Waking up in Cyprus was so surreal. I can’t believe that I’m actually here. We started the day with an amazing breakfast. Everything was so fresh and tasted so good. From there we went to the University of Nicosia. We had an orientation and a history of Cyprus lesson. Both lecturers were great. It was very informative. It’s interesting because for the recent history it started in the 1500s and that’s longer than the United States history. Cyprus has thousands of years of very active history. The country that had control of Cyprus has changed so many times. 

We then went to the dining hall on campus. It was so nice. It was very different than the dining hall at Pitt. The food styles and how it is served is very different. The seating was also very not similar. The seating at the University of Nicosia was very spaced out and there were many different types of tables and chairs. There was also a lot of outdoor sitting.

After this we had an intro to Greek crash course. We learned all the basic phrases that would be useful to use and we learned numbers up to 24. There are 24 of us and we each got assigned a number to count off. We now do it in Greek. Greek is very different than English. It has a completely different alphabet and the pronunciation is different. 

Something that’s a little weird but is a huge culture shock is that you are not allowed to flush toilet paper here. The bathrooms here are a lot cleaner and nicer in general. 

When we arrived back in Limassol we went on a walking tour. We learned about all the different buildings around the city and the city’s history. The history is really interesting. The country has gotten taken over many times and it can be seen through the buildings. There were also cats everywhere.

After the tour we had a group dinner at a nice restaurant. We had a lot of Greek food and it was really good. It is a lot different from American cuisine. There were some similarities but the cuisine in the restaurant had more seasonings. At dinner there was a cat that walked around and under the table a couple of times.