Update on June 30th.

The last blog entry was already too long ago and we don't even know if anyone besides Danny (greetings!) is still reading here, but since it should also serve as a reminder to us, here's an update today.

Currently, we are dealing with topics such as buying a car 🚗, joining the statutory health insurance, international supplementary health insurance, business account opening (all areas that are challenging) and how in the world are we going to survive the summer here. The heat is already extreme 🥵 and we are melting and sticking. Taking a shower is a relief, but the feeling of freshness doesn't last even a minute. The air conditioning makes it bearable, but once you turn it off, it gets warm again in no time.

A personal success: Henry has been pacifier-free for about 4 weeks now. 💪 One evening, he threw his pacifier on the top bunk of the bunk bed in the holiday home and unfortunately, we couldn't reach it anymore. But he wasn't sad for long, he only said 'pacifier gone' from time to time. And that's what it is until today, because we kept the replacement pacifier a secret. 🤫 We just need to get Jona off pacifiers. And diapers and baby bottles... Oh well, raising children is wonderful! 😅

We still have some time for cultural activities, so we decided to take a small cultural excursion once a week. Our first destination was the beautiful Hala Sultan Tekke Mosque. It is located at the Great Salt Lake near the airport and the grounds are truly picturesque. You feel a bit like in Arabian Nights. The complex with the mosque and the magnificent large trees looks ancient, but in fact, everything was completed only in 1817 in the Ottoman style. However, the place itself has a really long history. It served as a burial site even in pre-Christian times and according to legend, in the seventh century AD, an aunt of the Prophet was buried there. In fact, a Dervish discovered a burial chamber there in the 18th century and he was allowed to build a shrine there.

By the way, we were the only tourists there. There were only a few employees on the premises and some cats 🐈‍⬛ 🐈 running around. Ah yes, the cats. There are supposedly at least 1.5 million 'feral' cats on this island. Most of them are well-fed and the locals usually take good care of these little hunters. According to legend, cats were brought from Egypt to Cyprus to rid the island of a snake plague. However, the cats apparently cause considerable damage to the endemic fauna.

Our latest culinary discovery is the Maqam Al-Sultan Restaurant (http://maqamalsultan.com/page/restaurant), which convinces not only with its location right on Finikoudes Beach, but above all with its delicious Lebanese delicacies.

We are also bringing a little bit of our homeland to Cyprus when it comes to food. Doreen has started fermenting and it's fun to watch how diligently the microorganisms work in these temperatures. However, the sourdough apparently finds it too hot here - it died on day 3. 🥴 We still have some hope for the Italian variant, the Lievito Madre, a wheat sourdough. Maybe we can nurture that one. We were also able to find pure alcohol on the island and have started making limoncello 🤗 - the tasting will start in 6 weeks. Cheers! 🥂