After five days in Cyprus, I’ve come to the conclusion that life in Cyprus is a lot like college, where you door is always open and life is one big party.

Every morning at breakfast I never know who’s going to be there, but the home is like a windmill with people always coming and going. Like college, this place is rich in tradition – you may not know why something is done, but you do it anyway, because it’s tradition. During the wedding there were two answers of why something was happening – “tradition”, or “for fertility.”

Everyone has a great sense of humor about life. Last night I was having a few drinks with my new Cypriot friends (ironically they too were at UVA, but I don’t find out until I come to Cyprus that we know the same people!), and joking about the differences between the two places. They could only laugh and tell me that they were shocked when they came to America, ordered Chinese food, and people didn’t share – Cypriots share everything. (But in our defense, I told them that up until I went to college my family always shared food, and it caught me by surprise too…maybe just a UVA thing). And then we joked about how they loved taking a road trip down to Mardi Gras when they were living in the States. When nothing is more than two hours away and you live on an island, the concept of a “road trip” doesn’t exactly exist here. . .

My “road trip” continues tonight when I leave Cyprus to head back to Germany. I must say I’ve never felt so at home and welcomed in a place. I don’t speak a word of Greek, but still feel like we speak the same language, and I feel like I’ve been adopted by Christiana’s entire family. . . Echaristo!


Check back in a week or two, when I add pictures to these posts. The wedding was a huge success and great fun (and I must say ‘The American’ represented quite well on the dance floor), but that will be another post upon my return to the States.