Cyprus

Cyprus is known as the island of copper (gone), timber (mostly gone) and Aphrodite (still here). It is much more Middle Eastern than we expected. Mostly Greek and Turk but also Lebanese, Israeli, Italian and much more recently Russian. The UN still controls a buffer zone between the south and the north. It is a melting pot of what should be hostile but seems to be working quite well.

All of this played out yesterday when 25 Semester at Sea students including Mary Jo and I were thrown into the mix at Troodos Ski Resort. Many of our fellow voyagers and most of the locals had never seen snow or skied. With no ski patrol, parking attendants, lift line organizers or trail maps it was the perfect place to observe this mix of nationalities. Ground zero was at and on the 2 T bar lifts. Making it up the first 20 yards was a major accomplishment for many. There were Greek Cypriots crashing into Turk Cypriots who were crashing into Brits (they have 2 naval bases) who were crashing into Russians who were crashing into students from Hawaii, LA, Alabama, etc. It rekindled my love of T bar slalom and Jerry of the Day videos. Warren Miller would have had a field day. With our 1980’s rental gear and all 700 feet (maybe 30 turns top to bottom) of vertical we had an awesome day teaching, avoiding wipe outs and observing the international mash up.
We are happy to report that despite all the craziness it appeared everyone else on the mountain did too. Kudos to our taxi driver Costas who picked us up with no idea what we were up to drove us an hour up, hung out for 5 hours, took us to lunch then drove us back to the ship!

Prior to the ski day we toured wineries and spent time in the port city of Limassol. Today we visited with a founder of the local Nautical Club who loved hearing stories of Grand Lake.

Not many Americans travel in Cyprus. They treated us well and taught us a lot!もっと詳しく