Rioting in the Streets

...or not.

Another piece of news we witnessed while out and about: (You can find the article here.) We were walking up town and I stopped as we crossed the street to snap some photos (thinking that later I might be able to figure out what was going on). 

The woman's sign says "Say NO to the closing of IDAVEP" which (as I later figured out) is a little business training program that the government is closing.

While the press captured the front of the protest, I got a little backward glance. The weight of this event lies in the fact that it is an everyday occurrence--one can expect some such protest to make the news practically every night of the week. Such things are commonplace--even dull. Meanwhile each demonstration is adding up to skyrocketing unemployment and economic depression all across Cyprus. 

(When we were walking past, there weren't even enough people to stand across the barricade that the police had set up for them. Guess why? To do that, they would have to stand in the hot mid-day sunshine! They looked tired and overheated and were just so riotous as to require one whole police car and six traffic cones. :o)

For me this provides a visual reminder to pray--pray for jobs and economic growth in Cyprus, and pray that we will learn to trust the Lord to provide for us. I can easily live under the illusion that I am able take care of myself and find a way to live a good life. How fragile that illusion is, and how quickly it can be shattered! The only answer is to find our security in the God who works out not only our employment, but also eternity.

Walls

Here is a part of the old city walls of Nicosia. These walls were built by the Venetians, back when the Venetians were in vogue, I mean power. Most of the walls still look completely fine, actually, but I took a photo of the section that's crumbled. They've put up parks around the base of the wall. Apparently there used to be a moat down here. 

The buildings (apartments and a church) are from a neighborhood inside the old city walls down by the postal museum (it was closed, so I didn't take a look). 

I love the various colors of shutters that come up even on the shabbiest buildings. 

Also note the car parked on the definitely-not-EU-regulation-width sidewalk... this is a perfect example of how Cypriots will do anything to get their car parked in the shade... 

We were just riding the bus...

Monday night (17th) I watched Cyprus News with Hercules and Eleni (their guest). There was an account of a gruesome butcher-shop murder in Nicosia. The victim (a 70-some-year-old butcher) was stabbed over 30 times and hidden in one of his walk-in refrigerators. The area outside the fridge was cleaned up, and when they found him, he was still (barely) alive, but died on the way to the hospital.

This murder had happened that morning. The murderer, they believed, was a 27-year-old Pakistani man who was seen leaving the shop that morning. The general hospital reported that they had treated wounds on his hands sometime later that morning, making him a prime suspect in the stabbing.

As we watched the news Anna and I looked at each other. Around noon we had been riding the Nicosia bus to the general hospital, where she was getting a TB test read. On the bus both of us had noticed a 20-something Pakistani man with his hand wrapped in an Ace bandage. "We saw that guy!" we both exclaimed.

Reader, judge for yourself. It's quite possible that we were riding the bus with a wanted man. On the other hand, maybe more than one young Pakistani had an injured hand on Monday... Let your imagination decide.

We were just riding the bus.

Today Anna and her friend Stephanie and I went out to the old city shopping area in search of shoes: fancy, formal, all-dressed-up shoes for Stephanie's graduation. We never found the shoes, and at some point, in the heat of the afternoon, all the shops closed for the day. We sat down at ABO's for a bit of a snack, then went home to (you guessed it!) eat lunch....

We ordered long Halloumi rolls: they were filled with grated cheese and mint; wrapped in a chewy yeast dough that tasted something like a thick pizza crust. . . 

After we sat down, pretty much all the pictures are of us with our mouths full... 

Evidence that there's at least one picture somewhere of me taking a picture... :P

Other adventures of the day didn't get any pictures whatsoever. This morning Anna and I went for a jog (the plan is to go for some kind of exercise every morning til she leaves in a couple weeks). We followed a bike trail all the way up to the Presidential Palace and back home again. As we got close to the house, we came to the little stream. The water was cold; our feet were hot and steaming inside our shoes... so of course there was only one logical thing to do... which we did...

and we were sitting there splashing with sticks and in general being quite juvenile. 

Then I saw it--a flash of bright red about the length of my palm streaking through the water, sporting antennae and a hefty pair of pincers. 

The sight was followed up by a shriek, our feet went out of the water. Then the game became trying to find him again--and we did; with another of his kind, speeding through the water, hiding here and there under rocks... the top predators in their tiny ecosystem. Of course, once you start looking for moving things in the water, you start to notice others as well--minnows and such. Although that really spoiled the fun of putting our feet back in, for a brief moment I felt like I was eight years old again, teasing small creatures out of their dwellings and chasing them here and there... 

Anna and I took a walk down to Finikoudes on Sunday evening. The place was overcrowded thanks to Whit Monday being a week from today...there were carnival booths and concessions and swarms of people and even an accordion player (sorry I didn't take a picture of him). We decided to walk the shoreline so that we could take off our shoes, and also to avoid some of the people swarms...

But of course, our feet looked dirty and gross by the end of the beach... so we sat on a platform by the accordion player. At some point a group of people got up and left a park bench open. So we scuttled over and sat down to let our feet dry. 

And of course took a few cheesy self portraits before the fun began. 

A Cypriot woman sat down right next to us, and called her friends over. In Greek she told one to sit by her, and the other sat by me. Let me remark right now that five goodly sized women on a bench is not exactly a comfortable fit. "I think they want us to leave," Anna said to me. 

"I'm not moving," I said. 

So we sat tight. Very tight. 

To pass the time while our feet were drying, we whipped out the camera once again to see if our seat companions would co-operate for some pictures.

One did. (but I missed Anna). 

One didn't. (and we missed me)

All in all it was quite hilarious. At some point, when a different bench opened up, the same woman led the way and they moved over to a spot where they could carry on a conversation properly, without the interference of the unyielding American tourists. ;)

Reboot. :)

The blog is back! I hope to update this at least a few times a week.

Where to start...

Care for a few snapshots? Grandma and I went out to Aurelio's last week for pizza. Here we are, trying not to gloat (can you tell?).

So far, the only adventures of this trip have been surprises: a stay in the Dulles Hilton, a late-night trip to Frankfurt... three days with only my checked backpack to keep me going... The good news: My camera was with me the whole time! 

These are all from the 13th...

The weather was cloudy and made for great photography.

Airplanes everywhere!

The space shuttle "Discovery"... actually just the burners.... my camera couldn't get the whole thing in one picture!

The highlight of the day was watching a documentary on the Hubble telescope. The footage of the deep space galaxies was reminiscent of Psalm 8--"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?"