Happy Easter

The Easter Bunny paid a visit to our house last night.  The kids were excited to find many chocolates left by the bunny.  We had made some paper mache Easter eggs for the bunny to hide and somehow he managed to put chocolate inside those eggs!  We had to cut them open to get the candy out.  After the egg hunt, Sofia declared it, "The best Easter ever."  Of course she is only three and doesn't have much experience to draw upon, but still nice to know she had fun.  The Greek Easter is still a few weeks away so we tried to do more of a traditional American-style Easter today.  After breakfast, I started cooking for our Easter lunch. The menu was pork roast, roasted potatoes, spinach salad, and homemade crescent rolls.  Diana, Michalis, and Tatiana joined us and following lunch we had a Coke cake for dessert.  Cypriots sure do love Coke so when I saw this recipe I had to make it for the family.  How lucky we are to have this special time with family and to be expecting a new addition.  We are blessed. 

Sofia with her paper mache eggs

Alex with a lollipop nose and his treats from the bunny

The Crisis

The country of Cyprus breathed a collective sigh of relief today as the country avoided bankruptcy with a deal with the troika.  I won't pretend to be an expert on any of the details.  The family members who have spoken to me about the issue seem to agree that it was a necessary deal.  It will be painful for them to implement and the impact will likely be felt for years to come.  However, many Cypriots view this as a new beginning.  It is a chance for them to clean up the financial and government sectors and hopefully will lead to a stronger economy in the future.  Let's hope that Cyprus will regain it's strength soon.
Ironically, at a time when the country is seeking help from others, Cyprus celebrated Greek Independence Day today.  It is a national holiday with schools and most businesses closed.  The banks were closed all last week due to the crisis and the need to prevent a run on the banks, but will reopen this week.  The kids and I went to a parade in Nicosia with Diana, Tatiana, and Michalis.  Michalis is a news manager for a television station and has put in plenty of overtime with the crisis.  Most of the local high schools (maybe all) were represented in the parade.  Students marched in matching uniforms and many also had some drummers or a small band.  There were a few other groups as well, such as the boy/girl scouts and the APOEL soccer club.  Sorry no pictures today.

Cyclops Sea Cave

The Cyclops Sea Cave is located in Protaras and can be accessed by a path from my favorite beach, Konnos.  We had seen the signs for the trail before, but today decided to actually see for ourselves what it was like.  The weather was the perfect temperature for a short hike, much better than it would be under the blazing summer sun.  Not a lot of shade trees around.  The hike is about two and a half kilometers each way on a semi-rocky path.  The kids and Demetris all chose a walking stick before we left.  The scenery is beautiful as it follows the coastline with many interesting plants along the way.  The cave is somewhat small, but large enough for us to walk through.  Actually, Demetris and I couldn't stand up straight in most of it, but still fun to look at it.  Alex and Sofia walked both ways without complaint and were rewarded at the end with a small piece of chocolate.  Those little legs did a good job of climbing on rocks and navigating the narrow parts of the path.

At the start with their walking sticks

Cool rocks along the path

View from the path

In the cave

"I'm a cross," she said

The entrance to the cave

Such clear water

The boy's team

Carnival Weekend

What a busy weekend we had!  Saturday morning we left for the village, Salamiou. It is always a bit of a long process packing for the village since the closest grocery store is thirty minutes away and we try to take enough food to last us.  Plus, it is much cooler in the mountains so we all need to take heavy coats as well.  We left with a trunk packed full for a two day trip.  Grandma Electra went with us as she always like to check on the house and make sure everything is alright.  Once we were settled in we took a drive to a beach in the Paphos area.  It was quite windy, making the water rough.  We found a place where there some waves crashing against the rocks and the kids thought that was pretty cool. 
Sunday was the big carnival parade in Limassol.  We left early in the morning to first go to the zoo there.  It is a small zoo, but there were some fun animals like monkeys, alligators, and otters.  The monkeys put on quite a show for us.  They had been given a coconut and one spent a bit of time trying to crack it open.  Once he got it open and the meat out, another monkey took it away.  The first monkey was pretty clever and not only got it back but then put the coconut in a hole in the wall to hide it and only took it out when he wanted some.  Alex was interested in the alligators, but disappointed they weren't moving.  Sofia loved the monkeys and also a cute, little baby bunny.  After a picnic lunch, we headed to the parade.  It is a lively parade with very neat costumes, plenty of confetti, silly string, spray foam and whistles.  It gets a little overstimulating after a while.  Alex was happy to see his teacher dressed as a leopard in one of the groups.  Many of the floats this year had a political theme protesting the spending cuts due to the economic crisis in Cyprus.  Following the parade, we stopped at a store to pick up ice cream to eat along the beach.  I was pretty excited to find one of my favorite Ben and Jerry's flavors, the first time I had seen it in Cyprus.  We headed  back to the village for the night.
Monday was a public holiday in Cyprus, "Green Monday."  Tradition is that you are to go to a field to fly a kite and eat vegetables.  I believe it marks the beginning of the fasting season before Easter.  (Greek Easter is much later than the Easter celebrated in the States this year.)  The local resort, Aphrodite Hills, was having a celebration for the day so we decided to head there instead of a field.  The real highlight of going there is the playground area.  They open up trampolines, a bounce castle, and the camp playground along with the usual play area.  The plan was that after a bit, Demetris would return to the village (about thirty minutes away), pick up grandma, pack everything up and come back to get us.  That way the kids wouldn't have to spend as much time in the car and instead could have fun playing.  For some reason Sofia decided she wanted to ride back with daddy, which left me and Alex to stay and play.  He had a great time.  I think he did the zip line at least 50 times, managed to climb up a really tall slide, and learned how to balance himself on a revolving disc that moved up and down.  In total, he and I spent over four hours at the playground and were the last ones to leave.  He kept busy the whole time and didn't even fall asleep on the trip home to Nicosia.

Carnival masks made at home and by Alex and school

Alex and the alligator

The clever monkey with his coconut

Love these palm trees at the zoo

Neat popcorn costumes at the parade

Carrying large scissors with Euros in them to represent the spending cuts

The Las Vegas themed float

German Chancellor Merkel as the puppeteer

With the parade route in the background

Sofia giving the thumbs up for the ice cream

Sleeping beauty

A butterfly and Spiderman with daddy at the Aphrodite Hills playground

Carnival Festivities Have Begun

We got into the spirit of carnival this weekend.  Nicosia had a small carnival parade on Sunday. It was filled with many children marching in costumes with a group.  Each group dresses according to a theme and they looked real cute.  The large parade will be next weekend in Limassol.  After the parade we drove into downtown Nicosia to have some yummy lunch at an Armenian place that sells traditional Middle Eastern foods primarily based around fresh baked bread doughs (things like pizza and bread stuffed with cheese) and flat bread with kebabs.  Alex and Sofia enjoyed the bus ride last weekend so much that they convinced us to let them ride home on a bus.  Demetris followed us in the car and picked us up at the bus stop closest to home.  In the evening, the school that our nieces attend sponsored a carnival party.  All of the children wear costumes to this event. It was held at a place that is basically a function hall.  There was a large turnout and very little organization which resulted in a slightly crazy atmosphere.  Many of the older kids in attendance spent the night chasing each other around the tables where we were seated.  Alex and Sofia had a great time anyway and we were some of the last to leave.  They both spent a lot of time dancing, and Sofia especially showed off all of her moves.  Alex preferred sliding on his knees across the dance floor. 

A Pac-Man group.  Do kids still know Pac-Man?

Children in costume lined the parade route

Some young chefs

Cute witches

Showing off her dance moves

Superman!

Evelina

Two happy kids

Bus Ride

The highlight of our weekend was a bus ride!  The kids had never been on a bus before and they have been wanting to go for a ride.  There is a bus stop less than a half mile from where we live that ends in downtown Nicosia.  It wasn't too long of a ride, maybe because of the speed that the driver was going.  They both thought it was quite fun.  While downtown we walked around for a bit and then stopped for some ice cream.  Also this weekend, we celebrated our niece Evelina's third birthday with a party at their house.  There was a carnival theme so all of the children were in costume.  Earlier in the week Demetris and I actually got to go out for a movie.  The Fulbright Commission along with the US Embassy sponsored a special showing of the movie Lincoln.  We enjoyed it very much. 

At the bus stop

All smiles on the bus

Alex was very curious about the emergency latch for the windows

Our bus at the final destination

Downtown Nicosia