While 9 hours in London’s Heathrow airport might sound excruciating, the time flew as my travel mates and I got to know each other. We spent our time exploring the expansive international terminal as well as discussing fun icebreakers, like “What kind of fish are you?” For me the peak of this layover was the hour we spent playing house-rules Uno. Overall, the trip was quite uneventful and was the smoothest international travel days I’ve experienced.

After about 4 hours of sleep, we were up and moving again for an orientation and cooking demo at the University of Nicosia (UNIC). After an amazing pancake breakfast at the hotel (seen in the left image below), we loaded the bus and headed to the UNIC main campus for the rest of the morning. In our orientation we covered a brief history of Cyprus and there is such a deep story to this country. Tomorrow we are attending a UNIC professor’s history lecture, and I look forward to learning more. Following our introduction to Cyprus we went to a presentation on traditional Cypriot food. After the presentation there was a cooking demo and we able to sample a variety of Cypriot dishes in a meze style lunch. Some of these dishes are pictured below. In the middle there is macaroni with grated halloumi, falafel, and a grilled halloumi pita. Halloumi is a traditional cheese from Cyprus and is popular in many dishes. On the right you can see some common desserts in the country of Cyprus including candied orange peel, halouvas, cherries in syrup, and raisins. Although I am very low on sleep, I have had a great time so far today and am excited for our walking tour of Nicosia this evening.