meat in the ground to cook all day, and at night would come back and unearth their meal and eat like kings. Thus the world “klepto” came to be, for stealing. Learn something new everyday, huh? 

I can’t say that I have ever been to a real butcher. Sure, I’ve seen cuts of meat being laid out at the supermarket, but I’d never been inside a real meat locker.. Until now of course.

So that was pretty cool.

When we got down to filming, the stuff we saw was pretty cool. The butcher took huge cuts of meat and hastily chopped them down to nearly-precise portions, then bagged them in a strange netting that held the pieces together.

He soaked them in water, then filled clay pots with vodka and a mixture of spices before adding the meat. He then covered the pots with a sheet of plastic, then a thick layer of pork skin, and finally several sheets of tin-foil to seal the pots.

We transferred the pots to the ovens outside, which were heated with a gas torch. They put the pots in the ovens, and they were left there to cook all day.

The meat takes at least 8 hours to cook, and after that it can be served, or kept warm in the oven. It will stay tender and delicious for over a day in these ovens. 

Tuesday was another early day. We jumped up in the morning and scrambled into the bus to get to Dias Publishing Group. A few of our group members weren’t feeling so well which sort of made the entire experience all the more entertaining. Last time we went on a media tour, it was me who was feeling absolutely miserable, though it was by no fault of my own. 

The general consensus of our group…

Dias Publishing Group is a super-power in the world of media in Cyprus. Not only do they have a television station, but they also run a radio station, an online news hub, a newspaper, several magazines and a radio station. In America, this wouldn’t be allowed… Actually, it’s illegal. Media companies aren’t allowed to operate different outlets under the same name. This is because they can use those outlets to influence people to their specific program, publication, etc. A prime example from Dias is that they have produce a TV guide, just like we do. The TV guide lists the programs and their times from all the networks, but the advertisements within the pages of the magazine are for all Dias Publishing Group’s products. They will put in advertisements for their radio shows, their other magazines and television programming. They basically have a monopoly on the media center in their country… And in a way, it’s kind of cool. It works because the country is so small and their programming is much less diverse than what we have in the states, but with such a great variety in our country and so many media outlets competing with one another, it would make a company like this absolutely impossible to survive without being sued left and right.

Our tour was pretty early, and ended rather early as well… So we all came home and bummed around again. Nothing more exciting happening… Lazy, lazy days.

Tuesday morning, Emma, Aaron and I woke up bright and early to head back downtown and to the Turkish side for our own little adventure. We had a great time just walking around, taking our time to look in all of the little shops and just absorbing the culture of the place. We visited our favorite spots… The dress shop and the jewelry store where they always offered up super-awesome discounts. 

Our adventure to the Turkish side was uneventful, thankfully, and we stayed in the touristy area with all of the shops. We’re still afraid to eat or drink anything from there, so we went back to the south side and hit up a kiosk for a beverage, then came home. 

I honestly can’t remember what we did after that, but I can’t imagine it was anything too exciting! The weeks are winding down, that’s for sure… 

I’m over a week behind in my blog posting. I was pretty good about keeping up with this stuff at the beginning of the trip, but we’ve been doing so much and I’ve been so exhausted at night that my brain hardly functions enough to make a post. 

But since we’re in the midst of editing, and we have still another hour’s worth of footage to watch.. I’m going to queue up some posts from the past week, starting with our trip to a Cypriot sweetshop/bakery for our third day of filming.

I had come back from Ayia Napa the day before, sunburnt and covered in sand, and had to wake up early the next morning and look nice to be on camera for the other group’s project.

Emma and I were both in the talent position, which was excellent for us because we both love baking. 

(Note: All of these photos were stolen, as my camera conveniently decided to stop working completely this day.)

When we were there, Emma and I helped the bakers, a father and son, to make some of the more traditional Greek/Cypriot desserts. Of course, we had to help them make baklava, which is a personal favorite of mine since I’ve been here. I’ve tried it a few different ways, but from this particular sweet shop it was the best. We layered the papery sheets of phyllo dough, painted on a mixture of butter and oil and dusted the product with a mixture of nuts and spices. 

We were taught how to make a variety of other typical Cypriot/Greek desserts, such as trigona and kataifi. Emma and I weren’t exactly fast enough to help them to be efficient, but it was definitely a fun/learning experience. 

Afterwards, we sat down to a delicious piece of baklava with the owner, finished up filming and headed home.

I took a brief nap, and then Emma and I went on another adventure with Dr. Legg for a bit of shopping… I ended up purchasing a new camera because I couldn’t survive this trip without a camera. 

This post is about Sunday.

Which was quite possibly the best day I have had on this island so far. 

Over half of the GLS students decided to go on a day cruise on Sunday. It was 35 euro and it included lunch, wine, deep sea fishing, snorkeling/swimming and just a general good time on a boat out on the Med. This is something that I would have loved to do. Seriously, I bet I would’ve had a blast because everyone who went seemed to have had a great time… Unfortunately, I was still on my antibiotics by the time that rolled around, and since a huge chunk of the fee was to pay for the “complimentary” liquor, and I couldn’t drink any of the liquor, I figured I would just stay home and spend a quiet day recovering and catching up on my blog and things.

Then midnight happened. I was sitting on the balcony with my roommate Lindsey when she told me that a couple of girls were going to Ayia Napa early the next morning and asked if we wanted to come along. Ayia Napa is basically the Panama City Beach of Cyprus, so of course we decided to go. 

We got up SUPER early, packed lunch and headed out to the bus. We got on our bus to downtown, and made it just in time to catch the bus to Ayia Napa. Unfortunately, we were the last people on the bus so none of us could sit together. Since I am generally the most outgoing/look the most local here, I sat closer to the back and further away from the other girls. I was content sitting by myself, though. I had a book and Snake on my phone and kept to myself until the boys started acting extremely rowdy. They were yelling and singing, all in Greek so I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but apparently some of the things they were saying were extremely offensive and they got in a huge argument with other patrons on the bus. The police got on the bus at one point… It was a huge mess, and very scary… Huge culture shock, to see teenage boys acting like complete animals, and so oblivious to how boys that age should behave.

Once that catastrophe was over, we finally got to Ayia Napa and promptly forgot about the entire issue once we reached the town. The town itself is SO COOL. I’ve never been to Panama City, but I assume it is lined with crazy shops, restaurants and clubs. I can’t wait to go back this weekend to explore the night life.

We hopped on another bus to Cape Greco, which is a little cove about 20 minutes outside of Ayia Napa. It was another hike, like the one we took to Lady’s Mile beach, except this time we got to walk next to the beautiful cerulean blue Mediterranean Sea. 

Once we reached our first destination, we clambered over some rocks, set our stuff down next to a salt deposit, and grabbed some snorkels. We slid into the water from an algae-covered rock and began to explore the ocean floor. Where we were, there weren’t many fish, but there were plenty of crevices and rock formations and plant-life as well as these creepy-crawly millipede looking things. So weird! 

Once we were done, we began our hike along the E4 to our next destination. We walked for quite awhile. It probably took a lot longer because we kept stopping to take pictures… But how could you not when your surroundings looked like this?: 

We saw some pretty gorgeous sites along the way:

We also managed to find THE cliff-jumping point…

Suuuuuper flattering picture of me jumping into the water. No wonder my ears busted, haha. 

Once all of that nonsense was over, we FINALLY made it to the beach.

Be jealous, it’s okay. 

After laying out all day in the sun, we went to dinner with a group of Danish guys that the girls we were with had met the weekend before in Limassol. They were so funny, and so much fun to just hang out with for a few hours… It was nice to see new faces after staring at the same 43 people for the last 2.5 weeks (not that I don’t love you all :)). 

Once we were all done, we hopped in a taxi for 6 and came back to Nicosia. Literally FELL into bed and passed out almost immediately. It was an AMAZING day, and I can’t wait to share ALL of these pictures with you all soon! 

Weekend re-cap starting with Saturday! 

So Saturday seemed pretty lazy. Emma and I walked around and did a bit of errand-running, but not really. It was mostly just walking around aimlessly, wishing we had something fun to do… When we remembered that Dr. Legg had offered to take us around downtown if we wanted to. So we grabbed Chelsey and called Dr. Legg and headed off with Emma first. Unfortunately, the first place we stopped was closed, so we got in the car and made our way to the Mall of Cyprus.

The Mall of Cyprus… Is just like The Mall (the mall of Engomi, which is where our supermarket is). It literally has the exact same 5 stores inside, except there was the addition of a food court and several other stores to peek in. Mostly clothing stores, but there was also a pretty boss Best Buy-type store that sold electronics, books, movies and CDs. We got to witness some Cypriot children playing The Michael Jackson Experience, which was hilarious in itself because these kids will dance along and chatter to each other in Greek, then sing the lyrics in English. Pretty funny. There were also a group of boys standing at one of the mac computers on display, listening to a version of 50 Cent’s “Down on Me” in Greek.

And after I tried for half an hour to find it on youtube, this is what I found:

Which is the same tune as the 50 Cent song… This one is just about… Feta Cheese.

Cool.

Moving on. 

What preceded all of these fantastic events in the Greek Best Buy, was our trip to Ikea.

Now, they don’t let you take pictures inside the Ikea, but here’s a super unflattering one of me outside the Ikea.

After that, we went back to the ever-fun Jumbo store to get plastic plates and forks for our group meal that night. And as always, we found some awesome stuff inside:

In My Slimy? Whatever you say, Spongebob.

We came home, had some sweet Cypriot potluck for dinner and watched the videos we’d shot and edited so far an discussed plans for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, due to high prices, we will not be taking an out-of-country excursion, but this gives us some extra time to see some really awesome sites around here and give us a little extra beach time, which I whole-heartedly support.