A Quick Hop Over to Adana in pictures

A Quick Hop Over to Adana

The beauty of living on the island is being able to go to the big land, i.e. the Continent. We took the shuttle from downtown Kyrenia and in an hour we were at the Ercan airport. A few cappuccinos later we boarded the plane which stayed in the air for the whole 15 minutes, after what it descended to the welcoming land of Turkey.
After being on the island for six months coming to Turkey was somewhat different. As much as I adore Cyprus, the magnitude of things in Turkey and by that I mean not only in economical terms but also nature – the mountains, the sea, the trees – everything is bigger in Turkey. I think yours truly really missed the second motherland. Oh, it was so good to step on the red Turkish soil again.

People in Adana are very welcoming, they are so warm and loving that it is hard to make any comparisons. Most Turks are very hospitable, but in Adana it’s like everyone has a PHD in hospitality.

Yakup’s mom made such amazing food that just looking at how she was preparing it made your mouth water. The hit of the trip for me food-wise was dolma made with dried vegetables. Dolma means ‘stuffed’ in Turkish and it is a very popular dish, in summer they use fresh vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, egg-plant, zucchini, etc. and stuff them with rice, spices and meat but in winter they use the dried vegetables for dolma. I tell you - the dried version tastes a lot better than the fresh!

Meeting some new friends was wonderful too, we had a fantastic night out with Ismail and Aziz, Yakup’s good old friends and I was lucky to be able to meet them too. We were treated to a fantastic night of live music, performed by our friend Aziz, and a wonderful time drinking rakı (Turkish anis-flavored vodka) and talking about life. The table was full of delicious food in Adana style with fruit being served for dessert. The persimmon with honey and walnuts was a new taste for me, yes, we ordered a few of those!

On Sunday we went to the mountains. Yakup’s lovely brother Ayhan wanted me to see the snow, since there is no snow in Cyprus and he thought I’d miss it, so we headed up north for a day trip. It was good to spend some quality time with mom as well, as she is always busy around the house, it was a treat to have her to ourselves for the day. We had another fantastic meal by the lake on the mountain with a cat chorus and ducks competing over the scraps from the table.

Good-byes are always hard, but we made them all promise that they’d be visiting us soon in the beautiful Kyrenia.

Greetings from the Island of Love,

your TL

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