Today, we toured the city Nicosia. In the morning after a breakfast at the hotel, we did a tour of the newer part of Nicosia. It was interesting to see how the new city compared to the old city, in which our hotel is located and which I still had not explored. It was also very hot, which when combined with sleep deprivation from being in a new time zone makes any experience worse, but I got through it. The city was very different from many American cities. There was a sense of calm which might have been because we were touring on a Monday morning. It also seemed much cleaner than some American cities. After the tour concluded, we had some free time to explore the city and find lunch. My group and I found a little Greek restaurant on the main street of the Old City. Each meal cost around 10 euro, but for the amount of food they gave us, it should have been more.

It was then off to the University of Nicosia for a very short orientation. The campus, or at least the parts of it I saw, was very beautiful. On our way to a pharmacy to get Covid tests for tomorrow’s company tour, we stopped in a mall (which was way nicer than the mall closest to my house) and allowed to go into the supermarket for a few minutes because we were close to the pharmacy and 15 minutes early. I went in there not wanting to buy anything, but rather just check things out and see how the products are different. Honestly, I feel like it was very similar to an American grocery store, but just with different companies making the food.

Lastly in the day was our tour of the Old City and our welcome dinner. The architecture in the Old City was very different from the New City in that it felt older and somewhat like it was straight from a historical movie. It was also weird seeing the barrier wall that bisects the capital between the Greek and Turkish parts. I can’t put my finger on why I found it weird though. There was also this sculpture of a train car attached to the top of a building we stopped for that had a lot of UN resolutions saying that Turkey should stop invading Cyprus on the bottom of the sculpture. I found that interesting. After the tour, we ate dinner. It was a sampling of Cypriot cuisine, with lots of little plates featuring lots of different foods, many which I don’t have a name for. There were meatballs and cooked peppers and kebabs and cheese balls that were sort of like mozzarella sticks to a desert that was just cold marmalade over some Greek yogurt. All of it was very delicious and I can’t wait to eat these things for the rest of the trip. I also pet multiple cats (who were trying to use us to get food) during the meal as well. I cannot wait until tomorrow.