Tuesday, February 25/2014

Sussing out the train connections from London to Harrogate for the end of March, as it looks as if Jenny and Doug are unlikely to be able to go, since they are leaving beginning of April for Cyprus and their cruise to Haifa and other points east. Not difficult to find fairly good connections and even good prices but all involve changing at Leeds and none allow more than twelve minutes to do this. Probably adequate - after all they're not in the business of trying to make people miss trains - but an unfamiliar station and all our winter luggage (admittedly not that extensive) with us. The annoying part is that it's only British helpfulness that creates the problem. There are half hourly trains to Harrogate from Leeds but through tickets are booked to the next connection, not the one after. It can be booked as two separate trips, but for more money. However, the helpfulness does extend to making available a plan of Leeds station, including platforms and it does look possible.

Monday, February 24/2014

Can finally post again. For a week couldn't access the blog. Only a little graphic with Greek explanation. Eventually, through other routes, got the explanation in English, but it only really amounted to sorry, there's a problem - try refreshing and then see if anyone else has the same problem. Answer was yes, but not everyone. Not really much help. The info in Greek is a real nuisance - and I'm not the only one with that problem. Google being helpful, having noted that the access is from a Greek speaking area. Similar complaints from Africa, etc, where assumptions about the language spoken by a user must be even more presumptuous. Easy to find oneself unable to sign in to a Google function because it's impossible to identify which word to click on. Especially problematic with very tiny fonts. Sometimes helps to use google.co.uk, but by no means always.

Sunday, February 23/2014

Watch the Canada/Sweden Olympic hockey game on the ipad mini down in reception. No nailbiter, but 3-0, so pretty satisfactory watching for Canadians. Then closing ceremonies, not highly language dependent, on Greek Cypriot tv. The real nailbiter has been following the Ukrainian situation on Euronews.

Saturday, February 22/2014

Can hardly tear myself away from history as it happens. Following BBC's Kevin Bishop (acting bureau chief, BBC Moscow) who is tweeting from inside the Ukrainian presidential palace, which has been deserted by Yanukovich et al. Due to meet J and Maggi at eleven though, and can scarcely text to say that I'm riveted to the ipad.

Coffee at Harry's, but it's really getting too hot in the sun and tables in the shade always nabbed as there are only two. Very tempting to get lager instead of Cyprus coffee. Sun must be over the yardarm somewhere - probably here. Plenty of vitamin D anyway. M to dinner in the evening.

Friday, February 21/2014

Interesting conversation with the man sitting at the next table on the deck at coffee, who, unlike us is getting the free wifi. Not that we really need it but, bizarrely, the ipad won't give us a place to put the password - though it used to. Not only a mind of its own but a malevolent one. The man has some fairly shocking, though not exactly surprising, examples of Cypriot tribalism in the government bureaucracies.

Thursday, February 20/2014

Jane and Bill and Harry and Ailsa to dinner. About as far as we can stretch the two-burners-and-a-microwave facilities. But extensive meze including J's labour intensive specialty, sautéed artichoke as well as goulash and vegetables. Six is a good number for round table (well, round coffee table, as we don't run to a large table or appropriate chairs) conversation. About the most you can do without the conversation breaking up into sub-groups. No gaps at all in the conversation.

Wednesday, February 19/2014

Cook most of the veg for tomorrow's dinner - two burners not really adequate for last minute prep. Have acquired two more table knives and a dinner plate for full complement. One plate is chipped, but ok as long as one of us gets it. Strawberries at Prinos smell wonderful - they're local - but will wait until tomorrow.

Tuesday, February 18/2014

Last day to use up remaining time on old SIM card and switch to new as of tomorrow. New one has top ups good for a year, so if used as little as we tend to it costs €10   (About £8 or $15 Canadian) to use it for three or four months. Nothing comparable in Canada! But everything comes with codes. This SIM is set to use 1234 to turn the phone on. Advised to reset but I won't as can barely remember that. Besides, anyone who stole it would only get what remains of our €10 and would then replace the SIM.

Monday, February 17/2014

Have been saving the little liquid milk containers from our morning coffees as they can be handy for guests who take milk in coffee. We don't put milk in coffee and only have skim milk in the fridge. Have collected to the point of making custard though. Time to stop!

Sunday, February 16/2014

Article in today's Cyprus Mail on Cypriot DNA, referring to the numbers of countries where Cypriot DNA markers can be found. But what is Cypriot DNA? Study a couple of years ago showing that Turkish and Greek Cypriots have more in common DNA-wise than either do with Turks or Greeks. Not surprising, but distressing for many incredulous Cypriots.

Saturday, February 15/2014

Usual Greek coffee at Harry's. There's always a little something complimentary with the coffee. Sometimes nondescript packaged biscuits but sometimes much nicer. Today's offering is three slices (one each) of an apparently home baked loaf of bread with large pieces of halloumi cheese incorporated. Very nice.

Finally book a studio for the Malta stay. With some misgivings as the reviews aren't very good, though the price is. Problem is that you have to go to much more expensive places to get good reviews and even they seem mostly to charge for wifi even in public areas. (One even has the cheek to say there is a surcharge for dial up!). Also some of the usual difficulty in decoding reviews. One person's "filthy and disgusting" is another's "cleaners a bit casual". Best with specifics: "one fork, three spoons, a dirty frying pan and no plates" would be quite clear, where "inadequate kitchen" isn't. Often the specifics are quite comforting, as in clean towels only twice a week, which is pretty common for self-catering studios, and better than some. There is definitely a choice to be made. We like central and so do the football teams, stag parties, etc, largely because of the proximity of bars and casinos. So the north of the island would be quieter, but we're pretty sound sleepers.

Friday, February 14/2014

M to dinner for spaghetti. Would have been her wedding anniversary had Magne still been alive, and Valentine's Day of course. In aid of which I go over to Prinos in the afternoon to get a couple of courgettes to add to the sauce now simmering. Forecast is for a passing shower and it does start to drizzle so I take an umbrella. Bit of thunder and lightning but not much rain. Decide that I am unlikely to be a lightning rod with plenty of higher spots around to draw fire. Am all the way there when it occurs to me that the unaccustomed lightness is down to not having taken a handbag. Fortunately there are 67 euro cents in my pocket and two courgettes at €1.59 a kilo come ti €0.55, so that's all right. Just get back with courgettes and umbrella when the deluge hits, with heavy sheets of rain and violent wind, followed by hail. Some passing shower! Umbrella would have been useless.

Thursday, February 13/2014

Sink in the loo very slightly tilted ever since the earthquake. Probably about a centimetre out of level, making the soap race for the drain if not anchored. Drain itself slower and slower, which Maria, who has already done a fairly ineffectual job of unblocking it once, affects not to notice.

Wednesday, February 12/2014

Go with Jane and Bill to a dinner at Al Sultan restaurant near the fort. It's a gathering of Jane's U3A Epicurean club. U3A standing, more or less, for university of the third age, and serving as an umbrella organisation for a set of clubs and interest groups, some educational and some mostly social, for retired people. Al Sultan is a Lebanese restaurant and we have lots of time to study the menu as we're fairly early, having allowed for the usual problems of parking in Larnaca.

 The waitress recommends the meze as a variety sampler, and kindly says that we need only order for three as there's quite a lot of it. We opt for meze for four, but the girl was quite right - three would have been quite adequate and we might well have managed with two! Interesting meze, and quite different from Cypriot meze, though with some overlap, like the humus. Baba ghanoush decorated with pomegranate seeds, another aubergine starter (delicious!), a lovely okra dish (MUCH better than okra I've tasted earlier), tabouleh. There are sautéed green beans with a taste that is familiar but elusive. Bill identifies it as cinnamon. Of course! - but in an unexpected place, and, surprisingly, extremely good. After a suitable, and much needed gap for digestion, these are followed by plates of mixed grill, with various forms of chicken and lamb. We're valiant but full. Only J and I opt to try the dessert, and really only because it's included so we want a taste. He orders semolina cakes with coconut (ok) and I a rosewater custard (amazingly good!). We do only taste and then share with others along the table. 

The others at the table haven't ordered the meze and haven't done nearly as well, largely because their meals take almost two hours to arrive, by which time they must have vowed never to return. Rather belatedly we realise that we might well have shared the meze in order to ward off starvation at the other end of the table! Even the entertainment by the belly dancer is insufficient distraction and we speculate that the volume of the music is designed to drown out complaints. No complaints from us, though. We had a lovely meal and at a very fair price. Would happily go again, and know what to order.

Tuesday, February 11/2014

Finally come to a decision on what to do when our 90 days in Cyprus are up.  We're booked one way to Malta, March 10. Then one way to England March 27. Air Malta so no nonsense about cheap flight but £30 for the suitcase and forget lunch; you're too heavy anyway. And no landing at Gatwick after midnight - do you want to get a hotel for three hours or sit in arrivals until the trains start running? We were last in Malta in 2003 when it voted, narrowly, to join the EU. Should be interesting to see the changes. And it's easy to explore, as it's only 17 miles long and has a good bus network.

Monday, February 10/2014

We have only another four weeks before our 90 days in Cyprus is up. Our usual course is to take a side trip but this year it seems that all the obvious candidates - Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel - are disqualified. They're too expensive, or too unstable, or we've been recently. Don't really want to spend several hundred euros just to prove we've been out of the country. I devise cunning plan for leaving without leaving. Book cheapest ticket to away (one way will do). Go through security and get exit stamps in passports - now officially out of the country. Claim to have developed sudden illness making flying impossible and insist on returning (having providentially taken only hand luggage). Re-enter via immigration, obtaining new stamps in passport valid for another 90 days. Home for a self-congratulatory drink. Think it might actually work - once if not annually - but J appears not to be taking it seriously, probably rightly.

Sunday, February 9/2014

Sunday brunch with the English Cypriot paper. And for the first time an op-ed by a Greek Cypriot, Loucas Charalambous, suggesting that the hostilities between Greek and Turkish  Cypriots were historically at least as much the fault of the Greeks as the Turks and that it is wrong to distort the facts. Very brave indeed of him - people have been killed for less.

Saturday, February 8/2014

Coffee at Harry's. A bit delayed as we stop to show the way to Micro Supermarket to an American couple. I'm about to avoid them as I have an instinctive sense that we're about to be handed a tract. Not at all, although my sixth sense is not entirely wrong as he's a minister from Idaho (or is it Iowa?), come from three months in Lebanon to spend three months "helping out" in Cyprus.

In the evening there's an exhibition opening at the Gallery Kyprianou Gonia, about a mile and a half from us, fairly near St Lazarus Church. Five Cypriot naïf artists are being shown   and some of the pictures on the small advertising brochure look attractive. Besides openings are usually fun. So we arrange to meet Maggi at the gallery. The show is uneven, with the best of Pelekanos' work having a compelling vibrancy and happy nostalgic quality - scenes of peasants harvesting in rich, warm colours - and the paintings of Tornaritis (if I have the transliteration right) looking a little like a very poor man's Munch. Surprisingly few paintings in total, considering that five artists are represented. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but we've been to openings in Larnaca before, and they're usually pretty lively - more paintings, more people, more hype, more buzz, more wine. And we  wander out to the back courtyard where there is wine (one bottle anyway - is there another in reserve?).

There we meet a couple, Roman and Companion (don't seem to get a name). He's looking for work and getting depressed over his lack of success. Of course there's a high unemployment rate among Cypriots, so his odds aren't good. He and J chat, mostly in Polish. His companion is highly voluble. Canada? Yes, she lived there and knows it well. Terra Santa (the local Roman Catholic Church)? I am establishment, she claims. I went every day. Right now I'm taking a holiday; I haven't been for two months. But you'll see me back there in May - I'll be talking about the episcopacy. We have no television - HE forbids it (but, two minutes later she is agreeing that the Olympic opening ceremonies were impressive). As we leave, M says that Companion told her that she had lived in Scotland for three years, and we wonder, probably quite unworthily, if she would have lived in Serbia too had we mentioned it.

Friday, February 7/2014

Looking for where to go next. Actually we're not really keen to leave as it's been the nicest winter we can remember here and pretty stormy in much coastal Europe. Our usual course would be to take a short side trip and come back here for a bit but there seems to be a shortage of obvious destinations, between politically dicey destinations and overpriced packages to places we're not desperate to visit. Don't want to leave the bookings so late that the prices soar either.

Opening ceremonies for the winter Olympics on telly tonight. Commentary in Greek but the ceremony not really highly language dependent. Could be getting a lot more tv on the internet - and still can in reception - but the wifi on the fourth floor, always weak, has almost disappeared. Possibly as the hotel fills up the extra users are the kiss of death. So any serious use is now from the lobby. Although we get assuming very quickly: it's not many years since the existence of internet cafés seemed amazing. (Just discovered how to put the accents on letters with the ipad mini keyboard!)

Thursday, February 6/2014

To Vlachos by bus. Buses here always a bit of an adventure. There are printed timetables but they can't always compete with reality. The bus may be late, or equally well arrive early. So we go out early and catch the first of two heading out Dhekelia Road. The driver kindly watches out for the restaurant for us, but we're fairly good at spotting it after dark ourselves now. Result is that we're about three quarters of an hour early, in preference to arriving ten minutes late. Time for a stroll first.

The occasion is Ailsa and Harry's anniversary - which was actually on Tuesday, but this is the first convenient dinner day. Should have been ten of us but three can't come, which leaves A and H, Jane and Bill, and Jan, who went to Morocco with Jane a couple of years back. Vlachos outdoes itself. And we benefit from being polite about changing tables in favour of a larger party, with extra starters. Halloumi and artichokes as well as the usual array that would be more than a meal in itself - enormous Greek salads, dips, kohlrabi sticks, beetroot, pilaf, warm pita breads, olives, an egg dish. And this all before our main dishes, which are, variously, moussaka, rabbit stifado, liver and onions. And pork souvlaki. Unordered dessert as well - Greek pasteries.

Wednesday, February 5/2014

Kobo ereader keeps track of my latest reading with interesting stats. Two percent read - it will label a book that I've opened to look at the table of contents. Or 7.5 hours left, it announces, of a book I'm currently reading. No idea whether it has adjusted the estimates to what it observes to be my reading speed and whether this takes into account books I've fallen asleep over. 

Tuesday, February 4/2014

Tuesday, February 4/2014

The walk down to the waterfront is in itself an interesting commentary on the state of Cyprus. Pass eight shops in a row that are empty, vacant. The ninth is a place offering to pay cash for gold. Best prices, they claim, but it seems unlikely. Opposite the big parking lot where buses as well as cars park a young woman accosts me. Presumably she's asking for money, but as she isn't speaking a language I understand we get no further. 

Yesterday I was stopped here by an older woman. I'd just noticed some of the little hard white plastic pipes which we've found here in the past. They're about five inches long, light and hollow but strong. Perfect for putting through the handles of plastic grocery bags to prevent them from digging into your hands. And easy to slip into a pocket in case they're wanted. We'd used bits of dowling before, but these are smaller and lighter but just as efficient. I'd picked up two of these little white cylinders, examined them and slid them into my handbag. The woman, who'd been some distance away, came up to me and began speaking in Greek. I shrugged my incomprehension and she mimed someone smoking. Thinking she wanted a cigarette, I shook my head sorry and we parted. Seemed odd, though. Seventy year old women don't often try to scrounge cigarettes from strangers. In retrospect, I can only assume that she had taken the bits of white plastic to be cigarettes. And then what? Was I really being told not to smoke what I found on the ground? 

In the evening with Jane and Bill to the cinema to see Twelve Years a Slave. Extremely comfortable seats but film far too riveting to fall asleep. First time in ages (decades?) we'll have seen an Oscar nominee on the big screen. Only a dozen or so people in a cinema that seats 200. Then back to our place for coffee.

Monday, February 3/2014

Having coffee this morning when we notice a large military ship, improbably cruising our shallow and most unmilitary bay. Close enough to shore that we speculate on whether it will hit ground, it heads back and forth, holding its course in very heavy winds. 

The mystery is solved with the evening news. It was a Danish naval frigate, with the Cypriot foreign minister, Ioannis Kasoulides, aboard being shown a demonstration of the decontamination procedures to be used on Syrian chemical weapons.

Sunday, February 2/2014

New set of reading. Well, not entirely as we're still doing a chapter aloud most days from Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean memoirs. But also reading Decline and Fall, the second volume of Chris Mullin's political diary. So much more modest than Alan Clark's, not that that would be difficult! And so much more concerned with how issues affected people other than himself. And the humour conscious. And as well as that Jeremy Paxman's The Political Animal, an entertaining view of what makes politicians tick by a man who has spent many year's interviewing them.

Have largely given up on TV, though we do watch some on the tablet. There are films in English with Greek subtitles, but disproportionately they're grade B action films. Tonight's film looks not bad but in this case the dialogue is not English but Italian. 

Saturday, February 1/2014

Stop at the little pharmacy near the Eleonora and chat with the pharmacist. Not a particularly good year. But it's recession proof - people always need medicine? Yes, but they can't always afford it. Pharmacies here are very European. They may carry hand creams but not magazines, toys, toilet paper, etc. presumably they survive in large part on over the counter medication as residents usually pay 50 cents per prescription at the hospital pharmacy. Or maybe that's not true of those who go to private doctors.

To Carrefour in the afternoon. It's not what we went for, but we're unable to resist the celery. An enormous bunch for €.0.45 (£0.37, $0.68 CAD). Then the question of what to do with such a huge tree. J dehydrates the leaves to season soups and sauces, but that leaves a great deal of stem - and we have only a bar sized fridge.

Friday, January 31/2014

Stop at Micro, the shop that replaced the smaller Orphanides. Pick up a pair of shoe liners for a euro and forego more tins of John Smith ale. Very good price, but a limit to the ale - or for that matter gin, whisky and brandy - one wishes to consume regardless of price. Favourite sign of the day (not handmade) is the one advertising frozen chicken stripes.

Thursday, January 30/2014

A little early going to meet J and M for coffee so stop to investigate the sale signs at Marks and Spencer. Not with high expectations, as there is never much selection and the prices are always noticeably higher than those in London. This shop doesn't carry the sweets and biscuits that might redeem it either. And, Maggi has pointed out, the two Larnaca M&S establishments are unrelated franchises: You can't use vouchers from one at the other. My initial suspicions/biases are confirmed. Do, though, spot a shirt in a lovely pale aqua hanging on the wall and go to investigate. Turns out the shirt is actually white but lit by a small recessed aqua lamp. Seems rather pointless as those interested in aqua are likely to be disappointed and anyone wanting white will probably not have a second look.

M points out a man having coffee near us and says she met him a long time ago and had a disagreement with him in which he was unpleasantly aggressive. He's talking to his companions now and gesticulating. Looks quite a nice man, don't you think, says Maggi. But by now I've seen him through the lens of unpleasant argument and he doesn't look nice at all.

Wednesday, January 29/2014

Book sale at St Helena's in the AM. couldn't remember the time and the internet was no help as the latest bulletin posted was too old, but hit it lucky and came away with half a dozen books. Should really have made a donation as the money goes to their food bank and there's a pretty specific accounting of it at their website. Basically they have stepped in where the Cypriot government has failed to process any paper work at all, leaving three immigrant, one of them a refugee, unable to work or eat. Appalling, and unfortunately all too believable. The tribal system (one has to be generous and assume it's incompetence rather than malice) simply fails to complete a great many bureaucratic procedures, heedless of distress and even death.

Tuesday, January 28/2014

Unemployment in Cyprus at the end of December was 17.5%. Plenty of underemployment as well. There is no overall minimum wage but it is fixed at €870 (rising after six months to €924) for shop assistants, clerks, personal care workers and child minders. Shop assistants should only have to work 38 hours a week. However 48 hours or more seem to be common with employees reluctant to complain lest they lose their jobs in a tough market.

Monday, January 27/2014

Plan is to meet for coffee after J's beach walk but the forecast is, at best, unhelpful. It will shower but as many suggestions of when as we have weather apps. J leaves with umbrella and I say that I will be on time or not there at all. Plan to go but as I get ready the sky turns black, the drizzle steps up the tempo and thunder and lightning start. J back an hour later, having valiantly gone a mile out of his way to pick up our favourite dense rye bread from Perseus Bakery. He's wet. Well, yes, he says. But not from the rain - it's the Cypriot drivers speeding through puddles with no thought for pedestrians. Bit of xenophobia there? Pedestrians are almost always immigrants, expats or tourists.