Day three! Day three! Today we had some more company visits in the morning. We took an hour and a half bus to Limassol, a coastal city, to visit some shipping ports. I took a very nice nap on the bus ride over there, along with many other people. The bus rides have been surprisingly quiet, probably because everyone is sleeping, haha!
We met with two companies today: DP World and Eurogate. These two companies serve similar purposes. They both run and manage shipping products at the ports in Limassol. These companies took over the port that was originally run by the Cyprian government in 2017. I am not sure why, but the government decided to privatize the ports for the next twenty five years with an optional twelve year extension after that. While I find that interesting and think it would probably make things more efficient, I do not understand the point in essentially renting the ports out for these few years without completely privatizing them forever. If the point of privatization was to better things, would turning things back over to the government in a few years put things back to the way they were before? I am not sure. I thought the content of these meetings were very interesting, though.
After we had these meetings, company officials took us on tours of the ports where we could see the shipping containers and the large cranes. I would upload a picture if my phone would sync, but alas, it will not. But these cranes were massive. The sheer size was very hard to comprehend because I am not used to seeing things that big. I thought it was also interesting how the shipping containers were universally sized. Finally, something that the world can agree on! They looked straight out of a shipping port movie scene where the main actor is trying to find something hidden.
We ate lunch at the Limassol Marina. I was a little disappointed though, because they gave us American food. Its ok, though, because I had some good Greek lamb kebabs for dinner. Food is my favorite way to explore different cultures so I am glad I got one experience for the day. I am also pleasantly surprised at how cheap the food is here. I feel like if I got the dinner dish I had, it would be around 20 dollars, but I got it for 11.80 euros.
We explored the Limassol castle as well. It was so interesting to see how after all of these hundreds of years of switching between control of different empires, there are still standing structures. There were bones discovered, carvings left after all of these years, cannons and cannonballs, stairways, etc. It was just so cool to see everything still standing. I love cool castles, even small ones.
After the castle, we had some free time so me and some friends explored the marina a little more. We walked around a bunch of little shops, went to the end of the pier, and watched the water. One thing that stands out to me about Cyprus is the sheer amount of stray cats that are here. Truly, you see cats everywhere. All different shapes, colors, and sizes of cats roaming around outdoor seating of restaurants, the pier, near the castle, around important buildings. Literally everywhere. We asked out tour guide the other night about this, and apparently, according to legend, they were brought in by Saint Helen to try and get rid of snakes on the island. Apparently there are still snakes and now they have a very large population of cats. I guess her plan did not work. Makes for some interesting cat watching, though!