Highlights of the week

Event of the week

The event of the past few days has certainly been our move into the new house. It finally happened on Monday! By now, most of the chaos has been cleared and we are settling in more and more. The oven is still not working, we have no idea where to go for water registration, and we still need fire insurance. But at least the fridge is full! 😉

Insight of the week

Unfortunately, our house is so hidden that it cannot be easily found based on the address. And we, who have just moved here and do not know the area, are not good informants when it comes to describing the way to us. So, over the past few days, we have had to make numerous phone calls and send coordinates from Google Maps to every service provider or courier. It's annoying!

But it seems that we are not the only ones facing this issue. When I recently registered on a Cypriot online shop and wanted to enter our address, the first field was 'description'.

Encounter of the week

Last Saturday, we were in the fishing village of Zygi, which is located halfway between Larnaka and Limassol. There, at the small beach right next to the peaceful fishing harbor, a meeting of German immigrant families took place.

If we hadn't been looking for the meeting point, we probably would have been the first ones there. We still need to train ourselves to be punctual. 😅 There were loungers and umbrellas at the beach, both reserved for the participants by the organizers. Luckily, because without shade, the meeting would have been very short. The beach had recently been replenished with new sand, so the water was still a bit cloudy, and the sand was already very hot in the early morning, making it unbearable without footwear.

Some participants brought small paddle boats and took their children to the pier about 50 meters from the beach to see the large loggerhead sea turtles that lay their eggs in various places in Cyprus.

In the midday heat, we had some large, well-chilled pieces of the ubiquitous 🍉, which is called Karpouzi here. Watermelons are offered everywhere by small street vendors. There are even mobile Karpouzi sellers who drive around in mostly dented cars and advertise their goods through tinny speakers. Shortly after noon, we drove back home, and as usual on the way back, the boys fell asleep instantly.

Scary moment of the week

Last week, I (Doreen) finally had a chance to put my first aid skills to the test - unfortunately, on my own child! Henry found two 20 cent coins on the playground and was very proud of it. One of the coins disappeared into thin air within 10 seconds, and when I offered to take the other coin from him to put it into his piggy bank later, he looked at me with doubt and dashed off with his coin.

I called after him not to put it in his mouth, but who cares what Mama says, right?! Shortly afterwards, I saw him struggling to breathe and choking from a distance, so I went over, laid him down horizontally, and gave him a few strong slaps between the shoulder blades with the heel of my hand. And just like in a slapstick movie, a small swall half-digested bread roll with watermelon came out first, followed immediately by the coin. The little man was very surprised but handled the incident just fine! 🙏

Friend of the week

The friendship with Uschi, our Google Maps navigator, is slowly starting to deteriorate. Firstly, I had to raise my voice several times because she keeps trying to guide me using directions like 'Go west...'. How am I supposed to know where the hell west is? I don't have a compass with me!

And then, in the last few days, she repeatedly sent us through a maze of narrow streets with Turkish street names, where construction is taking place on every other corner. The result: I couldn't drive the way Uschi wanted me to, so she had to readjust herself multiple times until apparently, it all became too much for her, and she just started spouting nonsense. Which, in turn, led to me cursing! Nevertheless, I hope we can still salvage our relationship!