Arrival

Jessie, Angus, Sam and Anna upon arrival in Cyprus

Well we made it.  Arrived in Cyprus yesterday morning.  Flight wasn't too bad, apart from Anna having a reasonably major meltdown for an hour or two on the plane between Dubai and Larnaca.  Ah yes, the joys of travelling with a two year old.  Too old to sleep in a bassinet, too young to watch cartoons or be easily occupied.  The dead zone as someone once called it, when long distance travel should only be attempted with the aid of some heavy sedation (and that's only referring to the parents).  It's a bit like when one of the Apollo spacecraft rounds the moon.  There's a period of time when all radar contact with earth is lost.  A surreal moment where it feels like one is travelling in a parallel universe........but I digress.  Back to the main story.

We arrived in reasonably good shape.  The kids tested some of their elementary Greek on the customs officer at the airport, who was fortunately a good humoured chap and still let us into the country.  All our bags arrived intact and out we ventured to waiting arrivals area.  We'd been told to look for a driver by the name of Paul at the airport - Sam was on the case early and approached several waiting taxi drivers to ask if their name was Paul and was their car going to be big enough for us.  Fortunately we found Paul with ease, and were soon on our way to Nicosia some 40 minutes away. 


The first thing that gets you about this place is the light.  It's mid-winter here but it still feels like you need sunglasses for most of the day.  The countryside is greener than we expected, and the architecture has a distinct mediterranean feel to it.  Our temporary accommodation in Nicosia is a  large comortable house near the centre of town.  Nicosia is a city of approximately 200,000 people, notable for the fact that it's last divided city on earth with it's northern half sitting in a zone that has been occupied by Turkey since 1974.  Residents in Nicosia are reminded of this daily by the large 'football field sized' Turkish flag that has been painted onto the mountains facing Nicosia from the north.   

We've had a very warm welcome here thus far, including a landlady who lives next door and keeps baking cakes for us, and landlord who appears every 5 minutes with several tradespeople to stand and talk in low Greek tones whilst one of them changes a light bulb or some other maintenance task in the house.  The World Vision staff here have been fantastic, and have made sure our introduction to Cypriot life is a positive one.

The kids slept for 14 hours last night, so hopefully a fairly painless transition to the new timezone.