A pleasure we haven’t previously experienced - starting a flight day with a lovely breakfast and then two tube stops to Heathrow. Very civilised and may well do it again. Plane delayed and many of its power points not working - and what is it with airplanes now having power points that can only be seen clearly by someone lying on the floor between the seats and holding up a flashlight?
However, everything falls into place on landing. Having left frim North Cyprus illegally - in the eyes of the South - in 2020 after the border closed during the lockdown, we run a risk of a fine or, at worst, deportation on returning. Didn’t really expect more than sharp words but had gone as far as to look up a hotel where we have stayed in the past in Athens (reviews say good value for money, appalling neighbourhood 🤷♀️). Then wonder, having no previous experience of deportation, whether one is required to take a return flight to the place of embarkation or is permitted to go to a country of one’s own choosing. And the interim time. Jail? Decide that a very limited visa is more likely - as in you have 48 hours to leave the country. Consider Athens the best place to recoup. Or in the case of a fine. What amount would mean it was simpler (and cheaper) just to pay up rather than shaking the dust from our feet? A hundred euros? Two? Three? Almost an anticlimax when we, along with everyone else, simply scan our passports and stare into the camera and the immigration officer perfunctorily stamps the passports without comment.
Dark by now, but the air is warm, and the bus driver friendly, which is a good thing as I reach for the non sterling section of my purse and hand him, accidentally, a Turkish five lira note. It’s worth 26 euro cents, not much more than 5% of the intended €5. Fortunately, the driver finds the mistake hilarious. Could well have encountered someone who reacted to signs of having been in the North with anger not amusement. The sad part, though, is that when we went to the North a little more than two and a half years ago the rough exchange rate was seven Turkish lira to the euro. Now it’s over eighteen, a disaster for Turkish Cypriots.
The friendly bus driver drops us near St Lazarus Church and we have little trouble finding our flat. The code works and we’re in. Studio it is, but nearly three times theize of the one in London. Once more, we’re home.
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