As well as low humidity - so far, knock on wood, etc - Famagusta usually has a breeze, so sitting out on our front steps is often very pleasant. It’s also as close to the road as many old Scottish houses, that is no distance at all. Handy when the fruit and veg truck comes twice a week. And, separate from that there’s a watermelon truck. Haven’t figured out its schedule, if there is one.
Plenty of foot traffic as well, and most people say hello, either in Turkish or in English. And cars. Over the nearly twenty years we’ve been coming here the number and quality of cars has increased enormously. Japanese cars seem to predominate, especially Toyota, though there are a fair number of Hondas. Also quite a lot of German cars - Fords, but also a surprising number of Mercedes and BMW. And in the public parking lot around the corner yesterday there was even, most surprisingly, a Hummer, though goodness only knows what the need for it would be. It’s not a rich country and no doubt there are people who can’t afford cars at all but if vehicles are any indication, and they must be, things have improved for residents over the last twenty years. And this despite the fact that the Turkish lira is a pretty weak currency and constantly dropping. When we arrived on March 10 it took 6.97 Turkish lira to buy a euro. It’s now 7.66. It’s a complaint somewhat familiar to Canadians but here the additional problem is that large purchases like cars or houses have to be paid for in euros or pounds whereas salaries and payments from locals are normally in lira.
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