Cyprus 1.

It's a strange view looking at Cyprus from above. The plane just arrived from the North, heading to the southern part of Cyprus: Larnaka. On the northern part there are oddly shaped mountains with very rare vegetation which disappears completely when approaching the coastal region. It's like a stone desert. There are huge white water reserves at the top of all buildings. When you run out of water you have to order. If it's not raining there are no water, maybe for months. So you better save the water...
Kiri took us from Larnaka to Lefkosia (the greek name of Nicosia). It turned out that the Games of Small States of Europe is just an ongoing event now in Cyprus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_of_the_Small_States_of_Europe) the hotel is packed with all the sportsmen..
There were some immediate surprises arriving to Cyprus. I didn't know about the driving on the left side. OK, I knew about Malta, but not Cyprus. They also have the Brittish type electric plug (we don't have adapters of course :) and everyone speaks English. I mean it. Even the local Cypriots have to speak English in the restaurants because they don't speak Greek. Strange indeed. No wonder that the Englishmen like to be here. It's just like home with a much better weather. Talking about weather, today it's 38 degrees in shadows. So we drink ouzo + ice cube + water long drink a lot. It's really cool. After some kebab, feta cheese, olives, pita dinner it's absolutely the best choice.
Kiri took us to a small village 30 minutes from Nicosia to the mountains. It's much cooler there, only around 30 degrees. We drink some ouzo long drink again and a few hundred meters from us they are just shooting the new episode of the popular local soap opera (~ "The pink goat"). The village is so ancient Cypriot it's part of the Unesco World Heritage program. Nobody's living here. It's only us drinking ouzo (did I already mention that ouzo is really good?) the tv staff and some tourists. Warm sunshine, cool breeze, it's really a great place to be.
Tomorrow we are going to visit the occupied territory of Nicosia. The norther part of the city (and of Cyprus) is occupied by the Turks since 1974. It's like Berlin was before the change... but they want to improve and the model could be the Belgian state model. Probably someone should tell them that it's not the best idea. Anyway... I'm not sure that I can pass the border with my Hungarian ID card. My passport just expired last month. We'll give it a try anyway...