American in Cyprus: 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.