Today started with an abrupt start, as after a long and busy day yesterday, I had slept through my alarm and woke up with about 20 minutes to get ready.
After speeding to get out the door, I was finally on the bus and on the way to Wargaming. Once we got there I was super impressed with the building. It stuck out of the skyline of Nicosia, being the 2nd tallest building in the city.
Once inside the building, I immediately knew an office is like this is somewhere that I would love to work. Not only was it modern and had the amazing views of Nicosia, it was equipped with not only a gym, but a spa, and fitness classroom. Additional to this, the company offered free workout classes, affordable personal training, and many different clubs for its employees to partake in.
This was part of the companies plan to create more of a work life balance, or in the words the representative on the tour gave “work-life harmony”. Seeing this type of commitment to employee needs interesting and something that I feel is seen on a smaller scale in the US. In ways however, a work culture like the on at Wargaming, that is tight knit caters to the employee, reminded me of my moms office at home. Seeing a similar culture abroad was interesting to me because I had no expectation of how work culture would be here, and seeing it be somewhat similar to the US in certain aspects was interesting to get to see.
After a presentation and q&a at Wargaming, we headed to UNIC to participate in some lectures and group work. I loved this opportunity to be able to talk with the students who attend the University and get some of their views on the island. It was also interesting because every student I was in a group with was not originally from Cyprus, which added a deeper level of insight in that in some ways they were also technically foreign to the country. It was interesting to hear they compare Cyprus to their home country and why they chose to come to the university. I also really enjoyed learning from the professors, and it was just another reminder that education truly is universal and if someone has a passion for teaching, that will show no matter the place in the world.
Finally after a long day of learning, we headed to Nicosia old town to take a walking tour and have some dinner. The most interesting part of the tour to me was seeing the division between the Turkish and Greek sides. Being the last divided city, I was curious to see what this division looked like. To see it was just plastic barrels and barbed wire was surreal. Another thing that struck me was that the national guard they had placed there were kids not too much older than us. It was definitely an odd feeling seeing the divide and you could definitely the tension there more than anywhere else when it comes to the divide. One of the restaurants was even called “Berlin 2” which struck me, since it shows locals attitudes toward the divide.
After a long day, we headed back to the hotel.
Even though today was probably our longest day yet, I think it was one of the most informative. I cant wait to see what tomorrow brings!