It's my life

With Kass for New Years. 

Old Town Square in Prague for New Years. 

So the pictures below are from my winter break here in Europe. The first picture is of some great students and I on Prague Street in Pribram in the week before Christmas. The next series of pictures depicts my travels to and through the country of Cyprus with my buddy and fellow American ESI teacher Zach. We flew into Lanarka at 2am on the 26th of December. Right away we picked up our rental car and spent the next few hours trying to get used to the British driving system (steering wheel on right side of car, shifting with left hand, cars on left side of road). We drove up to the capital city of Lefkosia (Nicosia) and slept for a few hours in a parking lot. After waking up Zach pulls out of the parking lot and promptly hits a curb and flattens a tire. This comes just hours after saying to the rental company that we don't want insurance for tires or the windshield. With the help of some border guards we get things sorted out with our worn spare on the car and the busted one in the trunk. This allows us to go and see the city. We were mainly interested in seeing the wall in this last divided capital, half of the country is occupied by Turkey and there is a wall separating the two sides throughout Lefkosia. But by 10am we had finished with the capital city (about a day ahead of schedule, we are starting to realize how small a country this really is). So we drive down to a beach near Limassol and hike around the beach for a while. We continue through the city and stop on the other side, parking the car on a beach and sleeping in it for the night. Day 2 starts by seeing Kourion, the most important archeological ruin on the island, on a bitterly windy day. We then go down to see a wine museum where we learn Cyprus is really the birthplace of European wine and the second oldest wine-making country in the world. Fairly interesting. We then decide to go through the Troodos Mountains in search of a monastery. In the mountains we find weather much colder than the Czech Republic was experience during this time, and dangerously icy roads. The monastery is just gorgeous, but we don't stay long because of the temperature. Our car wouldn't have made it back over the ice roads so we decide to try a smaller road on the map. Everything is fine until a few kilometers down the road turns into rocky path for vehicles with 4-wheel drive and off-roading capabilities, niether of which our car has. So we proceed cautiously down the mountain, the fact that we are driving on a spare with a busted tire in our trunk on the back of our mind at all times. Thankfully we make it down the mountain and to the town of Paphos, where we spend the next night. After running errands the morning of Day 3 (like getting the tire fixed, which was an experience also, the mechanic invited us to have a cup of coffee with him after he fixed our tire, try asking for that treatment in America!) we check out what Paphos has to offer (Tomb of the Kings, a pillar on which Paul was supposedly tied while being whipped, etc) and then drive north to the town of Polis. We found a hotel after being turned away from one because it was "closed" and went to eat. Now in Polis there is a restaurant called the Damascus Restaurant. If you are ever in Polis, Cyprus- go there! It was great and we ate this thing called the meze meal in which they basically bring you one of everything on the menu. Day 4 involved hiking around on Akamas Penninsula and finding the secluded Lara Beach (we were better prepared this time knowing what the little roads on the map mean!). As day was waning we drove down the coast, back through Paphos and to the site where the goddess Aphrodite supposedly came out of the water, getting there minutes after sunset. We continued on to Agia Napa, the tourist center of Cyprus where we found a hotel for this night. The next day was a bit rainy at first so we woke up late, lounged around a bit, went to the coast only to find the British Army had a base right where we wanted to go, and continued along to the border between the Republic and the Turkish occupied half. There was a nice museum and look out and things remembering the Turkish invasion of 1974. After that we went to a beach and then in search of a checkpoint where we could walk into Northern Cyprus, which we found and took a 5 minute walk around a street in Northern Cyprus. So it's interesting to say now that I have a visa from an occupied country in my passport. We went down to Lanarka for dinner and to walk around the downtown area before heading to the airport for 11pm to turn in the car and wait for our 3am flight. A little too late I found out that I had misplaced my ticket (I thought we had etickets, but apparently we had paper tickets and not knowing what it was I misplaced it) and had to go through a big hassle to get a replacement ticket. But as it was, I was able to get onto the flight that got us back to Prague at 6am on the 31st of December. After sleeping for much of the day Kass and I took a late night walk around Prague to see the New Years fireworks and watch the street parties erupting all through Old Town. So that was my Christmas vacation. If you read all of this-impressive!

Pavla, Terri, and I, on Prague Street, downtown Pribram, before Christmas break. 

The rental car, minutes after being handed the keys, approximately 3 in the morning. 

After the Berlin Wall fell, this is the last divided capital. 

A memorial/lookout with an armed guard facing into Northern Cyprus. 

On the streets of Nicosia. 

Zach driving. 

With our car. 

Zach on the rocks. 

Profile. 

Me on the rocks. 

Rocks with the sea behind. 

Kolossi, a medieval fortress/castle. 

Night 2- in the car on a beach underneath Kourion. We (at least I) felt about as miserable as I look. This was taken at 1:30 in the morning. 

Coastline. 

In Kourion, an old city. Legend has it that Paul and Barnabas went from Paphos to Kourion to escape persecution. 

On the beach, to the right of the black rock, was where we parked the car and spent the night. 

View in the Troodos Mountains. Notice the snow on the ground. 

In the Troodos Mountains. 

Kykkos Monastery. It was beautiful, with not many tourists, but coldcoldcold. 

Zach fording a stream on our way down from the mountains. 

Us with the view from our hotel balcony in Paphos. 

In tombs at the Tomb of the Kings, basically an old graveyard for rich people right along the coast. Paphos. 

Remember that one time we died...