Thursday was an unexpectedly fun day, and we learned a ton. After a long bus ride to Nicosia (which I slept through), we started our day with a tour and presentation at the Wargaming headquarters. Though only thirteen stories high, this building shot out amongst the landscape of surrounding buildings, and we learned that it was the tallest building in Cyprus until recently, which we found funny as there are dorm buildings at Pitt that are taller. The building was beautiful, and with the focus on their fitness classes and view from the top floor. Honestly after learning about their company I wish I was good at programming because it seems like an awesome job. During the presentation, I was interested by their global presence and their ability to maintain this with a free-to-play structure. I’m very interested in intellectual property and was intrigued by how they maintain legal protections across all the countries they operate in as the different legal structures make this difficult and impressive.
After our time at wargaming, we went back to the University of Nicosia and got to collaborate with their students on some projects. The mechanical engineering professor running the first class gave an overview on transportation emissions, where we discussed shipping as the most eco-friendly mode of transportation and planes as the least. Then, we split into our pre-departure groups and each group was joined by a UNIC student to calculate an estimate of our emissions in traveling to Cyprus. The number was so high and it’s crazy to think how there’s no real way around it.
We then went to a class on teamwork and cooperation and were paired in small groups with students from UNIC for teamwork activities. Not to brag, but my group won the wilderness survival game and we were pretty excited to share the celebratory cookies. The collaboration was unique due to the language and cultural differences, so it was interesting to observe the friendships forming throughout the room. I noticed that UNIC seems to be comprised of mainly international students as I didn’t meet anyone from Cyprus, and I think it’s really cool how they all come together at one university.
That night we did a walking tour of Nicosia and then were on our own for dinner and free time. A little group of us stumbled upon this one restaurant whose menu was entirely in Greek so we thought it had to be good. It turned out to be probably my favorite meal of the trip so far, and if we didn’t have a bus back to Limassol to catch, we probably would’ve stayed to hangout all night! Not only was my meal delicious (I ordered the shrimp pasta and split tahini dip with the other girls), but the atmosphere and service was exceptional. While the owner was not our server, he made the effort to personally greet and check in on us, eager to learn about American culture. He even showed us to a wall of pictures of people that dined there to prove that Bill Clinton (he knew him only as the one with Monica Lewinsky, which I found hilarious) ate there during his time in Cyprus. Unfortunately, we were in a rush to leave, but he wanted to take a picture with us to hang that we had to politely decline. Today was such a great day that I can’t help but wonder what life as a fulltime UNIC student would look like!
