Monday, February 27/2012

This is clean Monday, also known as Green Monday. Follows carnivals on the Sunday and precedes Lent, which in the Eastern Church begins on Wednesday, February 29 - this year a week later than in the Western Church. In Cyprus, as in Greece, it's celebrated with picnics emphasising seafood and green vegetables and by flying kites.

The sky is threatening, though, and it's extremely windy. J, out for his morning walk along the beach, reports that it's holiday busy and there are plenty of kites in evidence. Some advantage to the wind. Showers in the afternoon, though.

Sunday, February 26/2012

By bus to Pyla for lunch with Jane and Bill. More difficult than it sounds, as the online bus maps don't mtch Bill's impression of which buses go there. flag down a 429, which had shown no signs of stopping. It's more than full, standing room only, and, apart from us, all the passengers are African students. One girl (though they're mostly young men) gives me her seat and perches on the knee of another young lady. They all alight in Pyla, as do we. The access road wasn't the one past Bill and Jane's so we're unsure of which road to take and Jane picks us up.

Lovely lunch outside in the Cyprus sun - roast chicken with stuffing and potatoes as well as a large dish of mixed vegetables. And good company. Jane has a couple of lovely tagines that she brought back from Morocco, which we admire. Afterward we use their secure computer to book the hotel in Victoria for July. Then ane walks out with us to the Dhekelia Road, where there's a bus about to leave for Larnaca. Conveniently, but rather by chance, it seems, as the schedule had said it should just be leaving its base point down the road. There's a map online that shows every stop as a nice little blue ring - but it's obviously useless.

Saturday, February 25/2012

Stunning day, so coffee at Harry's Café by St. Lazarus. About as good as it gets.

New source of amusement: Kobo sends me regular email in which it makes rather inefficient efforts to suggest books that may be to my taste, based on past purchases. So, as I have recently bought two of Chris Mullin's political diaries as ebooks, today's suggestion list is headed by an offering called So You Want to be a Politician.

Friday, February 24/2012

Finally booked return flights to London, for April 2. Not simple - HSBC card required verifying, involving phone call to London, three different employees, and a call back which never happened. Finally used Mastercard.

Thursday, February 24/2012

Coffee at George's with Margaret, Sharon, Leslie, Tina - and Lorraine, mother of six week old Lewis, whom everyone takes a turn holding. Tina's brought millionaire's cake with her as promised, as well as her husband's pork pies - some made with pickle and cheese. Lovely.

We've booked our last chunk - three weeks in London at the Baron, where we stayed in November.  My favourite city in the world - and at a remarkably good price.

Wednesday, February 22/2012

J reading a thick juicy looking book on Anthony Blunt's life and career. I'm reading a memoir called A Girl from Schindler's List, written by a survivor. And jointly (aloud) we're reading Ian Rankin's Exit Music. And, as if that weren't enough, we have two unread current goodies (as well as many classics) on the Kobo. Lovely knowing that one can't run out of good reads.

Tuesday, February 21/2012

Jane's birthday and she and Bill have kindly invited us to a birthday dinner at the Shanghai, a (needless to say) Chinese restaurant less than ten minutes walk from us.  There are eight of us - including Maggi, Harry and Aylsa, and Stuart, a friend from the hash runs. Jane has brought some great photos from her Morocco trip - camels, colourful tagines, etc., and we all starat thinking of desert treks. It's certainly agreed with Jane - she's looking radiant. The round table works well for conversation too - much better than two square ones pushed together. Good food, with very nice spring rolls. Lovely evening.

Monday, February 20/2012

Flirting with the possibility of a train/ferry trip to Ireland. The fares are amazingly good - £38 or €45 ($60 CAD) from any city in Great Britain to Dublin - or the same in reverse. Obviously the starting spot would be London, but what about the return? The temptation is to go as far as possible. Penzance? Inverness? Until reality sets in. The real difficulty is the timing of Easter as we compete anywhere we go then for high holiday prices.

Sunday, February 19/2012

The prediction was for sunny with a high of 13, but the actuality is, happily, better than that. Nice walk along the promenade. On the way home we spot the small jeweller's (sales and repairs) recommended to us by the Ukrainian girl who makes her own jewellery. She proonounced it ZEFS and spelled it ZEVS, and we were mystified until we saw the sign - ZEUS. Blame Anglo pronunciation.

Saturday, February 18/2012

Maggi over to dinner in the evening. Stuffed mushrooms, sautéed artichoke hearts and chicken wings for the starter. Then chicken, rice, leeks, red and yellow sautéed peppers, carrots and Christmas cake with brandy sauce.  Lovely to be able to have the artichokes. In Sioux Lookout they're seldom to be had and one long dead one costs the earth. Here we sometimes mix them with pasta or put them on a pizza.

Friday, February 17/2012

J out on his morning constitutional, putting in miles along the beach and I with Maggi and her young friend Andrée who lives in Oroklini, along with year old daughter, Ioanna, to the charity shop at the British forces base at Dhekelia. It's open only Friday mornings and only until 11. It's jam packed with clothes as well as some dishes, electronics, handbags, paintings and odds and ends.  Andrée does well with baby clothes and I pick up quite a nice multicoloured Italian scarf. Coffee at Andrée's, as Ioanna, with the sweetest of smiles, plays happily in her playpen.

Over to Prinos, where artichokes are now on sale. Also get leeks, tomatoes, oranges, onions, carrots, Cypriot bananas, fresh spinach, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, and a lime. The lime from far away, but most of the rest local and fresh. One of the nicest things about Cyprus in the winter.

Thursday, February 16/2012

Coffee at George's. Tina, who made the millionaire's cake that Margaret gave us, is there as well as Leslie and Sharon. Len appears with Bobbie, his girlfriend, and is wished happy birthday by everyone. An easy guess as he's wearing a huge medallion saying "birthday boy." A man called Peter comes to sit next to J - quite an interesting chap from a family that seems to be half Irish and half Cypriot. An avid reader, especially of history.

Wednesday, February 15/2012

G&T in Maggi's flat. Hers completely renovated and ours not, but the changes do raise questions re next year. A real estate agent told us that some Scandinavians have begun signing year leases. Sometimes cheaper than 5-6 months hotel apartment, and their relatives can use the flat at other times.

Tuesday, February 14/2012

Gabriel and Adrienne over for a drink before dinner. They leave at midnight Thursday. This is a rebooking, as their Hungarian airline went bankrupt, so they're now rebooked on a Czech airline. Out of pocket, but they're philosophical - it's warmer here than it is in Hungary. Most of Europe has been experiencing unusually cold and snowy weather. Quite a few deaths.

Monday, February 13/2012

Looking for a spot to go to after Cyprus. We're here on a one-way ticket so need to co-ordinate return ticket with stay wherever. The difficulty this year is that Easter is early April and fares and warm holiday prices rise accordingly. As the search heats up the quality of the wifi deteriorates. The connection always purports to be excellent, but is SLOW.

Sunday, February 12/2012

Down to the promenade after brunch and it's in sunny, festive mode with the balloon sellers and the nut sellers out again, and girls carrying stuffed toys won aat games of chance. There's a brisk breeze off the sea but the sun is warm.

Home along Makarios, past the shop that the Red Canaries pet shop is about to move into. It's adorned with a huge sign with two red birds and, in giant letters, "Red Canneries Pet Shop."

Saturday, February 11/2012

Another lovely day. We meet Maggi down at Harry's Café near St Lazarus Church for coffee. Beautiful sunny spot with good Cyprus coffee and a magical view of the church with its Venetian tower.

Begin the online search for our next stop this winter/spring, hindered a bit by the timing of Easter as we're competing with those taking Easter holidays. The wifi connection is infuriatingly slow and the Congolese banker has stopped using it, opting for a paid wifi connection fro his room. So we're no longer treated to the details of international finance.

Friday, February 10/2012

A lovely day for walking. Coffee down on the waterfront and a wander around the streets. Sit on the pier with the wind blowing through our hair and the sun warm on our backs.

Thursday, February 9/2012

Coffee with Margaret and Leslie, Leslie cheerful as ever while telling a horrific story about her plumbing repairs. Plumbing becomes horrific quite easily in Cyprus because, like Greece and nowhere else, the main sewage pipes are about two and a half inches in diameter. So despite directives re not putting toilet paper down the flush, the pipes get clogged very easily. As Leslie says, she knows what she puts down 0 but the main pipe is shared with the next door neighbours....

Maggi invites us, along with Gabriel and Adrienne, over for strawberries. A and G don't eat after 6 p.m., but we do. Strawberries a little on the early side still, but nice evening. Gabriel voluble on his experiences in Africa and some of the stories are pretty good.

Wednesday, February 8/2012

Wet again today. Good thing we've been here for the past eleven years - otherwise we might think this was the norm. Quick run out to Carrefour and Prinos. Lovely having such an excellent greengrocer five minutes away - and buying tomatoes and cucumbers and courgettes in mid-winter.

Tuesday, February 7/2012

Wash day - everything from Cairo filthy, and easy to wash but too wet for outdoor drying.

Monday, February 6/2012

View from Maggi's Room

We've arranged for a transfer to the airport about 12:30 for 50 Egyptian pounds ($8.20 CAD, £5.20 GBP, €6.20). The original plan was to go in the morning to see the Nilometer on Roda Island but conflict has escalated in the night so we decide to keep a lower profile and stick closer to home. The shopping district around Tala'at Harb Square is peaceful enough. Rather too peaceful actually as the shops seem only to begin opening after 10 o'clock and then one or two at a time, reluctantly as it were. Near home we stop for a cup of coffee and a pastry. Pastries delicious. Maggi's coffee comes but not ours - which in the end is just as well as we're out of time and it takes some effort to elicit a bill.


On the way to the airport the driver gestures and tells us that Mubarek lived "back there" in a big place. We think of the big jail his sons are living in now There are so many beautiful buildings in Cairo, such lovely colonial architecture, mostly now grimy and crumbling.


Terminal 3 is large and very new. We change back the little Egyptian currency left - in our case into sterling with $3 US as top up. Duty free shops not terribly interesting, and snacks available in Egyptian pounds a shocking price. The small bottle of water that is 1.50 in Egyptian pounds on the street is 26 Egyptian pounds here ($4.27 CAD, €3.23, £2.71), much worse than Larnaca airport at €1.10. Announcements for departures are interesting - in Arabic, English and the language of the destination country, and preceded by a few bars of music appropriate to the destination. Ours is from Zorba the Greek!


Flight home about an hour and twenty minutes. The illuminated sign next to the fasten your seat belt sign now advises against using electronic equipment during take off and landing - which doesn't prevent at least two men from talking on their mobiles as the stewardess is presenting the safety demo. They're asked to put them away but don't seem to grasp the point of turning them off as well. But we land safely in Larnaca. We're home.

Sunday, February 5/2012

Qaitbey Fort, Alexandria

We're up at six for breakfast at 6:30 and our planned trip to Alexandria (€65 for a car and driver for the day). Breakfast the same as yesterday - except that Maggi has been at work in the kitchen and the cups are visibly cleaner and the breakfast tray not only washed but dried. Mohamed does give everything a quick rinse, but that seems to be more or less the extent of it. Not that things are necessarily different in posher accommodation. We remember watching a waiter in our hotel in Giza cleaning a handful of cutlery on the corner of a less than pristine tablecloth. We eat the white buns, foil-wrapped soft cheese triangles and jam but give the hardboiled eggs a miss. By the time they're done, and too hot to hold, it's time to go.

It's a very foggy start. The usual smog with a much higher fog component, so we leave hoping that there will be decent visibility for our day in Alexandria. As we hit the motorway, though, this rapidly becomes the least of our concerns. We pass, in the initial stages more incredibly ugly accidents than I have seen in the whole rest of my life put together, including a car crushed beneath an enormous semi (artic). The balancing wheels from the front of the trailer section have actually gone through the roof of the car. But this is only the beginning. For over half an hour we drive past accidents so numerous that we give up counting - cars crushed, folded almost in two, and torn apaart, and bodies by the side of the road, some of them not moving - faces covered. There is the occasional ambulance, but many of the vehicles look like survival would have been impossible. Occasionally a small fire has been started by the side of the road as a makeshift flare, but there is hardly any need to warn us - the road is one huge accident scene. The fog, of course, is the most obvious cause, but excessive speed for the conditions has clearly played a major part; the vehicular damage we see cannot have been inflicted at low speeds. Ashkok, our driver, is good - but he too is going fast enough that any exception on the road (which is a new one and good) could be problematic.

Alexandria is entered through a large portal with white columns and the city name engraved in Greek as well as Arabic. It's sunny and we snake through narrow, crooked lanes that hardly look as if vehicle traffic were possible Our first stop is at the catacombs. They were rediscovered in 1900 when a donkey fell into a hole which continued into three levels of catacombs with many little passages and a honeycomb of burial spots. The carvings are Egyptian but the catacombs obviously have mixed Egyptian, Graeco-Roman and Christian antecedents. About second century.

Then a stop at Qaitbey Fort on the sea. A fairy tale castle of a fort. It's an Islamic fort built in 1480, originally on the Island of Pharos, built on the remains of the lighthouse, but now part of the mainland, as silt long ago filled in the gap.

A quick snack at Gad, one of a chain of Egyptian fast food restaurants. Very busy, and so it should be as the local style food is good and very cheap. You decide whaat you want and then pay for it. The cashier gives you a receipt with your choice printed on it in Arabic, which you hand over at the counter in exchange for the food. Very clean as those preparing food don't touch the money. Two counters and a man at the entryway cutting meat from two large doner spits. Meat in a bun about $1.40 or spiced bean paste and tomato slices in a small pita for about 15 cents. Delicious too.

Then to the new Alexandria Library. the original livrary, of course, one of the highlights of the ancient world, but its successor is pretty impressive too. It opened in 2002, the work of a Norwegian architect who won a UNESCO competition. Strikingly modern and with room for 8 million books, as well as museums and a planetarium. M and I have drinks at a café nextto the library, the magnificent building in front of us and the corniche with the Mediterranean blue harbour behind.

Then J and I spend an hour at the museu, admiring sculptures recently retrieved from the Mediterranean as well as tiny tanaga statuettes showing period style and dress, and coptic paintings and fabrics. M goes instead with Ashkok for a coffee.  And back to Cairo, the road now more or less fog and accident free. Askok points out the large jail where Mubarekès two sons are being held.

We enjoy a second night at Felfela. this time itès not the anniversary of Mohammed's birth and we're allowed beer. Also sample the mixed grill and a delicious aubergine dish with a dash of (balsamic?) vinegar. Tala'at Harb Square is humming as are the streets around. Shops open and open air vendors busy even at ten p.m. on a Sunday evening. The protestors are busy later too. it must be aaround midnight when a huge cohort pass noisily under our window on their way, presumably, to Tahrir Square. And the net (wifi in the rooms here) has news of escalating protest southeast of us at the Immigration Ministry - barriers breached and stone throwing answered with gun pellets.

Saturday, February 4/2012

Breakfast at 8:30, by which time Maggi's been out for a recce and found soap. The first priority is decent maps and info. So, often my first unhassled source of information, a five star hotel We head out along our street, now  happily humming. A man has cycled along with two large trays of puffed up pitas on his head, and further down a donkey stands patiently with a cartload of oranges across from the Franciscan school. Under the flyover accesses to the October 6 Bridge. Crossing streets in Cairo has been compared to a real life game of frogger, and yo do need your wits about you. Times have changed in Egypt and there is now airport style security at the Hilton, as well as a German Shepherd on guard. So we pass  our bags through the x-ray and ourselves through the metal detector and head for the bookstore and a nice laminated map of Cairo, suitable for wiping coffee off if necessary. I also take advantage of a moment to check out the Lonely Planet guide book and see where the tourist info office is. When you ask a local - even one with good English about the tourist office, it's obvious that it's a foreign concept and you'll probably be pointed to the nearest travel agent. So we enjoy the five star lounge, and later the loo, and plot our route.

It's down past shops, and at one point a car, made into a market barrow with clothing for sale  hung from roof, doors, and open trunk. The girl at the tourist info is quite helpful with handouts and advice on where to go, and, probably more  important, on where not to go. There's a park nearby,but we discover that the well kept parks are well kept in part by virtue of charging admission and keeping most people out. We sit on the wall and eat our sandwiches, watching the world pass, almost literally over our feet, as we're stationed between vendors. Cairo sellers spread out their wares on the sidewalks - handbags, shirts, watches, whatever.  Then back to the Nile. On the pavement we meet a shop owner - a doctor whose family land was taken when the Aswan Dam was built. We're very near Tahrir Square and he tells us his sons were part of last year's revolution - and he was very proud of them. His brother is now in parliament - not an Islamist but, like all, working for change.

Across the bridge to Zamalek. Well, that's the intent, but it involves circling Tahrir Square, clearly set up for protest and abuzz but not hostile at midday. The square does have open gates, but it's well ringed with concrete and metal barriers. There are flags waving, and at one entrance an effigy hanging. We pass a few tents on the pavement. Continued occupation? There are boys and young men milling about but the real action is saved for evening. We do pass yellow ambulances, though. Dozens of them lined up and waiting. I give up any thought of counting. And a nearby street has concrete barriers.

Our objective on the island at the other end of the bridge is the Cairo Tower - 187 m high, with views out over the surrounding countryside. The entry fee is 70 Egyptian pounds though, and given the heavy smog J and I opt out. M goes up but is underwhelmed. Then back across the bridge. Lots of pedestrian traffic, including one daring boy walking on the railing - though death by pollution seems more likely than death by drowning. There are boats in the Nile below, including one being rowed by a woman, which appears to contain not only her husband and child but most of their possessions.

This tie we circle back the other way - along the corniche behind Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Museum, past a burnt out building and several burned cars, seemingly dating back to last year's revolution.

Early dinner at a restaurant just off Tala'at Harb Square, a five minute walk away. The restaurant is Felfela and we're not the first westerners to discover it. Jimmy Carter ate here - and signed a menu. Our meal is pretty good - the stuffed artichokes less exciting than they should be, but the kushari and Egyptian meatballs are comfort food nice. The space itself, though, is wonderful. We're in a raised alcove that holds two tables and is surrounded by carved wood and an aquarium  at one end. At the other, birds peep out through little birdsnest holes and emerge to preen and play on branches just behind the glass that's almost touching Joe's chair. The tables are all thick slabs of wood, soe ofthe smaller ones cross-sections of large trees, with stone pedestals.  Then home past the busy shops - and the odd begging child.

Friday, February 3/2012

We take the bus to the airport in the late afternoon. Actually almost past the airport as, despite Maggi's having said "airport" as we got on, and despite the airport's being a main stop, the driver continues on past as we belatedly realise that he's not going to stop. Not a long walk back, fortunately.

Jane and her friend Jan are there, on their way to Morocco - a two week holiday involving a six hour camel trek and overnight in a tent in the desert. They have a connection in Cairo - after a thirteen hour wait. The waiting bit begins here, as the plane leaves nearly two hours late, having first arrived late from Cairo and then been obliged to change a wheel. We're given vouchers for €3.50 (£2.90, $4.60 CAD) for a snack as we wait, which runs to a small bottle of water and an extremely small packet of crisps each at airport prices - but there is a small meal on the hour and a half flight. Cold, but quite nice.


We're not optimistic about the promised airport pick up by the hostel/hotel (often a borderline call in Egypt). But no, the poor man has indeed waited for us - for about 3 hours by the time we've purchased our colourful visas ($15 US each) and cleared customs. So we're outinto the warm Egyptian air, and driven back throuogh Cairo's amazing traffic, past the city of the dead, through Tala'at Harb Square, and - another block - to Vienna Hostel. It's on the third floor of the building, reached by an antique cage of a lift. The rooms are basic, but they're clean and there is a shower in the loo with extremely hot water and plenty of water pressure, though no soap. Mohammed, the teenage student son, offers to go out to buy some, baksheesh no doubt in mind, but we decide to wait until morning. A quick look out the doors to the tiny balcony at the once classic building opposite and a quick check of the internet (wifi in the rooms!) and it's midnight.

Thursday, February 2/2012

Meet Margaret for coffee at George's. Leslie is there as well, cheerful as ever. M has brought little packets of sweets for each of us - so lovely that I phone her later to say I fear J is going to leave me for her. She's pleased - there's still a lot of the flirt left in her at 80!

Protests, of course, growing in Egypt, and bodies arriving back at the train station in Cairo from the Port Said stadium riot. We'll reassess in the morning.

Wednesday, February 1/2012

Out for a haircut, prudently taking an umbrella, which turns out not to be needed. The book to read while waiting isn't needed either, as it's a slow day at the hairdresser's and the maestro is taking an unaccustomed break when I arrive, so straight to the chair.

Adrienne and Gabriel over for a drink and a chat after supper. They live, for two weeks at least, at the far end of the corridor. The rest of their life, though, is divided between Mississauga, Canada, their primary home, and Hungary, their country of origin. He's eighty now and looks back on a very interesting life. A freedom fighter in the Hungarian Revolution and a civil engineer by training, he fled Hungary and ended up designing highways in Saskatchewan in the late 50's. This was followed by jobs in various third world countries, from Bangladesh to Malawi, and finally, via Hungary (where he married Adrienne) back to Canada where he ended up teaching at Seneca College. And has he slowed down in retirement, J asks. Not a bit of it He's written fifteen novels, several of them published as ebooks. He offers to give us some reading for the Kobo. What aout a novel and a science fiction?

And late in the evening comes the news that a riot has broken out following a football game in Port Said, leaving, at first reports, over fifty dead and many more injured. The best case scenario, of course, is that this is only a sporting conflict and there will be no political repercussions, but it doesn't seem likely.

Tuesday, January 31/2012

Last night's pyrotechnical display exacts its price: once more Joe's bed is wet. The cleaners arrive and I show the damage to Venera whose English vocabulary seems to be more or less the equivalent of my Greek one. Nero (water) I say, pointing to the ceiling, lest she suppose the damp mattress had another cause. she asseses the situation and says "change" - the usual preliminary to the regular (or, rather, irregular) linen change. I agree, though I don't follow the stream of Greek that comes after. Meanwhile, the other cleaner, who always has a little of the deer in the headlights about her, begins cleaning the balcony - a first in our experience at this hotel. Venera disappears, presumably for fresh sheets, but comes back with a whole new mattress, a Norwegian guest obligingly holding up the other end.

In the midst of all this activity, now taking place around cleaner number two, who has moved from the balcony to the kitchen, more or less blocking the door from the corridor, the Brother arrives to adjust the television (which doesn't receive Capital, a channel with evening films).  Maggi says that the Brother's name is actually Mr Fetus, in accordance with the Cypriot custom of using the title Mr, or Mrs or Miss, before a person's first name. But I can hardly bring myself to address such an ineffectual person, or anyone else for that matter, as Mr Fetus, and continue to think of him as the Brother. So, as the Brother makes repeated efforts to reprogram the telly, cleaner number two, apparently unwilling to be seen doing nothing, continues rewashing the kitchen floor. I'm interested in the fact that our television seems to have some games, conveniently identified in English  (unlike all the other programming information), including Tetris. J points out that the Brother is trying repeatedly to get  out of Tetris. And, as suddenly as it began, it's all over.  New bed, television programmed and floor rewashed, and we're on our own.

In the evening to Vlachos taverna with Maggi, Jand and Bill, and Harry and Aylsa. Jane, who is off to Morocco on Friday for a two week holiday, unfortunately suffering stiffness and pain from the side effects kof a hepatitis A injection. Always a good spread, though the moussaka this time is unduly heavy on the béchamel sauce - enough so that I wouldn't order it again, which is a pity as we liked the old recipe.  As usual, the side dishes would have made a meal on their own, and Harry and Aylsa's many animals get a bag of leftovers.

Monday, January 30/2012

This is another day in this year's January pattern. Starts out dry but by late morning there's rain. we take umbrellas down to Lidl, run innto Maggi there and drive back. Lunch of cheese and dips and coffee. In the evening the rain gets serious, with dramatic lightning and a good view of same from the glass doors to the balcony.