Wow, this weekend was fun! I was so happy to finally have casual days with no business meetings where we could just explore the culture and history of Cyprus.

We started Saturday with a sort of bus tour. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t awake for all of it, but I really tried to be. I was just so impressed by how much history our tour guide knew. I don’t know how she keeps it all in her head. Our first stop was the ancient city of Kourion. All of the stories were so fascinating. I didn’t realize that Cyprus had a history of earthquakes but our tour guide talked about some pretty grave ones. My favorite part of Kourion was the house. I loved that the owner built it to help the citizens of Kourion by providing them with a nice place to bathe. The bathing ritual was so cool. You started by washing your feet then taking a cold shower. While you waited between rooms, you could play a game like checkers in the main area. After the cold shower you go into a hot sauna. After that, you take a hot bath followed by a cold shower. I feel like this would be the most cleansing bath routine ever; I really want to experience it. The routine was impressive, but all of the engineering involved in constructing the house was amazing.

Next, we went to Aphrodite’s Rock which was obviously absolutely gorgeous. The climb up was a little hard but at least I had tennis shoes on instead of my sandals like the mountain. I literally did not want to leave.

We then went to the Tomb of the Kings which was pretty incredible. It was so large and intricate. It’s impressive that they dug the tomb out of the ground instead of building it up.

Then we had lunch with a live pelican. What?!

After lunch we explored the mosaics which were beautiful. They looked like carpets. I was so shocked by how much could be conveyed in just a mosaic. There were whole stories and histories packed into the tiles. The craftsmanship was ridiculously impressive. It was interesting to hear about the fact that there was a Greek Romeo and Juliet that inspired Shakespeare’s story and that just about every story had a tragic ending. I also didn’t know anything about the symbolism of cupid in that if he’s carrying something upwards it means good fortune and if he carries something downwards it means tragedy. It was also interesting to learn that the Romans had a different style of mosaic than the Greeks. The Roman style used carefully cut tiles while the Greeks used pebbles.

On to the next day! We woke up for sunrise but were thoroughly disappointed that we couldn’t see anything because the sun rises opposite the beach and water and also because there were a ton of clouds. Then we walked back to the hotel and went back to bed. After waking up for the day, we went to the wonderful beach and enjoyed the great weather and freezing water. It was so relaxing, I didn’t want to leave.

We came back to Nicosia 🙁 and immediately tried to go to the football match at GSP stadium. Let me just tell you it was a whirlwind of disappointment. We taxied to the stadium because it was 4 miles away. We tried to buy tickets and couldn’t because they have a really convoluted system with fan cards where basically you need to be a Cypriot to get in. Fan cards were put in place to regulate football violence but it still made us really sad we couldn’t get in. We even tried to convince a security guard to let us in but it didn’t work. We heard a goal though!!! It sounded like a super fun and enthusiastic crowd. I really wish we could’ve seen it. When we came back Natasha and I immediately got two crepes each to eat away our sorrows and the workers thought we were crazy for ordering two each and honestly, they were right.

Now to begin the next 4 days of adventure after our fun and relaxing break of a weekend.