Our day started bright and early with a 7:30am breakfast and then we were on the road to Nicosia to start our educational journey. When we arrived, I was immediately struck by how nice the campus was despite being so small. It felt incredibly welcoming and modern, and I really liked how open the outdoor spaces felt. When walking past The Block, their dining hall, I couldn’t help but compare it’s modern interior to the dingy basement feeling of The Eatery. Beyond the architectural and design differences, I also noticed that students at the University of Nicosia dress much more nicely for classes than American students do. This seems to be a common theme as we experience life here in Cyprus.
After a brief orientation, we started our first of two lectures for the day, the history of Cyprus. Going into this trip, I knew very little about Cyprus and it’s vast history. I was fascinated by how it’s been ruled by basically every major empire at some point in time and only recently gained independence. Given it’s spot at the center of three continents, it makes sense that it would be so sought after. As a big fan of architecture, I loved seeing the influences every culture has had, creating a really unique space where many buildings are in different distinctive styles. Furthermore, the history with the Turkish invasion and occupation of the island was very interesting as I didn’t realize there was such tension between the north and south. I specifically found it interesting that they repeatedly told us that stereotypes are no longer and stressed for us to respect both times, as every local i’ve interacted with seems to hold hostility for the Turkish side, not even recognizing it as it’s own republic. I wish we had the opportunity to hear the perspective of a Turkish Cypriot so that we could make an unbiased opinion on the matter.
After our history lecture and a break for lunch (The Block is much better than The Eatery in terms of food, not just atmosphere), we returned to the classroom for a crash course in greek language. I loved how our teacher made an effort to make the language very accessible to us, stressing that locals would appreciate us even making an attempt to speak it and we don’t need to be perfect. After learning some useful phrases and the numbers so that we could count off our roll-call numbers in greek, she taught us some of her favorite words. Among these was οικογένεια or eekoyenneea using the english alphabet, meaning family. This word struck me not just because of the beautiful pronunciation, but because I can feel it becoming a theme of the trip. During our orientation we were told we are now members of the UNIC family, despite our short time here. Later, when our group reconvened after dinner to hangout on the roof, we were all really bonding and beginning to form our own little Plus3 Cyprus family, bringing the word to mind again. I can’t wait to see how this theme progresses throughout the rest of the trip.
