Today we had the opportunity to go to the university of Nicosia and attend a few lectures for the day. The first lecture was essentially a crash course on Cyprus history from Dr. Solomon. He talked a lot about the different countries and occupants Cyprus had over time but one of the main occupants was the British. Following the rule of the ottoman empire, Britain came to Cyprus in 1878 and took control until Cyprus gained its independence in 1960. But even after Cyprus gained their independence they were still forced to follow a constitution made by the Brits that had some strange requirements. For example, The first president of Cyprus was a Greek Cypriot and the vice president was a Turkish Cypriot. This was not a coincidence it was made a requirement in the constitution.

Aside from learning about the history of what different countries ruled Cyprus at what time, We also got a chance to learn about how conflicts like this tie back to modern conflicts. Dr. Solomon did an amazing job at relating this to modern conflicts like Russia and Ukraine for example. He explained that certain countries like America tend to aid one side while they actually aren’t. It was also interesting to hear his perspective on the division of Cyprus even if it was his own opinion it’s still valuable considering he lives here.

The next lecture we had was learning about the Greek language. It was very interesting to me because I’ve never really learned about any language other than Spanish in high school. We learned mostly basic words like how to greet people or counting which could be helpful when speeking to locals here. It can also help when trying to understand people because most of the time when I hear Cypriots talking in Greek I have no clue what they are saying. One of the words we learned was “Kalimera” which is a way to greet people at any time before about noon which could be very useful to use. I also found it interesting that instead of question marks they use semicolons which makes me wonder what they use question marks for.