Turkey/Cyprus (Eurotrip_2012)

On the evening of November 2^nd, Margot and I arrived at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport and purchased our entry visas. After waiting in the strenuously long immigration line we had officially entered Turkish borders and were free to see the country. However, I had been so tired that morning in Bucharest that I had forgotten to download the map/name of our hotel onto my computer, which meant that we were forced to walk around the airport holding our electronic devices in the air, searching for a non-existent free Wi-Fi connection. Eventually we phoned a friend for some assistance and hired a taxi to take us to our hotel. Traveling by car through the streets of Istanbul is a daunting experience, however travelling in the backseat of a yellow car that says ‘Taksi’ on the side is equivalent to a death wish. If there’s a break of even two feet between the cars in the next lane over, the cab driver accelerates directly towards that peanut sized gap with the anticipation that those cars while make the necessary adjustments in order for him to fit nicely in between them. When you add in the factor that the streets are literally overflowing with cars (they’ll drive on curbs and sidewalks if they have to), we’re flying around round-a-bouts like Indy cars at the Indianapolis 500, and that having any kind of ‘rules of the road’ never seemed to occur to anyone in Istanbul, I was beginning to have a Final Destination 2 like premonition.  On the way to the hotel we actually saw the carnage that was the aftermath of a taxi cab who couldn’t fit into one of those peanut sized gaps, which prompted our taxi driver to stay in the same lane long enough to kiss the dashboard of his own taxi and rub it lovingly.

                It was so late by the time that we got to our hotel that we weren’t really in the mood to search the streets of Istanbul for a restaurant and instead opted to ask our hotel concierge, Onder, where a nice local place to get fast and cheap food was. He responded that, “Burger King is right around the corner.” Trying to ignore the wave of fatigue that was about to knock me out cold, we had to explain to Onder that American fast food was our arch nemesis for as long as we were in Europe and that we required some cheap and easy Turkish food. He liked the fact that we were young easy going Americans though and couldn’t help but continue to joke around with us. However, our slow and un-witty responses to his clever jokes left him considering the level of our stupidity and he actually told me that I was naïve for believing some of the things that he was saying. I acceptingly nodded my head, failing to muster up enough energy to explain to him that Margot and I had just arrived from the gates of hell, aka Bucharest, where they force you to spend your days trapped on super slow trains and revoke you of any sleeping opportunities during the night. Eventually we pulled some real directions out of him and marched up the ginormous hill, of which our hotel was at the bottom, to grab some doner at this little restaurant right across the street from the Grand Bazaar. We took the food back to our hotel room, popped open a bottle of the wine I had purchased in Valtice, and enjoyed a cozy dinner together watching a weird overly dramatic Russian TV show on how zodiac signs affect your sex life.

After succumbing to the dire need to catch up on some sleep we woke up late on Saturday morning, missing our free breakfast but not caring in the least. First thing on the days agenda was to check out the Grand Bazaar, which meant that we had to trudge back up the monstrous hill. The one thing that stuck out to me during this hike up the hill, which I hadn’t been able to truly appreciate the previous night, was how shopping immersive this city was. The entire hill was occupied by just four types of establishments; barber shops, food establishments, hotels, and stores. Stores, of course, made up about 90% of the available space and when there wasn’t enough room for another store they simply set up shop right on the sidewalk. Street vendors selling everything from sunglasses to tennis shoes lined the streets circling the oblivious tourists and shoving knock off Rolex watches in their faces. In addition, in between every store and behind every street vendor was at least one ATM, although often there was a row of four or more. Eventually we huffed our way up to the top of the hill and entered one of the many main entrances to the Grand Bazaar.  

It was a totally unique and memorable experience just to walk through the amazing complex and not buy a thing, but of course we eventually circled back and put on our bargaining shoes. The layout of the Bazaar seems like it was built one store shop at a time, with no thought as to the fact that there would probably be another shop built right next door just as soon as that one was completed. They just looked for an empty space anywhere they could find it and made a makeshift shack, filling it with Turkish goods. Leather jackets were hanging from the ceilings, chess sets were stacked ten feet high against the store walls, shirts covered every wall and store front, and underneath each of these towering walls of goods was a Turkish man with a friendly smile that wanted more than anything to give me a cup of apple tea and a seat inside his shop. It was from this position that he would proceed to try and sell me everything in sight, making deals and promises that he assured me would make his boss angry and his pockets empty. But none of it was with bad intention, he was trying to make a living and I was trying to buy a kick ass t-shirt for my little sister, we were both winning in the end. And on our course to this mutual victory we were able to enjoy the exciting and invigorating process of bargaining.

Walking into the Grand Bazaar I was anticipating the activity of bargaining with dread, certain that I would crumble early in the process and end up getting screwed over by these veteran salesmen. However, once I was called over to a store front by the diligent efforts of the owner, I came into my own and pleased myself with my performance. I talked a t-shirt vendor down to 40% of the asking price and Margot and I got some Turkish Delight, which is a delectable combination of honey, sugar, and flour that melts on your tongue, for 60% of what the man initially wanted. We walked out of the magical structure that is the Grand Bazaar with smiles on, navigating our way through the tents making up the perimeter of the Bazaar ignoring the wails of the salesmen taunting me to buy the lovely and beautiful lady next to me a jacket or a scarf. Once we had emerged from the tents we found ourselves amidst a swarm of food vendors and Turkish restaurants, ending up ordering ourselves some pita bread loaded with beef and cheese from one of them.

                With our bellies satisfied we ventured out to find the Blue Mosque, a quest for which we failed to accomplish. Eventually we stumbled upon a huge majestic mosque that had this gorgeous blue carpet covering the entire floor, which we naively concluded was the reason why this was called the Blue Mosque. Inside there was but fifteen people in total, half of which were Muslims using the mosque for prayer. The walls were a very clean and fresh looking white, there was a huge ancient looking lantern only ten feet off the floor in the center of the humongous room, and the Arabic names of Muhammad and Allah were painted in gold on huge black medallions hanging on either side of the niche. In accordance with the rules of the mosque we had to take our shoes off before we went inside and I found that just sitting on the comfy carpet in my socks admiring the beauty of the place was an incredibly relaxing experience. 

                After leaving the Nuruosmaniye Mosque we found ourselves at another entrance to the Grand Bazaar and decided to make another venture through the intoxicating maze of tents, shops and tea houses on our way back to the hotel. During this trip through the Bazaar, instead of the bargaining and purchasing of goods, we found our entertainment in the Turkish men that turned their wives into plinko chips trying to make their way to the bottom of the pin maze as they pulled them through the crowded and narrow hallways of the Bazaar ignoring all the people that they were dragging their significant others through.

After enjoying some down time at our hotel we asked Onder again if he could help us out with a restaurant choice. This time he knew just the right place and sent us in the direction of the actual Blue Mosque to eat at this classy traditional Turkish restaurant called Amedros. After devouring some Armenian pastries I enjoyed an Effe with my lamb and apricot dish, which I have deemed a spot in the top three dishes of the trip. And to top it off, while enjoying my Turkish coffee after dinner we got to see some fireworks. After dinner we decided to take a stroll down to see the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia lit up at night, which was an amazing sight. Standing in the middle of the Sultanahmet park all you need to do is swivel you’re head 180 degrees in order to change your sights from one gorgeous structure to the other, although while admiring one you can’t imagine taking your sights off of it to look at the other. After drinking in a view that was truly worth travelling halfway around the world to see, we walked back through the streets of Istanbul to our hotel, where Onder invited us to sit with him in the lounge area and enjoy some complimentary coffee while watching Real Madrid destroy Zaragoza. When we finally found our bed for the night I fell asleep recounting how wonderful of a day I had just enjoyed, coming to the conclusion that Istanbul was in fact just as awesome as everyone told me that it would be.

On Sunday morning we walked back over to the Blue Mosque and wandered through the Hippodrome of Constantinople, which was the location of a historical circus where a track held chariot races up to eight chariots wide from 200 A.D. all the way up until the 13^th century.  This was also a venue where the common citizens could openly voice their opinions directly to the Emperor. The track was looted during the fourth crusade in 1204 and four gilded horses were stolen and placed on St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, where we would be in just three short weeks. After gazing up at the only remnants of the track, two huge obelisks and one that had been cut in half in the 17^th century, we deciding to start the day by taking a nice morning stroll down along the sea shore. We ended up soaking in the sun’s bright rays reflecting off the water and basking in the cool ocean breeze for half of the day as we walked all the way around the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and the Topkapi Sarayi Palace. After arriving from the cold and unappealing landscape of Bucharest we found the beauty of the Sea of Marmara and the tropical tress that lined its shores to be too beautiful to not spend the morning enjoying. After finally making our way back up to the top of the hill we discovered that dumbasses who wear shorts to a mosque are refused entry, so the Blue Mosque would have to wait till another day. Instead we went to Hagia Sophia, which was an overwhelming experience.

As we walked into the Hagia Sophia, which was the third religious structure to be built on the site when it was completed in the 6^th century in order to replace the previous church which fell victim to fire, the first thing that I noticed were the dozens of ancient chandeliers dangling from the sky high roof top. The beautiful chandeliers seemed to be everywhere and even though the ceiling was probably fifty meters high the chandeliers hung just ten feet off the ground. After eavesdropping on an English tour group I discovered the somewhat obvious reason for the low bearing chandeliers, back when candles were used to light the building the closer you were to the candles the more effective they were and humans tend to stay pretty close to the ground. After switching my gaze from the chandeliers to the ceiling I noticed the humongous medallions that were lining the tops of the ceilings, which they claimed were the largest medallions in the entire Islamic world. Each medallion had a name on it but I could only understand two of them, the one that looks like the letter ‘w’ written in cursive means Allah and the one that looks like a running stick figure is Muhammad.  After admiring the medallions my eyes drooled over the beautiful mosaics, which I learned from my audio guide were all plastered over by the Ottoman’s when they conquered Turkey in the 15^th century and turned the church into a mosque. Since the majority of the mosaics were depicting religious scenes that conflicted with the Quran it made sense that they would be covered but it was sad to see that so many beautiful pieces of art had to be covered and harmed in such a manner.

Since the Hagia Sophia was initially built to be an Eastern Orthodox Church, the architects neglected to design the building to have one wall facing in the direction of Mecca, which became a problem for the Ottoman conqueror Fatih Sultan Mehmed when he tried to convert the building into a mosque in 1453. It is said that the first time he arrived to the Hagia Sophia for prayer he suddenly realized that the building was not facing in the direction of Mecca and thus he could not perform his Friday prayer. Just at that moment Deus Ex Machina, a god that solves seemingly unsolvable problems, appeared to remedy the problem at hand. However, upon realizing that he was being witnessed he instinctively hid inside of a column in a corner of the building and remains there to this day, granting wishes to the people that stick their thumbs inside the column and rotate their hands a full 360 degrees. After Margot and I each took turns at the Wishing Column I continued wandering around the tremendous grand hall of the mosque and began to learn about the prayer process. I discovered that every mosque has a minaret where the Muezzin decides what time to begin prayer and is also where he performs the adhan from, which is the first call to prayer that goes out to the entire city. We were lucky enough to hear the adhan via the insanely far reaching load speakers set up on the Mosques at all hours of the day and night during our stay in Turkey, most notably at 3 fucking AM. Each Mosque also has a müezzin mahfili, which is where the Muezzin relocates to after the adhan and performs the iqama, which simply informs everyone already in the mosque to stand up and begin the prayer. The müezzin mahfili and is usually right in front of the min bar, which is where the imam stands to give the actual prayer. The process seems so complicated because the times for their five daily prayers don’t occur at a set time but are determined by the position of the sun in the sky, which means that they change every day and therefore someone has to be watching the sun and inform the town when the sun is at the correct position for prayer.

After the Hagia Sophia we grabbed a late lunch, where I had a spicy kebab and Margot and I shared some free lavash bread that is puffed up to a size larger than my head, cheese pastry’s, and fried eggplant. After our meal the waiter gave us each a free Turkish Tea and Apple Tea, each of which was a first for me and absolutely delicious. After thanking our overly friendly waiter we came back to the hotel to rest up and ended up watching YouTube videos with Onder for an hour before heading back  out to grab some pita’s and kebabs. We brought the food back to our hotel and stayed up drinking the other bottle of Valtice wine and eating our Turkish cuisine before we hit the hay.

On November 5^thwe finally enjoyed our hotel’s free breakfast, which was on the roof of our building where we had an incredible view out over the sea. After breakfast we walked over to the underground cistern, which was just creepy enough to be really cool and reminded me of a place where James Bond would find the bad guys evil lair. Apparently the cistern was built to supply those inside Hagia Sophia with a years’ supply of water if the Basilica was under attack, however in addition to the Hagia Sophia changing hands dozens of times over the course of its 1,500 years of existence, the use of the cistern was never required by any of its occupants. So as time passed so did the knowledge of the cistern until it was forgotten completely. Eventually the city became concerned with the fact that people in Istanbul were reported to be fishing from their basements and upon further investigation found the cistern. The cistern had been supplied by water from a forest 14 km away this entire time, but with zero upkeep it was full of mud and filth. So they cleaned it up, made some minor repairs, and opened it to the public. The cistern is a very simple structure with no detailed engravings, statues, or sculptures, but the expansive depth of the cistern is what’s so intriguing. In fact, the only pieces of art in the entire cistern are a couple Medusa heads carved into the stone base of two of the support beams in the far back corner of the cistern. One of the goddess’s heads lay’s upside down while the other is sideways; I don’t know why they are there nor why the artist refused to put Medusa’s head right side up, but neither do the Turks. However, I found the myth behind Medusa to be interesting anyways, for it is said that Medusa used to be a young girl who was very proud of her black eyes, long hair, and beautiful body. Unfortunately for her she was in love with Perseus, son of Zeus, at the same time as the jealous goddess Athene was in love with him. Acting on her jealousy, Athene turned Medusa’s beautiful hair into horrible snakes and put a spell on her that resulted in everyone who looked at Medusa turning to stone. After Perseus saw this he beheaded Medusa and carried her decapitated head into all his battles. From that point on it is said that byzantine swords’ handles were decorated with Medusa’s head.

After emerging from the underground cistern we finally went to check out the inside of the famous Blue Mosque, which is actually called the Sultan Ahmed Mosque after the Sultan that ordered its creation in the 1500’s. The mosque was fully clad in beautiful tiles that spanned the entirety of the expansive ceilings and domes. There was a beautiful gold niche, which is how those of the Muslim faith know which way Mecca is, and as I stood there awing over it this English tour guide stepped right up next to me and started indulging his tour group on the history of the mosque, so I just stood there and got a free eavesdropping tour. I learned that back when they used candles to light the mosque every other candle holder didn’t wield a candle but instead held an ostrich egg. This was because the ostrich egg attracted the smoke and silt that the candles would disperse into the air, so instead of the Mosques beautiful ceiling tiles getting dirty the eggs would turn from white to black. Other benefits from the use of ostrich eggs in the Mosque was that the egg whites were used as cement for construction and the smell the eggs emitted onto the walls of the church, which are insignificant to the human nose, deterred insects. To this day the smell of the ostrich eggs is still embedded in the walls of the mosque, keeping the Blue Mosque completely free of bugs and insects even though they leave the doors wide open all day long. I also learned that it only took seven years to build the humongous structure and all this was in addition to learning a bunch of general knowledge about the Islam faith.

After visiting the Blue Mosque we decided to go grab some lunch but were sidetracked when some guy started making small talk with us on the street and then friendly insisted that we go check out his brother’s shop of silver and rugs. I grudgingly followed the guy to the shop, where Margot and I received a complementary cup of apple tea and then I had to tell the guy that I didn’t want to buy anything. His response to this blunt statement was to lay out fifteen carpets on the ground and ask me which design or size I liked the best. After I repeatedly told him that I didn’t want a rug he moved on to the tapestries and then to the wall rugs before he finally got my not so subtle hint. After this fiasco Margot and I grabbed lunch at this place called Adonin Café and I had some Güveç with an Effes.

After lunch we went back to the Grand Bazaar and fell under its overpowering spell. We ended up spending more than a couple hours bargaining our faces off and having a grand old time in the busy and exciting structure. Margot and I were so high on bargaining for Turkish goods that we just couldn’t stop ourselves from spending way too much money. On average we managed to talk the salesmen down to about 50% of the asking price, which I considered a great success and a decent justification for the amount of money that I spent. Even when I really didn’t want to buy anything and began to walk away they would stop me and cut the price in half, repeating this process until the price was so low that I finally just had to say, “Okay, yeah. I’ll take that t-shirt for five lira.”

After we finally forced ourselves to leave the Bazaar and stored our twenty bags of goods back at the hotel, we walked down to the ferry port and caught a ferry over to Harem, which is a division of the city of Istanbul that just happens to be in Asia. We were searching for a restaurant but failed miserably and after an hour in a half of literally walking in one huge circle we caught the ferry back over to Fatih, where we were much more familiar with our surroundings and found a neat restaurant down the street from Hagia Sophia that had hundreds of lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The entire time I had been in Istanbul I kept seeing really delicious sounding meat dishes ruined by the phrase, “smothered in yoghurt.” I couldn’t help but immediately conclude that I was disgusted with the Turks for doing such a thing to a beautiful piece of meat, but I decided that on my last day in Istanbul I might as well give it a try. As it turns out putting yoghurt on a good piece of meat is fucking delicious and that’s why the Turks do it, kudos to them. After a delightful dinner we strolled back to our hostel, I got destroyed in Chess on Margot’s new chess board (are you starting to see a trend with the results from these games she makes me play that require intelligence?) and then we got to bed.

Exhausted from walking around Istanbul, which is literally a town made completely of hills, we were glad that we didn’t have to catch our flight until 1 PM and could sleep in a little bit on Tuesday morning before returning to the Ataturk Airport to say good-bye to Istanbul. Since the entire country of Turkey is in the middle of a train line overhaul in which they’re installing thousands of miles of high speed train tracks we decided to buy a cheap flight instead of sitting on a bus for sixteen hours. However, the flight got a little bit more expensive when my dumbass forgot to read our departure time in military time instead of with the twelve hour time system and I accidentally booked us a flight for 1 AM instead of 1 PM. So when we arrived to the ticket counter at 11 AM to collect our tickets we were already ten hours late for our flight. After buying some new tickets and suffering through an awful lunch at our terminal’s only restaurant we finally boarded a plane headed for Adana in southern Turkey.

We got in and caught the shuttle bus from Adana to Mersin just as the sun was setting over the cities tropical palm trees, which was a beautiful and welcoming sight. Once we had arrived in Mersin we decided to just hail a taxi instead of wandering the streets trying to find our hotel and ended up sharing our taxi cab with a man and wife who were from Saudi Arabia and spoke relatively perfect English. The wife took up conversation with Margot and the husband turned his attention to me. He couldn’t have been nicer, telling me all about his profession and the places that it’s taken him over the years before asking me all about my studies and travels. After a fifteen minute taxi ride, thank god we didn’t try to walk, we said good-bye to our new Saudi Arabian friends and pulled up to our hotel.

Once we had checked into the hotel we wandered down the street in search of food, stumbling upon this cool place where nobody spoke a lick of English. We were immediately seated at a table but I unfortunately had no chair. Eventually they pulled a chair over for me and I told the waiter to just bring me whatever he personally liked, since I couldn’t read the menu, and he brought me out this delicious meal of doner. The only thing was that he only gave me a knife to eat my doner with. Pointing at Margot’s fork I asked our waiter to brink me one but he instead came back five minutes later with a coke-a-cola for Margot. I tried once more, this time receiving a dish of tomatoes and peppers, before succumbing to my fate and dug into the doner with my knife. After dinner we went back to our hotel and stayed up watching the presidential election, fading in and out of consciousness until finally waking up the next morning after everything was all counted and finalized.

After checking out of our hotel we asked the lady at reception how to use the bus system to get to Tassucu, which set off an awesome chain reaction that I like to call ‘Hand off the Americans.’ She told one of her fellow co-workers who walked us out to the street and waited fifteen minutes with us at the bus stop before handing us, along with some verbal directions, over to the bus driver of a Dolmus (kind of like the marshrutkas we took in Russia). The bus driver then took us to the Mersin bus station and handed us off to one of the Dolmus’ patrons, who walked us over and handed us off to the driver of the bus to Silifke. Here we had a good fifteen minutes of down time before the bus took off for Silifke and since we hadn’t had any breakfast and were about to skip lunch I decided to take advantage of the time and grab some food for Margot and I. Jumping down from the bus I went up to a stand where they usually make freshly squeezed orange juice and began to charade my way through the purchase of two un-squeezed oranges. Since nobody there spoke English I not only had trouble relating my desire to purchase two oranges, but my foreign voice also filled the ears of all the men in the vicinity, who thought like all men think, “I can do a better job of understanding that foreigner than he can.” So in came the brigade of Turkish Muslims, all trying to figure out what the hell I wanted from this orange juice merchant. And once they had collaborated and finally figured out that this weird foreign character wanted to buy two un-squeezed oranges they couldn’t understand why the hell anyone would want oranges that hadn’t been squeezed into juice. Eventually I got my oranges, technically receiving the second one for free even though the first one was probably way over-priced in the first place and returned to the bus to share my success with Margot. Then I set out on another adventure to buy a bag of chips. This time I was drastically over-charged by the man behind the booth after he figured out that I was an American. This being the day after the American election I guessed that politics were on his mind when he gave me a thumbs-down while saying, “Obama,” after he had asked me where I was from. Agreeing with the man, I said, “Yes, I agree that this is a very bad thing for my country.” But then he drew his finger across his throat while saying, “Bush,” which I didn’t quite know how to charade a response to that wouldn’t end up with him and all his friends treating me like he supposedly wanted to treat Bush. To make matters worse, his friend came over and compared my beard to the one that he was sporting, which effectively made me his mortal enemy. Starting to feel a little uncomfortable I was pleased when the bus driver started honking the horn for me to get on the bus so we could leave. The bus driver then drove us the hour in a half into Silifke, yelling the directions on how to deal with Margot and I out the window to the driver of the bus to Tasucu as he was driving off. This guy came out and ushered us into his little Dolmus, driving us into Tasucu and dropping us off right in front of the ferry booth. Immediately this guy ran out and ushered us into his shop where we printed out our pre-purchased tickets for our ferry ride. It was amazing how smoothly everything worked out even though we were the only people that we met the entire day who had more than an elementary knowledge of the English language.

Once we got into Tasucu and had printed our ferry tickets we went to Restaurant Dilek down the street and had a pleasant dinner while the sun set over the Mediterranean and we patiently waited to board our ferry. After a three hour long dinner we walked down the street and I spontaneously decided to follow a sign down an alleyway to a barber shop, which turned out to be quite the experience. The barber, who spoke zero English, immediately took a liking to me and started holding up his razor jokingly threatening to shave my beard off. Margot also finally figured out the sign that all of the Turks kept giving me whenever I tried to speak to them; because of my beard they assumed that I was a priest. After laughing at such a suggestion and limping through the explanation of how short I wanted my hair to be cut I finally just pointed at his short head of hair and then at mine, which seemed to do the trick even if it wasn’t the particular way I wanted my hair to look. Every once in a while he would suddenly wipe his hands off and act like we were all done and start walking away, then come back with the razor and head for my beard laughing hysterically. And after he finally finished cutting my hair he took the bowl of shaving cream and effectively transferred its entire contents onto my face (eyes, nose and mouth included) which he thought was hilarious and asked Margot to start taking pictures. After I finally agreed to do a beard trimming to make the guy happy, he asked his friend to come over and give me a massage. For the next fifteen minutes I received a face, scalp, shoulder, back, arm and hand massage. Then my barber turned massage therapist switched professions again and became a chiropractor, popping all my fingers, thumbs, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. It was definitely an experience to remember and I couldn’t be happier that I ventured down that alleyway to see how much a haircut would cost, which was less than $10 by the way.

After my haircut transformed me from a priest/homeless person into a handsome/beautiful man we visited an internet café until hopping on the bus that took us to our ferry port at about 10 PM. Once we got to the ferry port we had to stand there twiddling our thumbs for an hour before the twenty or so of us that were traveling on the ferry could go through security and get our passports stamped. We did meet a forty something year old man named Tim from Michigan while waiting to get on our boat though and befriended him for some company during our night of sea travel. After getting on the ferry at about 11:30 PM I pulled out a deck of cards and we started playing Shed and Uno until 3 AM when Margot and Tim decided to grab some rest. After working on this very blog for another hour it was now 4 AM and I glanced out the window to see that the view of the Tasucu dock still hadn’t gone anywhere. We hadn’t sailed an inch in the past five hours and didn’t finally set sail for Cyprus until 4:15 in the morning, don’t ask me why.

On November 8^th we sailed into the Girne harbor in Northern Cyprus at around 10 AM and shared a taxi with Tim into town before taking the taxi to the Hotel Ship Inn. With our things safely stored in our room we took a walk down to the harbor and had a nice lunch next to the water. We each enjoyed a Brandy Sour which was a local specialty and I had some fresh fish. After finishing my fish fillet we wandered along the shores of the sea and up into the Kyrenia Castle. There we explored the castle walls, enjoying its great view of the sea and the mountains sprouting up all along the south side of the city. After checking out the castle we took a taxi up to the old Bellapais Monastery, which was really old and unique. After visiting the monastery we took a taxi back to our hotel, enjoyed one too many brandy sours during dinner and stumbled up to our room where we passed out.

The next day we hired a driver to take us from North Cyprus (Girne) to South Cyprus (Larnaca). The entire country of Cyprus used to be a British colony, which is why they drive on the left side of the road, but the country gained its independence in 1960. However, after failing to produce a constitution the country, which is inhabited mostly by Greek and Turkish immigrants, fell under the control of a mostly Greek Cypriot army. The Greek Cypriots eventually looked to create a union between Greece and Cyprus, which would in essence eliminate any power the Turkish Cypriots were still clinging to. So in July of 1974, Turkey invaded the country and took control of 30% of the country before Greece even knew what happened. Their advance was immediately halted once the Greeks took notice of their presence and NATO’s presence was summoned in order to establish some order. Once the dust had all settled the country was divided into two; North Cyprus was and is still controlled by the Turks while South Cyprus is controlled by the Greeks, leaving the border in the middle to be considered as a UN buffer zone. In August of the same year after a cease fire had already been established Turkey engaged in a second operation, claiming the ancient sea port of Varosha. During the occupation the Greek Cypriots up and abandoned their homes and the sky high hotels that once served as temporary rooms for the Hollywood actors that frequently vacationed in the beautiful town of Varosha. Mindful of the UN resolutions barring resettlement the Turks fenced off the six km² area in barb wire fence and it’s remained uninhabited ever since. The abandoned ghost town hasn’t been touched in 38 years and although Margot and I didn’t get a chance to visit it we heard that it was just as creepy as it sounds. The city is a major bargaining point in the talks between Northern and Southern Cyprus but the two sides have never managed to come to an agreement. To make matters worse, Turkey is the only country in the world to recognize Northern Cyprus as a separate state from Southern Cyprus and in August Cyprus became the EU’s six month rotating President. This prompted Northern Cyprus to stubbornly deny any further talks with Southern Cyprus until after the presidential term in January of 2013, which means the stalemate will become even staler. All of this meant one thing, that in order for Margot and I to travel from North Cyprus to South Cyprus we actually had to go through border control.

Once in Larnaca we went on a walk to grab some food and randomly bumped into Tim. After chatting with him for a bit we got some panini's and crepes before heading up to the apartment that we were renting out, where we waited for our friend Waeli’s arrival from France. Waeli got in at around 9 PM and Margot had an interview via Skype at 10 PM. So we set her up at the hotel down the street, since our place had no Wi-Fi, and Waeli and I took a stroll along the beach shore gazing up at the lightning storm flashing over the sea. It was really nice to be hanging out with Waeli again after not seeing her for three in a half months and I enjoyed hearing about her time studying in Paris. After Margot was done with the interview we all met back up at the apartment where we discovered that I had locked us all out. So we called up Andreas, the man we were renting the apartment from, and thankfully he was close enough to run over and let us in. Once we got inside the apartment we proceeded to drink a couple bottles of Cypriot wine while trading stories and catching up with one another.

On Saturday morning we headed to the beach for some brunch, finding our food at a place called Hobo’s right across from the sea shore. Waeli and Margot split a meat platter while I had a Hobo’s breakfast and we each had a tropical beverage to enjoy our meal with. After our two hour long meal we decided to take a walk along the beach, which I halted for half an hour so that I could finally go swimming in the sea.

After I got out and used the cool ocean breeze to air dry myself, we continued our stroll along the beach before catching a taxi up to see the Hilla Tekke Mosque, which is where Muhammad’s wet nurse fell off a camel and died in 648 AD while she was traveling through Cyprus. When she died they decided to build this mosque on the spot of her death with her body entombed inside. After walking in to the mosque I sat down along the wall in order to relax and take in the mosques ancient decorations and quiet atmosphere. However, while the imam walked past he started a very interesting conversation with me. “Hello, where are you from?” “America.” “Oh, that is great. And do you know why this place is special?” I had heard that Muhammad’s Aunt had died here so I said that, “yes, I know that it’s special.” “Okay, okay. You know then. You know,” he said as he turned away from me. But then as he was walking away he said over his shoulder, “So you know that this is the most sacred place in all of Cyprus.” “Really?” I replied. Stopping in his tracks he looked at me and shook his head, “You know nothing my friend, nothing.” Standing up now I asked him to, “Please tell me then.” “This place is sacred because it is the burial place of a very special milk-woman. She could cure the ailments of the townsfolk with only her presence. When she died they buried her here and found that when they were in the presence of her tomb they could still feel her powers and blessings. Please go into the back room where she is buried and you will instantly feel her blessings. After standing in there and letting them soak into you I want you to go home to America and hand out the blessings to all of your friends and family. Now may I ask if these are your wives?”  “No, neither of them. I’m not married.” Shocked he looked at me with disapproving eyes and said, “That is a shame to hear my friend, a shame. Because this means that you are only half a man.” “….ah huh.” “I’ve done thirty or forty marriages right here in this mosque.” Trying to steer him away from the hint that he was trying to drop I simply relied, “Wow, that’s really great. Congratulations.” Eventually he moved on and told me that he was going to give me a blessing, bowed his head and gave started talking in Arabic while his assistant pulled all of the good blessings down from the sky. Then he wished me good luck and walked off.

After I received all of my good blessings from the milk-woman’s tomb, which I’ll be handing out to all of you as your Christmas presents, we walked around exploring the complex. Then our taxi driver, Demetris, drove us around the Larnaka Tuz Gölü lake, which the mosque was on the shore of, in search of flamingos and a good picture of the amazing sunset. We ended up successfully spotting some flamingos off in the distance and watched the incredible sunset that turned the entire sky pink. We had Demetris drop us off at The Church of Ayios Lazaros, where part of Saint Lazarus is supposedly buried. Saint Lazarus played a major role in the gospel, being one of the seven signs that Jesus displayed to portray his divine authority. After fleeing from Judea due to rumored plots on his life he wound up in Cyprus where he was killed and then raised from the dead by Jesus four years after taking his last breath, showing Jesus’ power over the last and most irresistible enemy of humanity, death. He survived another thirty years living in Cyprus before he died for the second and final time. We walked in during the middle of a wedding preparation but still managed to check out the incredible Greek Orthodox iconostasis and Lazarus’ stone tomb before leaving.

After this we grabbed some bottles of wine and ouzo and went back to the place to drink them. After several bottles we went out and grabbed dinner on the roof top terrace of Taratsa Tavern and then went back to our apartment to drink the rest of the wine before passing out. It was so amazing to have Waeli visit us in Cyprus, even if it was just for a day in a half, and made me realize just how much I miss all of my friends and family back home. On Sunday the 11^th we woke up early to say good-bye to Waeli as she left for the airport and then hung around the apartment doing blog work until setting out for the airport ourselves. The security took maybe five minutes to go through, a personal record, and soon enough we were in the air flying towards Greece.