Day 8 began with us visiting the University of Nicosia for the first time. We attended two presentations today. The first was given by Dr. Solomon and he gave us an overview of Cyprus’s long history. One main topic he explained to us was the British occupation of Cyprus between 1878 and 1960. The British took over Cyprus after they had been occupied by the Ottomans for nearly 300 years. Cyprus has a very important location that was always very valuable to major powers. The Cypriots first welcomed the British with open arms because they were hoping they would eventually gain democracy and potentially independence from Britain, but instead were hit with high taxes and they were not allowed any opinion on what happen to the island. All of the decisions related to the island took place in England so the Cypriots felt like they had no power or rights. Dr. Solomon also explained that many Cypriots were peasants at the time and a task for woman was to go and collect water. We also had a walking tour today which Dimitra showed us some restored buildings from when British ruled Cyprus. She showed us the water pipes they installed in the city for easy access to water since it was always so hot. I found the walking tour very helpful to relate what we learned today in the classroom to the actual buildings and ruins of Cyprus’s history.

I found the presentation that Dr. Solomon gave us was very engaging and interesting. I think he did a great job presenting the information in an easy to understand manner. It also was interesting when he would relate topics from ancient times to current conflicts especially to do with politics in America. He presented us with material from 7400 B.C to modern day and was able to do it quickly but not make the presentation feel rushed. I did not realize how many different nations had ruled Cyprus before and it was very interesting when he showed us different ways that each time period influenced the architecture of the country. It was really cool to see him present different landmarks on the island that we had already visited last week because I felt like I had some prior knowledge that I could expand on.

The second presentation we attended today was a crash course on Greek. We learned that Cypriot Greek is not the same as modern day Greek, but is instead very similar to ancient Greek. Ancient Greek is actually the longest of any Indo-European language that has been documented. It goes back to at least 3400 years ago from written artifacts that have been discovered. After learning about how the language of Greek has played a role in history, we were taught a variety of different phrases. The most versatile phrase is “yia sus”. One way that it can be uses is as a greeting to multiple people or in a formal way if someone was unfamiliar with another person. On our tour of the city of Nicosia tonight, Dimitra explained that “yia sus” actually means anything and can be used in a wide variety of contexts. She said it can be used for almost anything like saying “Hi”, “Good morning”, “Good Afternoon”, etc. I actually found this very interesting because it is very similar to the Hawaiian word “Aloha” which can also be used for almost any form of a greeting. I found it really fascinating that even after only taking a one hour class on Greek phases that I already saw them being used.