October 2013

Today, we decided to go to the far west end of the Island to Paphos to see several historical places.  This is what started my morning…good morning Cyprus!:

Beautiful!  After taking another cold shower (more on this later)…and not feeling so hot, we got some breakfast made for the group, cleaned up and headed out.  First stop was Petra tou Romiou…or Aphrodite’s birthplace.  It has a lot of meaning to the Cypriots and is considered a holy place for the Goddess of Love.  Here is a beautiful view of the area:

A wide view of the area in the background:

Me and my boy!:

Awwww!  Look at the gorgeous blue Mediterranean!  It’s warm too.  That is Aphrodite’s Rock just behind us on the right side of the picture.  We spent a while exploring this area and Brittany even put her feet in the water.

As you wander around, you can see all of the lovers who created hearts out of rocks all along the sand and hillsides.  I thought that might be fun to do…but first, Alex decided to take his shoes off and join Brittany in the water:

As they were standing on this sacred ground, Alex decided this was the place to ask a very important question:

‘Will you marry me?’  Brittany was completely shocked!

Then the tears started flowing!

And of course, she said yes!

Her gorgeous ring….thanks to the stealthy ways of my Dad and his connections:

It’s just beautiful!  And of course, fits perfectly.  Alex got a phone card especially for Brittany to have the ability to call her parents right after (even if it was like 2am back home!)…they already knew the call was coming because Alex asked permission prior.  Awww!

Then, we created our hearts in the sand…

Once all of this excitement was done, we headed through this awesome tunnel that runs under the highway to our car:

So, Alex feels better after MONTHS of planning and we felt better knowing it was finally done.  We headed into Paphos to explore the city a little more.  First we found a restaurant located right on the water that had fish.  Thea Connie wanted fresh fish…and boy was it good!

The fish was caught that morning!  Can’t get any fresher than that.  We spent a long time there enjoying our meal.

Look at my cutie, newly engaged kids!  Next up…Paphos, part 2…

After a good night’s sleep, it was time to get things unpacked, some shopping done and settled in.  We had no idea how to get around, but we were going to try.  First of all, do you even know how hard it is to drive on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car with 6 crazy family members in tow???  HARD….I will tell you it’s hard.  My brain is having a tough time figuring it out and I usually need to have a ‘co-pilot’ in the front with me reminding me to stay on the LEFT side of the road.  OY!  Anyway, we found a cute local place to eat where the owner was there and made all of our food for us.  Of course, Keith decided he needed to try the local beer:

Look at the size of the bottles…and believe it or not, those were only 2 euros a bottle!  Keith said it was a sessionable beer…he liked it.  When you ask for water, they bring you a bottle of water:

I forgot to take pictures of the food, but boy was it fresh and oh so good!  Yeeahh…I’m liking this already!  The boys did a lot of damage with the beer:

Everyone was feeling good, so we went to the grocery store to pick up some food and supplies.  After dropping them off at the house, we decided to go to the local bakery to pick up some bread.  Little did we know that a.) it was a 24 hour bakery, and b.) what was waiting for us…have a look at all of this goodness!:

We got quite an array of items to take back home with us and enjoyed every morsel.  Now that we have no jet lag, we’re ready for our first day of sightseeing tomorrow….YAY!

Well, we made it.  It took a really, really long time, but we are finally in Cyprus.  Let me digress…

Keith and I got to PDX with plenty of time.  Because of our mad travel skills, we got through security within 10 minutes.  We left on time and prepared for the long flight.

Once in the air our food arrived…and alcohol (for Keith):

10 hours is a long time to be on a plane…I think because of the excitement of the trip, it was hard for me to sleep.  Thank goodness for our laptop.  Keith played a lot of games…

I think I got about an hour of sleep on the entire flight but I woke up to this:

Good Morning Amsterdam!  Now, I’m hyped up on excitement and ready to go collect my family at the Schipol Airport.  We were circling around a bit because there was a little delay on the ground.  If we came in a bit late, I knew they would too, so I wasn’t too worried.  Well, apparently when you walk through Schipol Airport, they don’t believe in telling you when anything arrives…only departures were on the reader boards.  Uh-oh…that’s a problem…how would I know what gate to find the family?  Now, I have to find a nice Dutch person to help me figure out where they are.  Do you know how hard that is?  Well, after a while, I got the information and found everyone.  YAY!  First thing we did was find a place to plug in all of the electronics:

I was so thirsty and needed water.  Dad decided to be the hero and get water…with his American dollars:

And here is me and my Mommy:

We collected Thea Connie and were ready to find our gate for our Cyprus plane….on the way, we find this artwork that Brit decided to adorn: 

A beautiful addition to the artwork if I do say so myself.  🙂    Now we’re ready to get on the last leg of our trip and here is a picture of my little family:

By this point, I was EXHAUSTED!  I could barely keep my eyes open, but got on the plane and instantly fell asleep.  A short while later, we were handed food and drinks…and apparently, are seated in this section…who knew!:

We have arrived!  Then, we spent a good hour wandering around the airport trying to find the rental car place.  My favorite part of all this is that I have TWO people who can speak Greek and yet, they ask questions to the locals in ENGLISH!  Ugh!  Anyway, finally found it, got our van and realized it was quite difficult to fit 7 of us PLUS luggage…oh my!:

Now…imagine driving in this van…with this chaos…on the wrong side of the car AND the wrong side of the road…in the dark!  We made it to our condo and finally settled in for the night.  Wow.  Today is a low key day, but there will be more to post soon.

Cyprus. A tiny country in the Mediterranean. A place where my Mother was born and partially raised…that is, until war and unrest invaded the quiet. At that point, she and her family left for the United States for a better life. Years passed, a life was made in the US, and although the small island was split, peace was once again part of life. I was born here in the US, but always wondered what that little island was like. As a child, I used to do reports on it in school and any chance I got, I would share the culture with friends and schoolmates.As an adult, I dreamed that someday I would go there. More years passed, now with another generation in the fold…and here I was, still dreaming. Then, I had a bright idea…wouldn’t it be neat if I could go there with my Mother? I mentioned this to her and she thought it was a great idea! This is where the ‘Family Trip’ was born. Then we asked my son if he would be interested in going…and if he could afford it. He said he would…as long as he had enough time to save up for it.

My Yiayia & Papou with a very tiny Alex. They are the natives of Cyprus.

So…after Keith and I got back from Europe in 2011, we started thinking about a family trip to Cyprus. There were a lot of Skype meetings about it, tons of research and more conversations. We all agreed that we definitely wanted to go, and so around April 2012, we started making plans. I planned it out like I planned Europe and by Thanksgiving 2012, we booked our flights and all of a sudden, it was reality! Fast forward to now…add my Thea (aunt) in the mix and BAM! A family trip! We are all flying in from different parts of the country …PDX, LAX and JFK…which was coordination genius on my part thank you very much!! 🙂 Meeting up in Amsterdam…then getting on the same plane to Cyprus.
Woot!!
It’s almost time…