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.