Arrival in Cyprus:5/29-5/31 2013

Well, where to begin! Just my travel to Cyprus was quite an adventure!! I started out in DTW-airport and flew to Philadelphia.  That was a short flight, but smooth and relatively pleasant.  There was a slight delay and my connecting flight to Athens from Philadelphia was only an hour apart from when I was scheduled to land.  The plane docked at terminal D in the airport.  I was not sure how big the airport in Philadelphia was and I didn't want to wait for a shuttle so I decided to walk to terminal A.  It took about 20 minutes to cross the airport.  I was practically running to get to my gate!!! Thankfully, I got there and there was a delay on this plane too because the plane was "too hot" so the airline cooled it down.  I got on the plane to Athens shortly after and spent 9 hours on this plane!  It was a smooth flight, though I didn't get much sleep due to the poor babies on the plane who were scared and tired.  Finally, I landed in Athens!!! I met some people who were going to Cyprus with the same study abroad program so we hung out for the entire 6 hour layover.  It was nice to not be alone.  I ate McDonald's, and the meat tasted quite different.  I'm not sure how to describe it, really.  They had a special Greek McDonald's dish called the "Greek Mac." It was basically a gyro but with beef patties, it was weird but I thought it was funny so I took a picture of the menu!  After the layover in Athens, I got on the plane to Larnaka, Cyprus.  The flight was short and pleasant. I got some great pictures from the air of Cyprus, which you can see on facebook.  After landing, I waited with the same people I had met in Athens for others to arrive so we could get on the bus to Nicosia.  We waited a while but I got to try some Cypriot soda.  It was basically like carbonated Sunny-D.  It was pretty good!!!  The bus ride to Nicosia was fun as I got to talk to some of the people who were from all over America and were all studying abroad with me!  Finally, I got to my apartment and I basically showered, unpacked, and went to bed as I was extremely tired.
The next day, May 31, I got up and my roommate had arrived.  We decided to go grocery shopping at a nearby mall so that we could get situated with our food and learn the layout of the market.  We spent quite a bit of time in the market as all the labels on the food were in Greek and we had to try and figure out what it meant.  It was quite fun, actually!  It was a nice market with lots of selection!  We got basic food supplies, such as lunch meat, bread, eggs, and pasta ingredients.  We then went home, carrying our load of heavy groceries and me and my roommate sat and talked for a long while! She's pretty cool.  She is also doing the pre-med program and she is interested in working with the poor like I am.  She's from California but goes to a school in New York City!
At night, we had a short meeting to go over some rules for our apartments and to talk about the weekend plans.  They served free pizza and pop, which was nice.  I got to meet some other people in the program who had just arrived.  It was a great time and really exciting!  The University of Nicosia is very nice too.  It seems brand new and the lecture halls are comfortable.  I can't wait to explore more of it!  After the meeting, me and my new roommate went for a run to explore Nicosia a little bit.  We got somewhat lost but we were able to find our way back.  The city was really nice and there are plants everywhere!  The cars in the city were all driving on the wrong side of the street, so it was hard to get used to being a pedestrian.  Also, the Cypriots park on the sidewalk as well as the street so it was a little crazy!  It was an extremely pleasant run and me and my roommate, Ngoc, plan to run every day!!!
Well, that seems to be most of what has happened so far! I will be blogging more so look for a new entry soon!
-Julia 5/31/2013