Uncategorised

I was in Prague for just 2 days, working the whole time at the UNVA-Prague campus, which is downtown. This picture is of me on the street in front of the campus office.

The food was good and the hotel I stayed at was a quaint little place in a very old building (earliest reference was 1383), called Hotel U Suteru, about 100 meters from Wenceslaus Square.

Now I'm in Istanbul just for one overnight before I catch my flight tomorrow to Cyprus, to pick up the girls and go to London.
Good Night!

Hey guys! Sorry I didn’t get to finish my post yesterday. It was so late! We never get to bed here any earlier than midnight.
Laura told you about our shopping excursion in the Girne city center. It’s as picturesque as I thought it would be! I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post any pictures; I discovered that daddy’s laptop, the only one we’re using, doesn’t have any sort of photo-editing program, so there’s no way we can make the pictures smaller. Anyway, the Girne shopping trip was quite fun. We had our only short meal I’ve ever had here at the port. I ordered a traditional Cypriot meal: a sandwich made from thick bread, “squeaky cheese (I forgot the real name),” and cucumber slices. Very good. Then we shopped around and bought some souvenirs. I discovered something about the guys here. They will very obviously stare at girls, and sometimes shout things to them or otherwise try to get their attention. This especially applies to foreigners, specifically those with long blonde hair. Alas.
Today we visited Lefcoşa/Nicosia, the split capital of Cyprus. We were going to go to the covered market, but we didn’t find it. However, we did find a mosque that had origionally been a cathedral called the Agia Sophia, not the one in Spain of course. But we couldn’t go in because there were two funerals going on. Then we had to go back to the hotel because some of the people needed to attend a meeting.
On the way rushing to the bus we heard the Muslim call to prayer. At first it sounded like someone had turned his radio on really loud, but then it echoed louder and louder and we could tell what it was. Arabic singing is really cool; all wavering around and fluctuating or whatever you call it. But even though 99% of the population is Muslim, everyone ignored it.
Another thing I must comment on is the driving. Everyone drives on the left side. Most of the streets are hardly wider than the alleys here, and people still walk in the middle of them and park on the sides of them. Sometimes our bus would pass within inches of a stopped car or walking child while traveling at breakneck speeds. And everyone drives like that! Seatbelts exist, but nobody uses them, so they often don’t even work.
This evening we went to a club called Camelot, which has a beach and a restaurant. The restaurant is called The Legend. The food was legendary. Really.
First, the waiter came to our table and asked me if I would like to drink coke or wine. Honestly, do they have a legal drinking age here? I’ve seen a girl my age drink wine. Then we started out the meal with the meses, the beginning of a traditional Turkish Cypriot meal. The meses are little dishes made from mashed or creamed or diced things mixed with herbs or sauces or other things. Some quite good and some not so enjoyable. And once we stuff ourselves with meses, they bring out some fried things. Some unidentifiable, but one was obviously fried squeaky-cheese. And then, when we were full to the brim, they brought out meat. And then more meat. Next some more meat. One of the meats they brought was beef, and it seemed to be in the shape of a tongue, so we thought maybe it was cow’s tongue, but then they brought out chicken exactly like it, and we thought maybe it wasn’t chicken tongue. After two or three hours of that, we saw a dessert buffet and thought maybe if we got some dessert they would get the idea and stop feeding us. All the desserts looked sooooo good (and believe me they were) that we just had to heap our plates full! And when we got back, there was more meat on our plates. Of course, we had to taste it.

And thus concludes our day. Whew! I’m going to bed. Good night!
Chloe

As Chloe has described our plane rides weren’t to terrible. After one regular night of sleep in the hotel I have recovered from the horrible jet lag. The hotel here is quite nice. We have a beautiful view from our balcony of the harbor. Haley, Chloe and I share a room next to mom’s and dads. I must say I enjoy it. :-D The food here is delicious! Breakfast and lunch you have not too much, but just enough of yummy homemade cooking. Supper on the other hand... They just keep bringing more and more food. Our dinner tonight only took two hours, but we’re told that they usually take four. So you sit down to eat at 7:00, and finish at 11:00. AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today we toured St. Hilarian’s Castle. It’s amazing!!! I climbed up by myself at first (with the rest of the group in sight behind me) so I could explore all the dark rooms in the quiet. Makes it so much more enjoyable! Just listening to your thoughts while wandering through the barrack, the royal apartments, kitchen, and watch towers, it really makes you think about what life must have been like back then. It was like a maze, it never ended in any direction. We just kept wandering around until we thought we had seen it all. Afterwards we went to lunch, and then went shopping for random things. Then we went to the hotel and went for a quick swim and got ready for the incredibly short supper which only lasted two hours!!! After supper we got an invitation to go disco dancing (with two teenage girls in our group and a few adults) this Saturday from 11:00p.m.-5:00a.m. on Sunday morning. Lol, I highly doubt we’ll be able to make it. (how do you “disco dance” anyway?!?!) But now I can say I’ve actually been invited to one!
Well I must bid thee farewell for now, Chloe is restlessly walking up and down our small floor behind me griping at how late it is. (1:15a.m., it’s 4:15p.m. where you guys are) I’m “supposed” to get up early tomorrow so we can go for an early swim in the hotel pool. (Haven’t been to the beach yet, hopefully we will in a few days. We’re on a “strict” schedule with our group from the university.) Love ya lots!!!
~Lauriana~

Arriving in Kyrenia/Girne, Cyprus

Our adventure began on the 29th, exactly as planned. We left our house at six in the morning (gasp!) and went to the airport. We went through baggage check easily, and waited to board. We brought all our luggage as carry-on, so we had to squish our clothes up and lug everything around, which was unfortunate considering that my suitcase doesn’t have wheels.
The first flight was great. One hour to St. Louis on a little plane; I don’t know what kind, the kind with 18 rows and three seats in each row. We landed in St. Louis, and boarded another plane of the same sort, but with more leg room. That one was two hours, and we flew to Raleigh-Durham in Raleigh North Carolina.
After four or six hours in Raleigh, we boarded the big plane; a 777. The take of was pretty unimpressive because I couldn’t see out any of the windows; we were all in the middle. But then we thought it was pretty cool; they had movies on our personal TV’s, and a choice of music, and so forth. Also, they had four bathrooms! We don’t even have that in our house, But of course we don’t have as many people to wait in line. That flight was six hours to London, and we were going to sleep on that one and stay awake all the way to Cyprus to help adjust to jet lag. But, light sleeper as I am, I was only able to doze off once or twice while I watched a diagram of our air plane approaching London on the big screen and listened to golden oldies with two heavy-sleeping sisters konked out on either side of me. Nonetheless, we were all chipper in the morning when we had British tea with cream and landed in London! But we took one look outside, saw that the clouds were just as cloudy, the grass was just as grassy, the trees were just as treeish, and the sky was just as blue as America, so we decided we were gypped and went back home. Just kidding!
We spent most of our layover in London standing in line at the Immigration Passport Control, because the line was about fifty billion miles long. But then we got our passports stamped, so it was worth it.
After spending some time wandering around the vast Gatwick airport, we boarded a 737 to Turkey. It was with the Kipris Turk airlines (Cyprus Turkish) so all the announcements were made first in Turkish, then in English that was just as unintelligible. We flew over Europe, and except for the channel, part of France, and later what I think was the black sea, it was all an endless desert of cloud as far as the eye can see. This was too bad because we could have seen some really cool things, except they didn’t allow cameras on at all. When we landed in Turkey, more than half the passengers removed themselves, but we weren’t supposed to leave because we were going on to Cyprus. We only got one picture of Turkey; out of the Airplane window, but it was a Turkish sunset, so that made up for the deprivation.
More Later,
Chloe

Hey everyone! Here's a picture of the hotel where we'll stay:

And "homestar" (AKA Bryce Pudding hahaha!), in response to your comments: Yes, you are the only one who has commented our travel blog. But a certain tool on this website tells me how many times the blog has been viewed, and that number is well over 70! In any case, thanks for commenting.
Chloe