I don’t even remember what made me suddenly think today whether I’ll be a fundamentally different person when I return from this trip. The human mind is amazing in the way it jumps from thought to thought with sometimes no rational link between the thoughts. Maybe there is a link but it all happens so quickly that we don’t have time to figure it out. Maybe most people don’t care, maybe you don’t care while reading this and are hoping I’ll just get on with it.

As I was saying, will I be fundamentally different when I return from this trip? If you remove the word “fundamentally” the answer is obviously yes. We change in tiny increments every moment. I think I’m close to thinking through some answers to “who am I?” Israel really helped out by giving me some experiences related to my half-Jewishness. The sense of alienation I’ve felt all my life has come clearer to me. What it means in my life and whether I should do something about it have not come yet. I’ve seen a great deal of varieties in how to live that I hadn’t seen before. I don’t know the answer to the question yet. I still have another 4-week trip to Korea, India, and China coming up.

I love Cyprus. As I said before, it seems to be just a fundamentally healthy country. It’s filled with wonderful history, it’s a fascinating mix of Greek and English culture, and it has great weather and beaches. Its biggest problem is the complex problem of the Turkish controlled north and the independent Greek-speaking independent country in the south. Some complain about the many wealthy Russian immigrants who have brought some wealth to the country but have maybe had the stronger negative impact of increasing prices.

I hadn’t planned to come back here but after almost changing my plans, I checked and found out that if I’m not on the flight tomorrow from Cyprus to Athens, they will cancel my whole trip home. I really do want to go home. It was not a hardship for me to go back to Cyprus though. I only had this one day but it was a wonderful day.

George’s brother-in-law Christos picked me up at the airport last night and again at 10:30 AM today to go on a sightseeing trip. Although I have so much to see in Cyprus, the most obvious glaring hole from what I missed on my previous visit was the city of Paphos.

Looking out at the Mediterranean from my hotel balcony.

Our first stop was a return visit for me to the rock that is reputed to be the birthplace of Aphrodite (Petra Tou Romiou). Last time it was dusk and I fell at the water’s edge. I attributed it to my hidden desire to meet Aphrodite. Now I’m sure Aphrodite and I have something going on. I didn’t fall this time but I did fail to get out of the way from a wave and got my shoes soaked.

My second encounter with Aphrodite

We headed to Paphos and saw some wonderful sites. Parts of the Paphos Castle go back to the Crusaders in 1222.

My taxi driver / tour guide / new friend Christos. His son is studying flute at IUP.

They had areas in the Paphos castle called oubliettes (from the French word for “to forget”) for long-term prisoners. Make sure you don’t bring any liquids through airport security or you could end up in one of these.

 

Fish caught in the Paphos harbor

The archaeological museum turned out to be open air ruins rather than pieces inside a building. I liked this more. The House of Dionysos is from the 2nd century and discovered in 1962.

If you double click on this, you should be able to read it.

Here is one of the mosaic floors, with Dionysus, Icarus (who flew too close to the sun), and I’m not sure who the one is on the right. My nephew Nick will know. The mosaic was too big for one picture so it’s split into these three. The full mosaic is below from a sign, not the real thing.

The full mosaic, from a sign.

Mosaic from the Archaeological Museum at Paphos

Hoping I was taller than the columns

Lot of drama in these mosaics

Disturbing that some of the mosaics are out where idiots like me can almost step on them

There was an area called the “Tombs of the Kings” which apparently was not for kings but wealthy people from the Greek and Roman eras.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomb of the Kings — nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there

Thought I might take it home but was not sure it would fit in my suitcase.

Christos invited me to join his wife and family for lunch, along with Irene and George’s family. I offered to have their oldest son, who goes to IUP come over for dinner the week after I get back when Keith is in Indiana for spring break. We Skyped to IUP and probably woke him up. I had a wonderful meal, the first home cooked meal since Mickey cooked in Tel Aviv. I only had a brief discussion with Christos’ wife Christina about the mathematics of music theory, which she teaches along with piano and guitar. I said goodbye to Irene and George, this time for real, at least for a while.

Irene and George and their kids on the left. Their in-laws, Christos, Christina, and their kids on the right. Nice picture.

Christos got me back to the Four Seasons 15 minutes or so before my appointment with an old friend of maybe my oldest friend, Michael B. Thereza is a professor at an English-speaking university in Cyprus and is a fascinatingly multi-faceted person. Near the end of our approximately 3-hour conversation, we imagined that we probably met in the 1970’s. The event was Michael B.’s beautiful multimedia infrared photography show in Ithaca, NY. It was something that we both remembered from a relatively long ago era from which most events are long forgotten. She teaches courses for international students who are going on travel study programs among other things. Her specialty is Ancient Chinese and Japanese Art. As someone who does not believe in reincarnation, I was challenged by her telling me about her feeling that she knew more than anyone should have known about this art when she first learned about it in a Cornell course. Her professor didn’t believe that she could be that good without having studied it previously. Our conversation was filled with sharing selected highlights and favorite thoughts from our lives. I knew that someone who was important to Michael B. would be someone to immediately be totally open with. She reciprocated and I felt like we had known each other for years not minutes.

Thereza and me

Before she headed out to Nicosia for a wedding, the Headmaster of the school I taught at who I consider to be a new friend came with her daughter to deliver the pen pal letters from the Cyprus students responding to Katie B.’s students in Indiana, PA. One of the packages was open and I read some.

The Headmaster Nick and his daughter (one of the pen pals in the 5th grade class I taught), giving me the pen pal letter replies

Here are some quotes from 5th graders.

“In Limassol we have a fish restaurant called M1. Mr. Sodiris, the owner is also a fisherman and he serves only fresh fish of the day. If you ever come to Cyprus, I will take you there to eat. I hope you like to eat fish too.”

“Yes, you are right. We don’t get lots of snow as we have lots of sunshine and it’s never below 14 degrees!!! But in the mountains there is some snow but not for long. Cyprus is a small island with lots of history. We have nice food like haloumi cheese and souvlaki (small pieces of meat with spices on a grill), my favorite food is pizza and I love grilled haloumi cheese in pitta bread. In the summer it is really hot around 40 degrees so the schools clse at the end of June until September so most of fthe time I spend at the beach with my mum and dad. The other half of the summer I go to Russia and spend time with my grandparents which is a nice change as the weather is different.”

“Winters are not very cold but summers are extremely hot. The temperatures reach up to 40 celsius so lots of people walk about topless. Most tourists spend time visiting the famous sites like the old castles and archaeological sites so should you ever visit me, I will show them to you, In winter, most of us go to the Troodes Mountains to sleigh and to ski. Do you know I am only 3 days older than you are!”

“I have not read Percy Jackson and the Olympians but I’m sure they are good books to read. Have you read any books by Roald Dahl? My best book is the Twits. It’s really funny.”

“I come from a family of four. My mum is a teacher and my dad is a doctor. I play basketball and swim throughout the year. I also play guitar. I don’t play much on-line games because I get lots of homework although sometimes I play vice city. On the weekends, I spend lots of time with my cousins when I play loads of play station games.”

Like I said, “I love Cyprus”

After ordering one more beer, I wasted time in my ridiculously extravagant hotel room and thought about how nice it would be to go to bed early since I had a 6:20 AM departure tomorrow for the airport, then a full day in Athens. I also thought that it would be an even better idea to actually go to bed rather than thinking about how good it would be to go to bed. You can see where this is going and unfortunately, it’s not going to bed early.