Today was our first visit to the University of Nicosia, and we attended some excellent lectures by the faculty of UNIC. The first one was on the history of Cyprus by Dr. Solomou. While Cyprus has a long, ancient history, its most recent events revolve around its independence from Britain. From 1878 to 1960, Cyprus was ruled by Britain. This came after a prolonged period of rule by the Ottoman Empire, and started to crumble with independence movements in the 1900s, such as the burning of the British Governor’s house. We were later able to take our learning to the street, where our guide Dimitria pointed out architectural elements of Ottoman-era buildings (such as closed balconies and high windows), and their counterparts under British rule (open balconies, ground-floor level windows). This was because under Ottoman rule, peasants did not have many rights. They hid from patrols by building encased balconies and avoiding ground floor windows. Under British rule, this changed, and is evidenced in the architectural styles.

I thought Dr. Solomou’s lecture on the history of Cyprus was very interesting. There is so much more history to be learned than our own U.S. history, as Cyprus has been trading hands since its first real rulers, the Egyptians, in 2500 BC. There is a lot to keep track of, and I am impressed by Cypriot students who learn it all in certainly much more detail. However, this all got me wondering with who Cypriots most identify. The sentiment here is clearly in favor of the Greeks: Greek flags can be seen side by side with Cypriot flags. But, I wonder if anyone would still identify as British, Ottoman, or Venetian even.

Our second lecture of the day was on the Greek language. It was good to learn the basics of Greek, and I wish we had this lecture on the first day. We learned many useful phrases, such as how to introduce ourselves, ask basic questions at stores, order food, and to count. While I knew many of the symbols in the Greek alphabet from math classes, it was useful to learn to put them together and pronounce them in words and sentences. A phrase I learned, which I would very much like to try, is “Theo enan kafe cryo, parkalao,” which means “I would like an iced coffee, please.”