Lefke Getaway

Living in the foreign country during the first year is like being newly married , you look forward to experiencing everything for the first time. You wonder how the holidays will be this year, if the Christmas will still feel like Christmas and what kind of weather you will have in January… Speaking of winter, I find it great wearing sandals in November, the boots will have to hibernate forever! Before moving to TRNC, I’ve lived abroad long enough to know that being a foreigner has its ups and downs. But I see the glass as half full, otherwise I wouldn’t be travelling the world, meeting new people and learning about their culture and traditions.

People in North Cyprus strike me as very friendly, they make you feel warm and welcome. I love it when you run into someone on the street - a perfect stranger that treats you with such kindness and respect it really overwhelms you.

One Sunday morning my husband and I took a trip to Lefke for a Date Festival. Lefke is a small town with population of about 6,000 people. The area is famous for its citrus gardens and dates, and at the festival you could purchase and sample them all. The local crafts were proudly exhibited and you could get some cross stitched purses and linens, coasters and woven chairs, hand-made jewelry as well as olive oil, jams and other preserves.

It was about an hour’s drive from Girne to Lefke, and even though we had breakfast at home, the freshly made köfte and börek were hard to pass by. So we loaded a plate full of food and kept making rounds in the market.

After we have satisfied our palates and bought kilos of oranges, lemons and mandarins we went for a stroll to have a closer look at the date palms. As we were taking in the stunning scenery a car pulled up and a man asked us what we were up to. I mentally prepared to defend ourselves as I thought he was going to confront us about something, but instead he offered to take us to his property and show us around. Mahmut turned out to be an agronomical engineer that has developed the gardens in Lefke area in the 60’s. He told us he worked all over Cyprus making gardens, but now he lives in Istanbul with his family while a gardener is looking after his property. Mahmut told us that the date palms are dioecious, that is they have male and female plants.

The mandarins from the tree were so juicy, the aroma of citrus awakened all senses. In this sunny country with such tantalizing smells, how can anyone ever be unhappy here? It seems like the nature and everything around want to bring you joy!

After our private tour Mahmut took us back into town where we picked up our car and headed to Vouni Palace, which is 9km west of Gemikonagi and it sits on top of the cliff, 250m above the sea level. There is not much left of the palace, but the views are breathtaking, the blue of the Mediterranean and the green of the cypress trees what a perfect combination!

On the way back we stopped for a meal by the sea. The restaurant was very busy, so we decided it was a good sign and we weren’t disappointed. White wine and seafood added a perfect touch to our Sunday getaway.

Greetings from the Island of Love,

Your Tanka Lou

The Mangrove Adventure

I want to dedicate this post to my lovely husband whose Birthday is tomorrow. Thanks for making my life so interesting and wonderful; I wouldn’t change anything about it! Happy Birthday, honey!

I also want to say big thanks and Happy Birthday to Dev, a dedicated naturalist and our guide in Langkawi, we took the best memories from that trip thanks to you!

I was dreaming about South East Asia for ages. I was obsessing about the jungle and wild life and greenery I would see and the hot and humid air I would breathe. In my mind it was all extremely exotic and for some reason I thought I was capable to survive in the rain forest. Too much TV watching doesn’t help; I’ll tell you this for sure.

We arrived in Langkawi Island on a hot April day, the weather was hot but not as humid as it was in Kuala Lumpur. We made our way to the chalet I booked online after reading a gazillion reviews on TripAdvisor. To my surprise it looked exactly how I imagined it, and the rooms even exceeded my expectations! What I didn’t expect was getting into the boiling hot sea! “Now that’s a surprise”, I thought to myself, “I’m never going to enjoy this sea!” Two seconds later Yakup got stung by something on his arm and I just giggled and said he was a wuss and that he should chill and enjoy the sea like he would enjoy a bath. As I finished my smart mouthed comment I was stung on the leg and off we went to the beach. That was our first day in Langkawi.

One of the things on our To-do list was going on a mangrove tour. There were two options – going with a motor boat and get a general idea of the mangrove forest or go by kayaks and get in the deep of it. When we were making this decision I was either deaf or out of touch with reality because when we finally got to the floating platform where our kayaks were waiting for us things started to seem a bit clearer in my head. It became clear that I have never sat in such a small boat before, I never had to row to make the boat move - I always had someone else on the boat, preferably my dad, who can row for 30 km on the river and tell you jokes in between and you can sit with an ore in your hand and look busy. This was the case of actually making the vessel move with your own power! I started feeling uneasy. I looked around at our group – we were eight people everybody seemed moderately athletic and everybody has kayaked before but us. But then I also remembered that we did white water rafting in Turkey at our previous holiday where we had to row vigorously in a ten-people boat, and we did 12 km that day and I wasn’t even that tired. I felt like the load has lifted off my shoulders, of course I would be able to do it, I’ve done it before!
I came prepared. I purchased water shoes for my husband and myself, based on our experience rafting, I realized that flip flops don’t really work in this kind of environment. So as soon as my feet touched the ground after the previous holiday first thing I did was ordering water shoes from Amazon. As I continued researching about the mangrove I’ve realised I’d need a dry pack to keep my camera and passport dry. Why would you need a passport in the middle of the mangrove, nobody knows, but at that time it all seemed like a reasonable idea.

Wearing new water shoes and equipped with a brand new dry pack clipped to my shorts I marched on to the dock. It was time to sit in the kayak. Our strong and masculine guide basically pulled me in to the kayak by grabbing the back of my shorts, something like I’d imagine you could do to a small child, but he managed to get all seven of us plus himself into the kayaks.

I had the front seat, while my husband was sitting behind me. He was excited, I was nervous. My confidence was melting away with every paddle I made. We floated around in circles while other 3 kayaks followed each other in a straight line. I thought it was normal, they all have done it before, so we would get used to it in the course of the trip. The instructor got us all together in the middle of the river and we did the health and safety talk. At that point I was getting more nervous about our hopeless efforts to paddle and make the kayak go where we wanted it to go. To make the things worse, I was paying attention to the safety instructions with all ears and when our guide told us about hitting the roots of the mangrove and the possibility of a snake falling on you from the branches I started hyperventilating. He went on to say that the mangrove would get very narrow, so we have to watch out. “Watch out my ass”, I thought, “how the hell are we not going to touch those roots if we are touching the roots on the 25-meter-wide river, let alone if the mangrove will get narrow!” I was panicking, all I wanted to do was to go back to the floating platform and get out and sit in the Thai restaurant and get drunk while the rest of them are paddling. That was out of the question, I would be risking getting killed by my husband if I was to back off. So I chose to risk getting bitten by a mangrove snake and die of intoxication instead! The Instructor’s words were ringing in my head, “if the snake falls into the boat, the snake owns the boat. You jump out”. I looked around – the murky waters of the river didn’t appeal much. The idea of a mangrove snake falling into the kayak didn’t appeal to me even more. I was frozen with fear and panic.

I also discovered that while I am panicking I do not paddle very well. In fact we were so bad together we have used most of our energy in the first 30 minutes and that’s even before we’ve reached the narrow channels. As we were arguing who was rowing in the wrong direction the rest of the kayakers made it look effortless. The deep breathing wasn’t working very well, I couldn’t see anything around me, the panic took over. Yakup was getting angrier by the minute and swearing he would never go with me on an adventure tour like this and that I can forget the jungle trekking and a night walk through the jungle. As we were fighting while I am constantly thinking and watching out for the mangrove snake to land on my head, I felt something falling on my back close to the neck, something wet and slimy and I screamed. It was mud Yakup accidently picked up from the bottom while he paddled and it accidentally landed on my neck. By now I was shaking.

The channel was getting narrower. The roots were sticking out of the water, the branches above us created a beautiful and potentially lethal green corridor. We got to a clearing where our four kayaks could just fit and our guide told us that the mangrove is about to get really narrow. By that time I already got a grip of myself and was just staring at the branches above me every time we hit the root. Yakup told me to sit still and not to paddle, so I had plenty of time to ogle at the branches and take every branch for a mangrove snake ready to fall into our kayak or even better on my neck.

All this time I was controlling myself not to fight with Yakup as we were told the couple from Sweden who were on their honeymoon and the new wife hit the husband with the paddle and split his forehead, so he had to have stitches. Or like a gay couple who at the end of the trip ended up punching each other in the faces. So I kept my mouth shut despite my husband’s threats to never ever go with me on an adventure again. Luckily he is forgetful, so we did go into the jungle together, but he tucked his pants into the socks because he was afraid the termites would go up his pants. I proudly walked with my jeans over the sneakers.

The mangrove snakes were busy that day. Nothing fell on me and we made it to the end of our destination extremely tired but alive and happy. I managed to relax and after lunch we tried to paddle together and even though we were lagging behind we pretended we were busy looking at the monkeys we saw in the branches. By the end of the trip I realized how much I enjoyed the day and what a great teambuilding experience it was for a couple as well! We didn’t kill each other and didn’t even split each other’s heads with the oars! I was very proud of us and mentally thanked the mangroves.


Greetings from the Island of Love,

Your Tanka Lou

Dancing with the Bullies

I love dancing! I love Latin dancing and since I got here I joined a gym that claimed it had cha-cha-cha and salsa lessons. So I joined. I also signed up for regular work out sessions on the machines and aerobics. It made sense, since I get bored too easily and having the variety was bound to help me stick to at least three different activities per week.
I should’ve known when the first sign of craziness lurked through – the trainer was surprised I sometimes was going backwards on the elliptical machine, he just raised his eyebrows, but I could tell he never saw that before. I brushed it off and kept on training.
The next incident happened right before my 30th birthday, so I was already on the verge of killing someone at the difficult times of short but unpleasant mid-life crisis, and so I went to the gym to relieve the stress from being getting too old. As I plugged the headphones into my ears I started my energizer bunny routine on the bike (those who have seen me exercise will confirm – I can eat but I can also spin those wheels!) I was doing pushups simultaneously, to save the time that is and was just reaching the necessary heart rate when the trainer came and said I should slow down or I will break the bike. I was a bit dizzy when he stopped me abruptly, I just reached the peak of the heart rate necessary to burn all that fat, and so I looked up at him all dazed and so this is my excuse I didn’t react properly to his comment because it simply didn’t register! But it hit me later, as it always does and I ended up being pissed off for the next couple of weeks.
Just as I thought I have overcome those two little incidents – another one occurred tonight. Ok, I acknowledge that not speaking the language enough can make things awkward, but not speaking the sixth language well does not make you stupid. I have been reluctant coming to Latin lessons because all the moves of the teacher and the class were so robotic, the music was fantastic, but they just didn’t get it. You know the feeling when you want something like a Bounty chocolate but all you can get is a fake? You still have the sweet taste in your mouth but you know it’s not the real deal. That’s how I feel every time I go dancing here. The music is so rhythmical and contagious, I can almost see the palm trees and taste the mojitos and feel the breeze from the ocean, but all they do is move their limbs as robots. I thought screw that, I am dancing! So as I was swaying my hips to the sounds of salsa music, (I couldn’t hold back anymore!) I saw they were smirking and laughing behind me! But we were in a room full of mirrors! Now that’s weird I thought, who would do that? And why is it funny? I’m not name dropping or anything but I’ve been learning dancing since school and then took lessons from Amador Lopez from Venezuela, is it not good for the local class? Then they must’ve seen JLo’s moves, oh wait a minute, she cancelled her concert in North Cyprus!
The smirks behind my back shocked me – I never felt like that even in the American high school, and you know teenagers can be cruel. I turned around and while continuing swinging my hips said in Turkish ‘very funny, ha-ha’. They all had bewildered looks on their faces like they had no idea why I was saying that, and that just made me feel even more disgusted. If you want to laugh at someone, then laugh in their face, or with them if you want to be nice. I can take a joke, I can laugh at myself, I have no problem with the sense of humor, but what I can’t take is laughing behind my back and pretending like nothing happened. The wife of the owner guiltily started protesting like she didn’t do anything and during the break she came up to me and said that I’ve lost weight. I said I did but not much and she never apologized and nobody ever mentioned the incident.
I am glad I spoke up. I am angry that I don’t have enough language to say to them what I think, but then I doubt it is the language issue after all.
I went home, took a nice shower and got to writing. I am glad to have you read my blog. Otherwise I’d just be talking in my head and that’s just crazy! I contemplated a little whether to write about this or not and then I thought “oh, what the heck, it is about life in Cyprus – sometimes you have good days, sometimes you meet bullies, but after all it is all an experience.”

Greetings from the Island of Love,
Your Tanka Lou

The Perfect Harmony

The weather has changed last night from scorching hot to a thunderstorm at night, and when you live by the sea the thunderstorm takes on a whole new meaning.

Last time Yakup and I saw an amazing storm at sea was when we were on Langkawi island on the beach, it was our last night at a bungalow, our windows were looking out to the ocean and the tropical storm with lightning and roaring thunder kept us awake all night. It was the scariest and the most beautiful sight I’ve seen.

This morning I got up when it was still dark, Kytsyunya, our cat, woke us up as she tried to get under our covers, a sure sign she is getting cold. I left her plenty of food the night before so she wouldn’t wake us in the morning.

I went to the balcony facing the sea and saw lightning slicing the dark blue skies at a distance, the clouds, heavy with rain were hanging over our house. Then the sun started rising and lighting the skies in a myriad of reds and oranges, the dark blue sky was changing to gray, the sea shimmering in the first rays of sun. I just sat there on the balcony at 6 am, watching God at work.

The castle we can see from our other balcony was covered in clouds, you couldn’t even see a flicker of light that the castle is normally surrounded by. It was all enveloped in white and gray clouds. Magnificent and a little bit creepy. All of a sudden I felt like a little girl watching the magic castle been eaten by the clouds.

I felt harmony inside just from watching the nature taking its course. Then the rain started and washed the trees clean and the smell of pine and cypress trees filled the morning air.


Greetings from the Island of Love,

Your Tanka Lou

Go with your gut!

Everyone who knows me I go with my gut feeling a whole lot. One example is meeting a guy on a dive boat, having the feeling that he is not going to be some serial killer but a nice and a loving man, and ending up marrying him. Yes, I go with my gut a lot. Unlike this time!

On my regular morning walks to the harbor I was stopping by at a bakery to pick up a fresh loaf of olive bread (to die for!) and a chat with the owner, our friend. There are always customers at that hour, people coming to grab freshly baked pastries for breakfast, some sitting down with a cup of tea, some rushing on to get to work.

On a few occasions I have met an elderly man at the bakery having his breakfast there. It turned out he ran a car fixing business around the corner and the whole neighborhood adored him. Hikmet is about 70-75 years old, has one eye and a missing finger. He quickly spotted me as a foreigner and we chatted in English a few times. I was interested in his life story, he was interested in something else, but we will get there later.

You have to imagine a man with a beaten up appearance telling you how after the war his property and his business in Limasol (Greek part of the island) was ruined and he never got the money back, so he had to work hard in the UK to make some more money to come back to Cyprus and start his business. To my question if he was married, his good eye welled up with tears (which made me feel horrible) and said that his beloved has passed away. At some point it seemed strange to me how curious he was about me and my life, because normally older people love to talk about their lives. Well, not if you have a made up one, then you don’t!

It still didn’t hit me at that point and as we were sitting there I saw many neighbors stopping by and patting Hikmet on the back and making some jokes, you could tell people loved him. So I thought, what a great find – a new friend and already you can see he is a decent person! Lucky me!

The next morning he offered to give me a ride home. I thought why not, we have been chatting a few times already and everyone seems to think he is a great guy. I asked our friend the baker just to be on the safe side if he thinks it’s ok to what he said that of course it is, Hikmet is wonderful.

So I hop into his truck and he drops me off at the apartment and then he looks pensively at me with his one eye and asks if he can come up for a coffee. I said ‘gee, I have to work, but ok, one cup of coffee.’ The man has parts of the body missing, for Pete’s sake, I was afraid to hurt his feelings!

I won’t keep you guessing any longer, (be ready to gag!) - he tried to kiss me on the lips. How disgusting and gross is that? At first I thought it couldn’t be true, it was a mistake, you know when someone gives you a peck on the cheek and then kind of misses the cheek? Well, yeah, he definitely tried to kiss me again to what I just played stupid – he was already in my kitchen. I always worry how the freak is going to behave after you say no. So I chose to play stupid. After he drank his coffee, he got a phone call and had to go back to his shop. I stayed there feeling incredibly stupid and disgusting.

A few times when we spoke I got that nagging gut feeling saying ‘he is a dirty old man, dirty old man’, but no, I thought, give him a chance he is already beaten by life so badly that maybe what he needs is a good ear. Well, apparently my intuition was right; too bad I decided to shut it up this time.

Next time I am with any of you my dear friends and I say someone is a dirty old pervert – believe me! I also found out that Hikmet’s wife is alive and kicking, bless her heart.

Today I had a chance to thank my intuition and be rude to someone who deserved it. I was waiting for a bus when a taxi pulled in from the parking lot, the driver said he’d take me to where I needed to go. I politely declined. (Taxis cost an arm and a leg in Cyprus, you never take them.) The driver then insisted I’d get into the car because someone called him and didn’t show up and he was either thinking I was the person who called and didn’t show or I looked that stupid to get into a cab I didn’t call. After a few broken English phrases I saw he wasn’t getting the message, to what I said in Turkish ‘istemiyorum, ya!’ it only means ‘I don’t want to’, but when you say it with the right intonation and throw your hands up in the air like the Turkish women do – the fancy Mercedes was speeding along the highway in the blink of an eye.

‘There’, I thought to myself, ‘the gut would be happy now that the balance is restored again.’



Greetings from the Island of Love,

Your Tanka Lou

The Not-So-Secret Love Affair

It has been ages since I’ve written last time, it has been the most stressful month of my life so far. I had to spend four weeks wrapping up my life in Baku and being eager to leave didn’t help. As my friend Demet said, the first week you’ll recover from your holiday in Cyprus, the second and third you’ll get into the swing of things and the fourth one will fly by because you’d be getting ready to leave. The first two weeks went according to my friend’s prediction, but last two weeks were very stressful and only seeing my girlfriends, consuming lots of good wine and sharing lots of jokes and laughter (all of the above normally go hand-in-hand) kept me through those dreadful last weeks. Thank you, Janet, Marianne and Andrea!!! I will definitely remember the last days we spent in Baku together! Those were the days!

I was sad saying good bye to a few people, some of them stayed in Baku, some left a while ago, but I am grateful for all of you – Ayan, Leyla, both Saidas – you know who you are, and many other friends I’ve made at work – I will not embarrass each and every one of them here!

I had a proper send off, kept the job, thank heavens for that, as you all know your friend is not very happy when not working, so all is right with the world.

So the situation in the paradise is the following: moved into the new apartment overlooking the sea, in the town on Kyrenia, spare bedroom and bathroom, especially for friends who’d like to visit, a seven-minute walk to the supermarket and a good half hour walk to the harbor (the most charming harbor you’ll ever see!).

I did the walk this morning and it took me 2 hours both ways, but I did make a few stops - at the bakery that our friend runs downtown, and then at the harbor to admire the peaceful morning and observe how the sailors hurry to their ships and wake them up from the night’s slumber, merchants opening up their shops to invite the first visitors, fishermen putting their first bait on the hooks… The salty smell of the sea, the golden rays of sun, everything screams ‘Good morning! I am in love with you!’ And I say it back. Yes, I am in love, and this is the love affair I cannot hide – you have to come and see for yourselves!

Greetings from the island of love,

Your Tanka Lou

A day out in Kyrenia

One day I decided to take a break from the beach and to go to Kyrenia and explore the harbour and the castle.

The weather was 43C in the shadow, so staying in the castle with its thick walls and hardly any windows was a good choice. I did feel a bit freaked out being in the dungeons by myself, it seems like all of a sudden you are transferred to the medieval times. It was a Peace and Freedom Day in North Cyprus so all the buildings were nicely decorated, there was a parade of the military ships, which I could observe from the top of the castle.

My favourite part of the tour that day was a Shipwreck Museum. It is situated in the castle and you can see a 2300-year-old ship that was found about a mile away from Kyrenia in the 60’s. It is believed that the ship was 80 years old when it sank partially from old age and from a pirate attack. The lead tablet the pirates hammered to the side of the boat was supposed to evoke the black magic and their crime would never be discovered. Little did they know!

The ship carried over 400 wine amphorae and 9000 almonds that were perfectly preserved. Hmm, wine and almonds, those pirates knew what they were doing chasing after such a party boat!

I had lunch in the harbour and was slightly disappointed by the food I got, the mezes were meagre and pricey, I still enjoyed my lunch as you can’t beat the view and having my Kindle and just chilling by the sea side and watching the boats is great fun, but I wouldn’t recommend you to eat there. Later I found out that the harbour is not good for food, which is a shame as it is a fantastic spot, too bad they can’t bring the quality up and make the prices a bit lower.

Dinner was a whole different affair. We went to a restaurant highly recommended by Trip Advisor, called The Kyrenia Tavern. It is run by an older couple, in their 70’s and probably their son, (our guess). There is no menu, you show up, better if you book in advance, the place is highly favoured by the tourists, and then they bring out the mezes, main course and dessert. I had chicken casserole which was good and Yakup had lamb that was cooked for five hours in the oven and was very soft and mouth watering. The whole night was an interesting experience because you are at someone’s garden and it feels cosy and comfortable, and you get a taste of home-made Cypriot cooking. The couple that run the place are incredibly cute and it was a pleasure watching them work together. The host was dressed up in a nice shirt and a tie and he was the waiter. It was almost embarrassing to have an older person serve you food, but I guess this is their income, so we had to get used to it.

It was a delicious ending of the day in the beautiful Kyrenia and I can’t wait to discover more hidden gems of this medieval town.

Greetings from the Island of Love,

your Tanka Lou

Drinking in the Past

It takes my breath away every time I travel in Turkey or North Cyprus. Everywhere you look there is history, every stone you see has been stepped on by a famous foot at one century or another, every time you look at the olive trees you think of those who have benefited from the fruit of these Mediterranean beauties, the same trees that provide generously for the mezes (starters in Turkish cuisine) and olive oil for our kitchens, may have sheltered a prophet or a disciple.
Our car rumbled on the dirt road of Karpaz Peninsula in Cyprus, we were approaching St Andrew’s monastery. There were tourists roaming about, Christians who came to pay respects and pray to the Saint and those who just came to pick up some fresh water from the stream near the monastery.
We know from the New Testament that Andrew was a brother of Simon Peter and that they were both fishermen by trade. They became the followers of Jesus after he called them to be the fishers of men. In the gospel Andrew is referred to as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus, Eusebius of Caesarea, c. 263–339 AD, scholar and a historian quotes Origen as saying Andrew preached in Asia Minor and in Scythia, along the Black Sea as far as the Volga and Kyiv. Hence he became a patron Saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia.

In Kyiv there is a beautiful St Andrew’s Cathedral on top of the hill also named after the famous Saint. If you ever comet o Kyiv, the Cathedral should be definitely on the list of things to see.

The ancient monastery in Northern Cyprus is simple, there is no intricacy or pompousness of architecture of more modern churches. It is a very basic and rustic building, definitely beaten by time and in need of serious repairs and maintenance. The church is lovely, the icons are there and you can light candles and make a wish and pray for your loved ones. But it breaks your heart that it is not maintained as it should.

Crystal clear water is still streaming from the ground where St Andrew found it upon his arrival with the boat crew who were going blind from thirst. The story has it that Andrew prayed to God for water and beautiful crystal clear stream appeared from under the rocks. If you saw the scenery you’d be amazed at how in this extremely hot and arid land such beautiful stream could appear.

We partook from a stream along with other people and filled some water bottles to take home with us. The water tasted sweet and it made us feel connected to the days bygone but still not forgotten.



Greetings from the Island of Love,

Your Tanka Lou

At Land’s End

North Cyprus is amazing in many ways – stunning views make you speechless, ancient buildings leave you in awe before thousands of years of history. It makes you realize how we are all interconnected in this world.

Last weekend was great, we went to Karpaz, which is where the land ends and after that there is only the sea… It is mind-boggling for those who grew up on the continent that the land can ever finish.

We stayed the night at the Malibu hotel by the sea and at 6:30 the next morning we were walking on the beach and had a good 1.5-hour swim before breakfast. The water was pleasant and the sun was gentle. After breakfast we headed to Dipkarpaz nature reserve, where we saw many wild donkeys wondering in the vast fields or resting under the silver-leaved olive trees.

As we drove along the coast, as far as you looked there were kilometers of white sandy beaches, changing into precipices with white foamy waves licking the rocks. On the other side of the road - olive gardens and golden fields, framed by intense blue of the skies completed the view. Breathtaking!

We ended up spending most of our time on the Golden Beach, there were nice waves so we enjoyed riding them for a few hours. I’ve enjoyed the sun and the sea a bit too much – ended up getting a sun burn. But there is nothing that plain Turkish yoghurt can’t cure! If you apply it to the burnt areas, in my case was at least 50% of the body, you’ll find it absorbs fast and helps to relieve the burning.

A visit to St Andrew’s monastery was another highlight of the trip, but I will keep the juicy details for the next post.

Greetings from the Island of Love,

Your Tanka Lou

Intoxicating hospitality

I have started coming to Turkey in 2003 and since the day I set foot on the Turkish soil I knew I was in for it for good. They captivate you with their warm welcome, with their amazing food and their enveloping kindness. They entice you with their warm smiles and easy-going attitude; you never want to leave that place. They create this comfort zone for you and make you feel all warm and fuzzy. What is it? I have no idea, but whenever the plane touches down in Turkey or now in North Cyprus too I feel I am coming home.
So I came to Cyprus for the first time, keeping in mind my experience in Turkey and I was not mistaken – the Cypriots turned out to be as nice and friendly as the Turks. I am a nightmare of a map reader, and even that doesn’t describe the absence of any sense of direction on my part. Since my husband works six days a week, I have to get out into the wild Cypriot world on my own, so I took a bus from Nicosia to Kyrenia and from there to the beach.
As I climbed in on the bus I was eager to pay the driver, to what he said ‘no problem, you can pay later’ in English. As I sat down nervously, clinging on to my beach bag as if looking for some comfort, the bus driver invited me to sit closer to him, which I politely declined. I knew I had to get off at the last stop, but I had no idea what it would look like. After that I’d have to walk around the corner and take another bus to the beach.
As we approached the final stop, everyone was getting off the bus and I was just sitting there, waiting to see some bus station, so the driver asked me where I was going next and instead of letting me walk around the corner he just drove me there.
I was very impressed by this simple act of kindness, as it is hard to imagine a bus driver driving an extra meter for you in Ukraine, let alone if he needs to get off his course. But surprises didn’t end there. I got on another bus to take me to the beach, a bit more relaxed now, still hanging on to my straw beach bag (but not so desperately now, I made it to point B after all), and again, the bus driver instead of just dropping me off on the highway, where I’d just need to walk 100 meters to the beach, he drove me all the way there. I know it doesn’t take much to drive those extra few hundred meters, but yet I have never experienced that kind of treatment anywhere in the world.
On my journey back to Baku via Istanbul airport as I enjoyed a vanilla frapuccino at my beloved Starbucks, I had a few hours to kill, so I got thirsty and wanted to buy a bottle of water for 2.5 TL, which is a bit more than 1 Euro. I had Euro coins which they wouldn’t accept, and I only had 1 TL. Other option was credit card. After I got all my change out of the wallet, the guy at the counter took 1 TL from my hand and told me to take the water. Again I tried to persuade him to take the 2 Euro coin from me, but he said they weren’t allowed to take foreign coins, just paper money. So he gave me the water for less than half the price and it wasn’t some market stand, it was in a cafe. Again flabbergasted and all welled up inside from this simple but yet incredible expression of kindness on Turks’ side – I looked for a tip box, there was none, I looked for a donation box, again no luck. When it was time to go I came to the counter and wished them in Turkish an easy day of work ‘Kolay gelsin’ and thanked them again. I am flying via Istanbul again next Friday, no doubt, I will be at Starbucks, but all the credit goes to the overwhelming benevolence of the Turkish people.

Greetings from the Island of Love,

Tanka Lou

The first arrival

The first arrival at Ercan airport was a very long-awaited event for me as I haven't seen my husband for 2.5 months, so I hardly paid attention to the things around me. But we did make it for dinner to the Kyrenia Harbor under the stars by the sea. Kyrenia Castle walls looked a lot more impressive than I had imagined them. Day one was better than I thought it would be.

I've spent only 3 days on the island and my feelings were gradually changing from being mixed and nervous to being relaxed and open to everything new around me. I must admit I was a bit disappointed at first because there wasn't that 'wow' feeling like I had when I first arrived in Kemer, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, but I should know better and stop comparing places.

On Monday I ventured out from our apartment in Nicosia to the beach in Kyrenia on my own. I had to change a bus in Kyrenia and go another 10 mins by 'dolmush' to the beach. Dolmush is a Turkish version of marshrutka, or a mini bus that travels quickly between the towns. Dolmush literally means to be stuffed with something, but in reality there are no standing places in the dolmushes, so it is all civilized.

The driver spoke excellent English and in general people were very friendly. You don't expect to see a bus full of local people and tourists happily chatting and listening to each other's stories. We had a Greek, British, Italian, Cypriot, Turkish and humble me, the Ukrainian on the same bus.

I tell you a few conclusions I came to that day -

1) don't be afraid to venture out into the unknown;

2) regular people don't have a problem with each other - politicians do;

3)screw all the politics and be ready to go out in the world and listen to people's stories.

Greetings from the Island of Love,

your Tanka Lou