Today was our first morning in Nicosia. I got up and got ready for the day and we were off to visit The University of Nicosia or UNIC. UNIC is our partner university for this program and we’ve heard a lot about it so there was a lot of anticipation to visit this university for the first time.

When we arrived we walked into a classroom in the main building of the university. Soon after our lecture began and we would be learning a brief, but detailed history of Cyprus from a professor at the university Emilios Solomou. He began to break down the history of Cyprus and its extensive changes in ownership through the years. He talked to us about the British taking over Cyprus which happened between 1878 and 1960. In 1878 the United Kingdom received Cyprus as a protectorate. They received the land in exchange to give the Ottomans military support if the Russians tried to take Ottoman territory. Despite the British ruling over Cyprus, many Cypriots believed in enosis a term for a unification with Greece. In 1931 many Cypriots rioted against the British and eventually ending in the British governors house being burned down as a result of this extensive rioting and fighting in Cyprus. After years and years of protests Cypriots wanted their own independence from Britain and on August 16th, 1960 Cyprus gained its own independence thanks to many different political and religious groups and especially Makarios III a key leader in Cyprus’ independence and eventual first president of Cyprus. Learning about Britains history and control over Cyprus was super interesting and Dr Solomou provided us with an interesting and engaging lecture that was easy to listen to.

As mentioned above, Dr Solomou was clearly an experienced and throughout lecturer. He provided us all with so much information in such a small time frame. It was really interesting to learn the amount of places that have owned / occupied Cyprus throughout the years. It’s no mistake either, Cyprus’ position and island scenery in general is amazing. I’ve gotten to experience this island for the last week + and I understand exactly why so many nations have sought after Cyprus through this time. The lecture was not perfect, however, I think an increase in the quality of the slides could’ve connected and engaged me more with the material and I didn’t like that the end of the lecture were the only times pictures were included. While I thought his use of pictures in the end were amazing the problem is I wished he combined his lecture with pictures throughout and not a part with only text and minimal slides and one part with exclusively pictures. Other than that this lecture was super beneficial and I genuinely enjoyed listening to Dr. Solomou today. After this lecture we went and got coffee / drinks, a gift from Pitt, I got a mint lemonade and it was one of my favorite drinks I’ve had in Cyprus. The mint flavor really popped and I really enjoyed it. We headed back to the classroom for our second and final lecture of the day.

Our second lecture was a Greek language lecture. Our professor from the start was a very energetic and knowledgeable lady. I could tell from the beginning that she actively was excited for us to be there and she was really engaged and dedicated on helping us learn just a bit of Greek today. She began the lecture talking to us about Greek as a language. We learned about accentuating certain parts of words and we talked about other languages and how they relate and differ from Greek. She was very experienced and spoke 4 and 1/2 different languages. She then began to teach us simple phrases in Greek, nothing too advanced so the pacing was just right. She would say the word and its meaning and then incorporate us into the lecture by trying out these phrases with us. We learned things like Hello, Yes, No, how are you, and the alphabet up to 24. My favorite phrase we learned today, or at least the most useful was “how much” with was “poso” I think this is a phrase I can use when shopping here my last couple of days in Cyprus. I would like to try and integrate with the culture more while I’m still here so even this basic lecture on language was a huge help towards escalating my interactions with the locals. This lecture was so engaging and I loved the lecturer. She was super fun to listen to and I found myself ecstatic the whole time.

After these lectures we got some free time to walk around and check out UNIC and a complementary lunch which was much better than the eatery at Pitt. So in that sense I definitely have a positive view on UNIC.

Thanks for listening as always.

-Will