A look at Cyprus, the divided island

Cody: We should move to Cyprus.
Daddy: Why?
Cody: Well they've got all these ruins to climb on and these geckos. I just love these geckos so much, they are so cute!
Daddy: It is settled. We move here.

Roman ruins, just lyin' around!

Where is Cyprus? See map: It lies off the coast of Syria basically but otherwise smack in middle of the Med. Historical crossroads location ensures tons of ancient ruins and settlement evidence from everybody on back to the Stone Age. Figured prominently in the Crusades. Recent history features the partition of the island into two parts (Turks in the north, Greeks in South) as a result of a Turkish armed invasion in 1974. UN armistice line separates the two factions.

The Greek side of the island is more developed: car rental agencies, hotel chains, air conditioning. Turkish side lacks much of the infrastructure of globalization, but as a result is much more authentic and apparently feels like a bit of a time capsule. We don't know, we were not able to cross the DMZ on this trip. You can't take your rental car across the border area into the Turkish side for one.

Cyprus has a gem of an abandoned/lost places location AND is an example of one of the few remaining divided cities in the world. The "lost place" is a resort area called Varosha on the Turkish side. It was a gleaming beachfront in the 1960's, frequented by the Richard Burton and Liz Taylor jet set, but fell on the wrong side of the armistice line after hostilities ended. Tourism and travel to the island immediately crashed and many of the city's inhabitants and business owners were Greek and fled south. Varosha was closed off by the Turkish military and forgotten. 

The beach at Varosha. The entire place is a laboratory for urban decay, and if you go into explore the Turks will try to shoot you. There are some interesting drone vids of the place though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXGOb2drpJo

While Varosha is the biggest "Lost Place" on the island, you also have a UN-administered Buffer Zone that splits the island, and the capital of Nicosia, right in two. The UNFICYP (UN Peacekeeping Forces in Cyprus) will take you on a walk into the no-man's land between the two sides to see scenes of urban ghostliness: brand new cars still sitting in showrooms and unwashed dishes in sinks left when the inhabitants fled suddenly. The Nicosia Int'l Airport also sits right in the middle of the zone, which yields additional crazy images (below).

The UNFICYP website offers an ill-defined application process that gives no guarantee they will agree to escorting you in there, but I find the thought fascinating and worth pursuing.

Waiting lounge, Nicosia Airport

Passenger jet in the wrong place at the wrong time in 1974.

Top of the line showroom models, zero miles, just a small bit of dust...

"You're not going back to Cyprus," an agency friend from America told me, scoffing blatantly at my pronouncement of a return trip to see more. "Who on earth actually returns to Cyprus!" It is true, when you live over an ocean in North America, Cyprus is the kind of place you would barely consider visiting even once. But living over here strange things become possible. Bulgaria is another example of a place you don't think about getting to, yet last year I was there twice, so who knows what can happen.

Our trip to Cyprus was booked on a whim during a February evening after the kids went to bed. Cassandra suddenly realized we had no upcoming plane reservations. A quick visit to Easyjet's website found us some cheap roundtrip fares (60 Euro) heading out on a Thursday and coming back Saturday night. We would fly into Paphos, a resort area on the southwest side of the island. We booked a hotel and had the guidebook from Amazon two days later to start figuring out what there is to do. I feel lucky that this sort of thing happens often, although it is quite bad for our carbon footprint.

The day of the trip we arose early and Jasper threw up in the cab on the way to the airport. Then threw up on the airplane multiple times. Then later on some more, although by that time it was just dry heaves since there was nothing left in him. So a slow start to the trip, and it also meant that some of the drives we'd planned were now off the table. Miraculously, he did not shut down and implode while being sick and getting carted about the Mediterranean by his schizo parents.

Hotel view.

Paphos Castle, originally a Byzantine Fort, then upgraded by the Venetians and used variously as a prison and warehouse.

View from the top, with Jasper barely holding on.. Poor Guy!

The kid truly demonstrated amazing constitution, pushing through this. 

Lunch at a nearby cafe. We are quite militant about sun protection.

A great family vacation moment, Cody expressing his displeasure with the decision to drive up to a national park and do a hike. He would rather stay at the hotel and watch local cartoons in Greek. So as a result, he refused to turn around for the picture. Just look at his defiant posture! The little rascal.

A lot of travel is not the perfect sandy beaches and soaring snowy mountains, it is the rubbish-filled, sun-baked pull-overs on the side of the road. You're looking for a view but just get thorn bushes that scratch you for your trouble.

Left-side driving is stressful, especially in the round-abouts. Luckily I didn't have to shift.

At a water source after one of the hottest hikes in my life. Akamas Peninsula. Your options on Cyprus are either 1) Sweating heavily or 2) Heatstroke

Outside Paphos at the archeological park lies a complex full of mosaics that are some of the world's finest examples of Roman work. They were discovered in 1940 by British soldiers digging trenches for protection against German air raids. Now they are much better looked after.

Mosaic that adorned the floor of a Roman nobleman's house. 

We met up with some friends from Berlin who also happened to be in Cyprus: Sophie, Alba and Elijah. Elijah goes to school with Jasper. Sophie (foreground) is French and the last two places they lived in before Berlin: Namibia and China. 

Something about columns that instantly turns things "old."

The tribune that overlooks the Agora of the Paphos settlement.

Some cool spiky-looking desert plants.

Stopped off for crepes in a beachside cafe. Jasper fighting it by falling asleep. Elijah on Gameboy. Cassandra and Alba discussing her law school plans for the fall in the Netherlands.

Corn on the roaster: with an old hair dryer powered with a car battery she heated up the coals and cooked some corn for Cody. He was quite interested in the whole process.

Nothing like the touch of mystery that an old shipwreck brings to a trip: the questions keep coming. How? Why? Will they ever remove it?

There is a rope dangling down that people have used to climb up and explore the 30 degree angle decks. Apparently it was an old grain hauler.

When family pictures are taken in front of rusting shipwrecks, something is probably wrong with you.

Jasper's feeling slightly better. But stay tuned, Cody was about to come down with it!

Saturday afternoon, heading back to Berlin.

Because it is relatively easy to access, I do think about how to get back to Cyprus. The problem is the pile of other places equally as interesting and cheap to get to that we haven't seen. Maybe that's not a problem.

From here, it was three more weeks of school, then summer holidays of six weeks, then back to school the first week of August.

Thanks for reading

Jay

Euro-gazing

No matter where you choose to live, you are going to be hit with wonderful moments. It helps to be observant of these things, because so much amazing stuff blows right right by you in the rush of life, work and schedules.

Some moments that I choose to record from this Spring, that occurred in Europe, are as follows:

• Getting brunch with your wife at a street corner cafe underneath historic building balconies that are partially obscured by Linden trees, at a wrought-iron table.

• Walking home over the old bridge near the office past busker guys playing a Cello and drums for spare change. Sunlight reflecting off the water in the canal behind them as if they designed it all to look like a photo shoot.

• Listening to your kids chattering in German with their friend group, who hail from many exciting places that we previously couldn't have located on an unmarked world map.

• Everyone at work is multilingual. You can work with people for a year and suddenly hear them speaking a new language that you didn't realise they had. "It just never came up I guess," they'd say after dropping into French with the new woman from Tahiti.

Riding past old-school butchers and hair salons, their looping neon script signs hanging over the shop windows. On chilly & foggy mornings the dark spires of the Gothic churches disappear into the low clouds, while on sunny afternoons the light glints off the beer glasses on the sidewalk cafe tables.

Here are some recent pics of Spring activities.

Cody welcomes spring on the deck.

Jay and Jani kick off 2019's riding season with a spin down to the palaces of Potsdam.

Jay and Jasper flew the "para-kite" at Tempelhof after attending the Berlin Airlift 70th anniversary at the old airport.

Cass and Jay had a date afternoon and checked out the Holzmarkt area, a cluster of random bars, take-away restaurants and techno club that sprang up on an old empty lot next to the Spree river.

The research never ends, since the city pumps out new things to chase all the time. I am worried about finding future cities to live in that keep it at this level. Cafe Eckstein, Winterfeldtplatz in Schöneberg.

Morning walk to work on days that I don't cycle: It starts with walking the kids two blocks to school, then a stroll through the Volkspark to the U-Bahn. This park is amazingly green especially now in early Spring.

The storied Oberbaumbrücke, once split in half by the Berlin Wall, now holds some of the most interesting street acts in town. This is the other end of my work commute, as the office is just on the other side of this.

Visitors! The Leggetts make it to Berlin! East Side gallery on Mühlenstrasse.

Olympia Stadium. Gigantic and built for the 1936 Olympics. We did the tour, something that had been on the list for a long time. This is where Jesse Owen defeated the Nazis (for a bit).

A graffiti hof in Mitte. We had just explored a dark basement in this area that an artist had taken over to showcase his life's work of giant animatronic insects and other strange creatures. 

Overview of the former Anhalter Train Station from the Solar Sky Lounge bar. Soccer field and white structure used to all be underneath the train station. Now just the tan remains of the entrance are left.

The Berlin Bike Market Expo, also at Tempelhofer Feld. The plane is an original from the Berlin Airlift in 1948/49.

The street artists just don't know when to stop around here. Good!!

First ice cream of the year

Yay we are wearing winter coats but it's not really cold out. ;-)

Pfaueninsel Trip

S-Bahn to Wannsea, forest bike ride to the little biergarten by the ferry dock, short ride across the channel to Peacock Island, former retreat for Prussian royalty, and which now is overrun with free roaming peacocks.

--

Jay Boynton
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jayboynton

fun with German bureaucratic form letters

what the ...?

--

Jay Boynton
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jayboynton

Oberwiesenthal Year 2

It had not occurred to me that my life would have involved getting to know an obscure little corner of Saxony so well. But, nestled up against the Czech border lies a small mountain range with a couple tiny ski resorts stretching uphill from the winding streets of former farming and mining towns. It is the closest skiing to Berlin, about a three hour drive, and we've come back here for the second year in a row. It's called "Oberwiesenthal" which means "Upper Valley Meadow."

This year, they had a ton of snow. Our trip by day:


Saturday

• Three hour drive south of Berlin to the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) region along the Czech border. Stayed at the Fichtelberghütte, a basic lodge on a saddle between the two man peaks of the Oberwiesenthal ski area. Fichtel = Spruce.
• Recent storms have piled up lots of snow, about a 1/4 of the parking lot is lost to the plowed up snow from earlier. It is a platform about 7 feet high, growing inexorably from the far end of the parking lot with every new storm.
• In town we visit the kid's ski school and organise tickets and gear.
• Sharing a large room as a family ensures everyone goes to bed when the kids do, which means we are all getting some wonderful sleep.

Sunday

• Our lodge has the typical breakfast experience: various bread roll options, ham/cheese/spreads plus yogurt & muesli, scrambled eggs and coffee. Ski trophies and specialty beer steins line the shelves in the breakfast room. 
• Everyone shouts "Guten Morgen" to each other upon initial entry to the room, as Germans are trained to do. After that, you ignore everyone and eat your food. When leaving, it is customary to say farewell or "good day" to everyone you did not acknowledge for the past 30 minutes.
• Snowing heavily. Drive down the mountain and line up the kids in ski school, which as we remember from last year is a total mad house. Until the magical hour of 10 am arrives, and the venerable Katja Süß steps up and starts delivering instructions on the PA system and everyone scuttles off to their spots. Within 5 minutes the whole place is cleared.
• It is snowing too heavily to ski so Cass and I sit in a cafe for 3.5 hours reading and eating coffee and cake, watching cars spinning out on the unplowed streets outside the window. We hope our kids are ok out in this!
• Dinner in town then drive up the mountain in darkness in a major blizzard. Get stuck on narrow road near summit, meet lots of Germans in the cars now stuck behind us as they help push us out. Snow is blasting all directions. Any time spent outside the car without ski goggles on is impossible as you are blinded. Other cars get stuck. Eventually snow plow arrives. The road is more like a large bobsled run between two massive walls of snow, little more than a one laner.
• Back at the parking lot at the lodge I get stuck again. The Skoda Fabia is a cute car but completely useless in winter situations.

Monday

• Dawns clear and unbelievably beautiful. The blizzard has made the pine trees in even more Dr Seuss-y creations than they were already. Sunlight sparkles off everything, jet contrails criss cross in the deep blue.
• Kids back in ski school for day two, when they learn to ride a T-bar.
• Cass and I rent Nordic gear and stretch out our legs on a long trek up to Siebensäure, a small lake and hunting lodge a couple hours outside of Oberwiesenthal. The cross country skiing situation here is unreal: full gear package is 7 euro/day and there is no trails ticket to buy. The trail system is vast, impeccably groomed, and aside of a couple major junctions close in, is largely deserted. How it could all function free of charge is a complete mystery.
• Lunch at a little Gästatte lodge at the midway point. Big ceramic stove and fire, heavy wooden tables and taxidermy crowding the walls. Wonderful taxidermy: Hares smoking pipes and sporting rucksacks and smart jackets, a fox standing on hind legs with front paws stretched out holding a tray with three mini bottles of local schnaps.

Tuesday

• Another beautiful morning. I love staying on the top of the mountain in this little lodge since you get a totally different view and feel that you get staying down in town.
• Kids at ski school again from 10-4pm. We take off for the Czech side to ski the cross country system (linked with Oberwiesenthal) over there. Silent forests, sweeping views over valleys, endless tracks. We stopped to check out a hunters blind on the side of the trail.
• Meet up with Arun and Christina and their three kids (friends from school in Berlin) and get a beer then some local Saxon cuisine at the AlpEcke at the base of the hill. I order Grieß Klös, a potato dish with deer meat goulasch, staple of this area.
• We turn in our cross country gear for alpine.
• A conversation later on in the room concerns 1980's-era telephones. Jasper says that phones back in those days were very basic, the had only one app, which was to call another phone.

Wednesday

• This is the kid's last day of lessons. We ski from the Fichtelberghütte down the hill as a family. Tremendous milestone, skiing together as a unit.
• Drop kids at ski school, then Cass and I take the shuttle bus over the Czech border to Klinovec, the neighboring mountain that is on the same ski pass. Try out a few runs over here, which are longer and more interesting than Oberwiesenthal.
• The skis I was given are 170cm. So strange as they feel very short, but then no one knows how to ski anything much longer anymore since the sidecut "revolution" made skiing accessible to millions by effectively dropping the board length significantly. They are quite easy to turn, have to admit that though.
• Shuttle bus back over to Germany, pick up kids, drive up mountain and eat at Fichtelberg station where the tram comes in. Kids throwing ice balls up at the roof eaves to knock off icicles and Cody gets hit in the head, bleeds profusely, although we don't realize it until later on reading books before bedtime. The kid is so tough.

Thursday

• We ski from the lodge on another beautiful morning. Kids show us some of the areas they have been frequenting on their lessons on the mountain. I am surprised with how quick they are, especially Cody. Jasper is more measured, but Cody just points the tips downhill and shoots off, barely in control.
• They've only had a lifetime total of a week of ski lessons and already they can basically keep up with me, which was surprising. 
• Thursday night is the "Fackelabfahrt" (torch parade) from the top of the T-Bar lift. We watched this spectacle last year but the boys were too young to do it. This year they are all-in. After a briefing from their German instructors all the kids (around 120, starting from age 5) are handed a big wooden stick with a wick on top and they head up the lift. Half hour later everyone comes back down, following the guides making big sweeping turns across the mountain. J & C were hugely proud of the outing. It is clearly the kind of thing you'd never contemplate in America!

Friday

• We'd turned in all the skis and gear and had our last day be a "chill in town" kind of thing. Drove down the hill and went to the well-known Cafe König for breakfast and cake. The wonderful thing about Germany is the encouragement to have cake whenever you feel like it.
• We later rent sleds and go on the toboggan hill after making some snowmen. Local clouds rip over the peaks on their way from Czech, occasionally blotting out the sun. Clear otherwise, offering nice views of the church steeple sticking up over the rooftops of the little town.
• Early dinner in the little Czech town of Bozi Dar, where everything is half as expensive as in Germany. Possibly related, the snowplows aren't too active over here, so the village streets have a strong "bobsled run" feel to them. It is a nice enough town though, so maybe next time we come we stay here instead.
• Pack up car, leave Fichtelberghütte, and cruise back up to Berlin, arriving around 10 pm.

Kid-isms and Mom-isms

Cody to Jasper, as they were falling asleep one night.

Jasper: I can't fall asleep!

Cody: (in a gently authoritative tone) Just close your eyes. And do inner peace.



Mommy, absent-mindedly scrolling Facebook after a long day and the kids are just in bed. After 15 minutes she shakes her head and says:

"I really need to just turn this off and go to bed."

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"What am I doing?"

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"Oh look, here's two dogs hugging each other."

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"Wow, look here are two cats attacking a Christmas Tree in a cage! Wild."