Where has my money gone!!?

Tuesday night some girls from our program told us about a jazz club that is downtown that they were going to. We called to make reservations but they told us that they were filled up! But then our neighbor called and spoke Greek to them and got us right in. It was great. He even drove us so we didn't have to take a taxi! The place was called hussle and it was very fancy. We all got very dressed up and felt pretty classy. Hussle is a restaurant/bar/lounge, and the music was awesome. The only down part was that it is extremely expensive to go out pretty much anywhere around here. We all ordered a chocolate cake with ice cream and a vodka expresso and those 2 things cost us 16.50 Euros!!! It is hard to avoid these high costs with anything that we do.

Wednesday Kell and I have class together during the late morning...Gender in Literature! So thrilling. I guess we are just going to read a bunch of short stories and talk about gender issues that occur in them. It seems like it will be pretty easy. All of the classes are taught in English here but it seems as though there are more than a few students who struggle with this and would feel more comfortable speaking Greek. In this way, it kind of makes it easier for us since we obviously know English (haha). Today I went to the gym for the first time. Its really small and there is one treadmill, one elliptical, and a bike, but it doesn't ever get very crowded so I got to run for a little bit to get some exercise around here. It would also be nice to run around this area outside, but I never see any1 at all doing that. Exercise must not be a very common thing here. Later on Kelley, Martin, his friend, and I went out to a club called Scorpio downtown. It was free admission and we don't have class on Thursdays so we decided to go! Wednesday is actually a very big "going out" night. The music was great but the club was very crowded I guess because it was free! The club is free because they charge 6 Euros for beer and 8 Euros for a cocktail! We passed on that offer. A bunch of people were there from our program. One bad thing though is that EVERYONE smokes, and does not feel bad about doing it on the dancefloor and blowing it in your face. We have to drink lots of water when we get home to clear our throats.

Classes in Cyprus?

So yesterday classes started! I learned a lot more about the Cyprus culture in the past two days. Again, there really are not very many rules about anything here. People do not worry about being on time for anything and they don't seem to worry too much about their schedules. My first class was Gender in Literature and Kelley is in that class with me so we found it together. The professor knew every single student in the class by name and major except for us new students! Today I had my Corporate Finance class and I was happy to see that there were 3 other GLS students in my class. Again, the professor was very friendly and laid back. We got to create the syllabus. We decided how many exams we want and how many homework assignments we want and what their weights will be. All of our exams will be open note. The way that the University of Nicosia is set up kind of reminds me of high school, because the whole school is basically just one big building. It is a lot different than Pitt because there is way more student/teacher interaction. Also, it is worth mentioning that the other day we went to McDonalds in Cyprus and it was the nicest place I've ever seen! It was super clean, the workers spoke more English here than they do in the states, and it was beautiful! It was lined with palm trees on the outside.

Wednesday: Today was one of the most interesting days I've had so far in Cyprus. We attended a lecture on the Cyprus problem delivered by a woman part of the ministry of foreign affairs. We learned that Turkey attacked Cyprus in 1974 because they were unhappy about the low number of Turkish people involved with the government. Since then, they have been occupying the northern part of Cyprus, which the Greeks here resent because a lot of their tourist attractions are in the north. It is interesting that a lot of the Turkish Cypriots are very uphappy with the situation also, because years ago, the Turks sent a bunch of very poor people from Ankara, Turkey to the Turkish Republic of Cyprus just to raise the Turkish population in Cyprus. It was sad to them because the upper middle class Greek Cypriots were forced out of their homes and replaced by very very poor Turks, who used the homes to raise cattle in. The current president of Cyprus is working hard to get rid of the division between the Turks and Greeks and reunite Cyprus as one country! After the lecture, we headed to a cooking class in one of the lecture halls at the univeristy. It was a normal classroom but there was a kitchen down where the professor stands! We watched him cook 3 things and then we each got a plate for lunch! We ate Greek meatballs, ravioli, and haloumi cheese inside of pita bread. Delicious! The cook told us that one girl last semester ate a pound of haloumi cheese every day and gained 30 pounds during her 4 months here in Cyprus! Next, we went on a scavenger hunt. We started out doing great and finding all kinds of stuff, but then when it came time to get a taxi downtown we started to have trouble. We decided to walk in order to avoid cab fare, but before we knew it, we got lost and were foreced to pay for a taxi. We got to the restaurant and were the first people there! ...or so we thought. It turned out we had gone to the wrong restaurant and couldn't leave, because they had already brought our food out! It turned out to be a pretty great experience anyway, since the food was great and it was like a 10 course meal. Everyone else at my table tried snails, but I opted to pass on that one. Yuck! Here some pictures of the restaurant and of the old city side of Nicosia, where it is located : )

We got home from the restaurant around 9:30 and we started to get ready to go out to a club that our international friends invited us to. These were the same people that we hung out with on Monday night. After getting ready, we headed back to the old city where Ithaki was located. The club was really cool and played great music. It was fun because there were a bunch of people there that we knew already! It was too loud there to talk so we just danced the night away until 3 a.m.

Thursday: It was pretty hard to wake up today since we were at the club late last night! We went to the Cyprus Archeological Museum at noontime. It doesn't sound interesting, but it actually was, because Cyprus history dates back to 10,000 b.c.! The museum had artifacts that dated back that far. We learned about how they made their first houses out of clay and they were circular. We observed how the objects got more detailed as the years went on. Archeologists are still finding statues in Cyprus. About 1o years ago the dug up 5 statues after a storm! We just hung out at the apartment for the rest of the day because we were pretty tired out haha.

Friday: Today Global Learning Semesters took the whole group on a bus trip to the Troodos Mountains. I think that it is cool that we are able to drive an hour in one direction to the beaches and an hour in the other direction to the mountinas. It is such a diverse little island. The mountains were actually very cold...about 40 degrees when we got there, so it reminded us all of home. There was even a little bit of snow. It seemed like we were driving forever on the windy roads in order to get to the top. When we first arrived it was raining so we weren't able to get any nice pictures, since it was very cloudy and storming. We went to a restaurant and ate lunch, before moving on to our next stop. Luckily it stopped raining so we could walk around the little village in the mountain. It was a very cute place, but most of the stores and restaurants were closed.

I'm assuming more people go to the mountains during the summer since the temperature in the mountains is a lot lower than down by the beach and in Nicosia. We got back onto the bus and went to one more place in the mountains. The village was very well known for making some of the best wine in Cyprus. We didn't have time to go to the winery or taste any though, unfortunately. We walked around the beautiful church that was located in this small town. It was surprising how big it is. People must travel from pretty far away to attend it. The church was absolutely beautiful! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside though. The picture to the left is me standing at the entrance of the church. There was also a cemetary nearby that was very pretty and very decorated. I can assume that the people from this small town are very religious!





We arrived back in Nicosia around 6:00 and we headed over to our friend, Anwar's apartment and he cooked us dinner! He made us steak along with corn, rice, and some other vegetables. He cooked everything in wine which made it very tasty. We were very impressed, since all we can cook is pasta and french fries! Tonight it was one of our friend's birthday so a bunch of us went out clubbing. We went to a local club that was free entrance and open bar for a little bit, before heading downtown to a club called Bling! We all got to eat cake and drank champagne to celebrate her birthday. We gt a special section in the club reserved for us so we had 2 couches and a table. When you stay out til 4:00 a.m., having a place to sit down every once in a while is very important if you want to make it until the end! We danced the night away and had a spectacular time : ) I guess Cypriots don't like to pig out after a night of clubbing like Americans do. There arent any pizza places or fast food places opened, so I made us grilled cheese when we got back because we were starving!

On Sunday we had to wake up super early...at 8:30 to go to our orientation. They talked to us all morning and afternoon about Cyprus and what will be coming up in the next 4 months. They got us pizza from Pizza Hut again for lunch! Later that night GLS took everyone out to dinner. We walked to the restaurant, and it was so pretty and nice. We had a buffet and feasted on salad, chicken, bbq ribs, potatoes, pasta, and everything else imaginable. We also had a piece of chocolate mousse cake and some kind of Greek pudding. I'm sure there is a name for it but I'm not sure what it is yet. After that we met up with our friend and hung out at his apartment for a little bit. All of the apartments here are very nice and affordable! The Cypriots are a lot cleaner than the average American students. Those boys had a schedule taped to their fridge with someone in charge of cleaning every day! Imagine that! We clean maybe once every month? haha.

Monday: Today we had to wake up early and schedule our classes. We all came back from our appointments around 10:30 and went back to sleep until 3! We went shopping again for some more food. It's hard to find stuff to feed 4 people every day. So far we've just eaten pasta and chicken and ordered pizza and stuff. This is a picture of the food store that is about a block away from our apartment. Then we went on a tour of the University of Nicosia. The campus is pretty small because there are only around 3000 students that attend it. The buildings are all very modern and the classrooms look a lot like American classrooms. Out of the 3000 students that attend the university, 20% of them are international students! How exciting. I think Pitt is like 3% international or something like that. Speaking of internatinal students, we were cooking dinner when 5 r 6 people knocked on our door of our apartment to invite us to a house party that they were throwing that night. These students also are studying abroad at the University of Nicoisa like us, but they are from ther countries. They are here for 1 year. They said they had so much fun with the Americans that were here last semester, so they wanted to get to know us too! We ended up taking a taxi to one of their houses and went to the party. Parties in Cyprus are a big different than parties in the U.S. While everyone was drinking, getting drunk was not the main purpose of attending the party. Everyone was genuinely interested in meeting people and having converstations about their lives in their home countires. Everyone was sharing stories! It was interesting how much everyone that we talked to was alike. We met people from London, Spain, France, Italy, and we even met a guy from the U.S. who is here for pro. volleyball. Again, we were out super late. I guess that's just the way things are done in Europe. Going to bed as late as 6 a.m. is not out of the ordinary.

Tuesday: Today we forced ourselves to wake up for a presentation on the history of Cyprus. Needless to say, we all fully regretted attending this lecture. Just too boring to listen to a guy with no personality talk for an hour aboust history! Having said that, it is interesting to know that the history of Cyprus dates back to 10,000 B.C. The U.S. is a baby compared to that. Tuesday night we were invited to our friends house to watch the inaugeration since we don't have a tv. The international students are way more interested in American politics that American students are! They all know all about it and it seemed like every1 in Cyprus was watching it. They had it on in the school cafeteria, at the local bar, and at everyone's apartments! They said that the Cypriots were celebrating Obama's victory. Now that I am here, I am glad that Obama won, because it seems like it will actually cause my classmates to have a better attitude toward America in general : ) Later that night, our friends took us out. We just hung out and played pool for a little while in downtown Nicosia and actually got back at a decent hour. They have cars here so I got to ride in the front. It feels so awkward sitting in that seat without a steering wheel in front of me! Also, the funny thing here is that instead of looking out for deer when driving, you have to look out for cats! It's true! There are cats freely roaming the streets everywhere. Some of them are actually very cute.

Orientation week

Hello Everyone! I have been in Nicosia, Cyprus for almost a week now and I am loving it. I finally got access to the internet in my apartment yesterday, so us girls have been without internet and tv for a whole week! We have been surviving though. We are all having a great time. Dezi, Kelley, and I share an apartment and we have a fourth roommate named Lauren. We all have so much fun together. We arrived in Cyprus last Thursday to the sunny 65 degree weather after traveling for nearly 16 hours! 11 of the hours were spent flying. British Airways was very nice to fly on. During those 11 hours I was served about 4 meals and lots of water soda and orange juice. Both of our flights were on time and we arrived at Cyprus along with about 40 other students who were in the Global Learning Semesters program. The program coordinators named Rebecca and Alexandra greeted us at the airport and were so nice. They arranged 2 charter buses to take us from Larnaka to Nicosia. One bus was for the students...and one was for all of the luggage! It took about an hour to arrive at our apartments in Nicosia. All of the apartment buildings are right next to each other and are only about a 2 minute walk to campus. The picture at the top was taken from my balcony and the building in the back is the Univeristy of Nicosia. Once we got all of our stuff moved into our apartment we decided that we really like it. We have a pretty nice kitchen and

a cute little sitting area with couches and chairs. We also have a little porch with a view of the mountains that are on the Turkish side of Cyprus. On our first night we went to a little meeting and they provided us with pizza from Pizza Hut! After that we just went to bed because we were SO tired.

We figured that since we went to bed at 10:00 we would feel nice and refreshed in the morning and be able to wake up at a decent hour. We were wrong. We all slept until 2 p.m. We woke up and were starving because we didnt have any food! We decided to take a walk down the main street to look for a place to eat. There are lots of little shops and places to eat. Everything is VERY expensive here. I wouldn't be able to compare Nicosia to any city that I have ever been to before. Most of the buildings here are really nice and pretty, but every once in a while you will see an old abandoned building. It's also funny because there are some patches of just grassy areas that are kind of ugly, but then right next to that there will be a store with designer clothes! We are posing in front of an orange tree in the pic to the left! For the most part it is very nice here though. We ended up eating at a Cypriot restaurant near our apartment. We all ordered chicken but we weren't sure what exactly it was going to be because the menu was primarily written in Greek! We ended up getting a plate with a TON of chicken and some pita bread to put the chicken in along with tomatoes, lettuce, and some kind of sauce. Usually the everything in the City is written in Greek and English but a lot of the menus are written only in Greek! You just have to look around at the food and point out what you want! After that, we headed to the food store! We weren't really sure what to expect but it turns out it's not too much difference than at home. They say that Greeks eat a lot but food products are sold in a lot smaller quantities! The cashier laughed at us because we didn't know that we had to price our fruit before we go to the register! In the pic we are going up the escalator with our cart! Upstairs was like a Walmart kind of place.We met a student who lives in the apartment right next to us named Martin and he is very friendly and helpful. We go to him with all of our questions about the apartment and about the city! He told us about a club that we could go to that night which was having a big event since it was Friday night. It was a very fancy club. Martin called to make reservations for us along with the girls across the hall so that we could have a table and a couch. Of course the 10 of us turned into about 25 girls since every1 wanted to go out to a club! I forgot to mention before that there are about 80 people in the GLS program and 7 of them are boys. So Martin, his one friend and about 25 girls went to the club. What lucky boys! The club was very interesting. There were lots of young people from ALL over the world. The clubs here don't open until midnight and go on until 4 a.m. I thought it was interesting that 100 % of the music was American and everyone was loving it! The dj even announced that there were lots of Americans in the club and to welcome us to Cyprus and everyone cheered! I was so happy that everyone likes Americans so much here. After the club we ended up walking to Zorpha's which is a 24 hour bakery and I bought a doughnut! Luckily the next morning we were able to sleep til about 2 again. What a fun night.

The next day we went on a walking tour of "Old Nicosia." The city has the old side and the new side. The city's history dates back to about 7000 B.C. That is a LONG time ago! We walked around and saw the old buildings, churches, and schools. We walked to the green line which is what separates Cyprus from the Turkish Republic of Cyprus. It's very sad because all of the buildings in the area are empty and people had to leave their homes after the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1974. As of now they told us that there are peace talks going on between the 2 so that Cyprus can be one again! The Greek side of Cyprus (where I am) is part of the European Union and has one of the best economies of any EU country. It is also one of the safest! I know every1 was very concerned with safety here, and I am actually shocked about how safe it actually is. Of course all of us girls always stay together, and we haven't come across anything or anyone that has been even a little bit scarey. Anyway, after the tour we went back to our apartment and made frozen pizzas! Later in the night Dezi, Kell, Lauren, Martin, Martin's friend Anwar, and I went to get ice cream! We also played foozeball and rode in bumper cars at the same place that we got ice cream at. It was like a big arcade. After that all of us went to a local bar to talk and hang out. Don't worry! People here don't drink a lot and the beer is VERY expenisve. I orderded one drink which cost me 5 Euros! We ended up just hanging out at our apartment for the rest of the night with our friends.