Living as a Cypriot (though not really at all)

A few things here are different, like the side of the road on which they drive. In England, it makes sense, everyone knows they drive on the wrong side. But here, it doesn't seem right at all. I'm certainly getting accustomed to it, but sometimes there is this intense moment when I am about to cross the street: my eyes are looking at and processing the cars, but my brain just ceases normal functioning and goes "huh?" This isn't aided by the fact that they drive with a raucousness I have never before witnessed. I wish I could set up a recorder to document the sounds that vehicles make while pealing out and tearing down the small residential street I live on. I wonder if "The Fast and the Furious" came out here recently. It's the most obnoxious behaviour I've ever heard.

We have a washing machine, and a drying rack on the balcony. The washing machine doesn't do the spinning thing to ring the clothes out, so they are soaked and dripping when you take them out.

People in Cyprus are not allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet, due to old and delicate pipes. What I find funny are the signs I have seen in bathrooms (with visual aids) prohibiting the flushing of crunched-up pop cans and tea bags! Really?

There is a Cypriot guy (I can't remember his name, let's call him George) living next door. We (my roommates and I) had seen him walk by a few times the first weekend here, and maybe nodded once or twice, but never spoken. Then last Monday, we were sitting in the living room with the door to the hall/foyer area open (that's how it usually is), and a middle-aged man emerged from George's apartment and stepped into ours, introducing himself as George's father and shaking all of our hands! George appeared in the hallway and looked a bit stricken. It was such a weird little moment that it was really hard not to giggle.

I have seen several official posters at Intercollege on bulletin boards declaring Intercollege to be "a smoke-free institution." Interesting how inside the cafeteria (which is the entire ground floor of one of the main classroom buildings), the bigger side is a massive smoking section, with no divider from the non-smoking side. Ha!

Gelled mullets are super in. Sometimes they're so spectacularly awful I wonder if the guys sporting them are kidding, but then I realize that it's pretty unlikely that they would be wearing wigs.

I really like ice cream. I like just about all kinds. How could it be possible that I didn't as a child? What was wrong with me?

I seem to have somehow manufactured the impossible: I've become a morning person! From last Saturday for no less than eight mornings in a row, I got up between six and eight EVERY DAY. I can't explain such insanity, I never would have believed it possible. On Sunday I did falter a bit, rising at 9:46, but that was the city of Paphos' fault. Today it was back to 8:24. I remain hopeful; this could change my life!

And here's a quote I found on the website of my diplomacy textbook's author: "Ambassadors are like expensively trained interpreters in a room where everyone speaks English" (George Walden).