American in Cyprus: What have we been up to?

Again, time has gotten away from me and my blog posts. Here is an update on what we have been doing. As my niece Kadi reminds me, she doesn't really care what I write, she just likes to look at the pictures. At the beginning of October we were able to squeeze in a couple of more days at the beach. Nissi beach in Agia Napa is beautiful but like spring break for most of the season. There are still some party goers left at this time of year, but nothing too bad. The kids like it there because the water stays shallow for a long time, so they can go out pretty far.
The Cyprus Road Rally also occurred in the month of October. We watched it just outside of Lefkara in a place where we could see the cars turning a corner. Alex always enjoys seeing the fast cars, but this year there was a bit longer wait time between the cars so not quite as exciting.
October 28 is a national holiday in Cyprus, Oxi (No) Day. Basically it is a day marking the Greeks telling Mussolini in 1940 that they would not allow Italian forces in Greece at the beginning of WWII. In other words, they said "No!" How's that for a clever day? Anyway, the kids of course did not have school that day and had the whole following week off on top of it. We kept plenty busy. For the long weekend we went to the village. On the way there we had a lovely experience with the car. The clutch went out as we were approaching Pafos. The car had very little get up and go, especially on the hills. On one hill we were particularly slow. Demetris said, if we can just make it up this hill the rest is downhill. We made it and were able to roll right to our desired destination, McDonald's. Gotta love Mickey D's. Gave the kids lunch and let them play at the playspace for a couple of hours until we were able to rent a car and have a tow truck come. The next day we headed to the Pafos Zoo, the largest in Cyprus. We stayed for five hours and saw everything twice. Not as big as some of the zoos we are used to, but the kids thought it was great. Amazing how they can keep walking without complaint for that long when they want to. I chickened out of the snake exhibit. Who needs to see snakes?
Since Demetris only had that Monday off, I planned some activities with the kids. We went to the Cyprus Museum of Natural History. It is very small and we were the only ones there. The kids had wanted to go because of the dinosaur statues. Most of the museum was displays of animals that had been stuffed. The dinosaurs were disappointing. The statues were small and not much to look at. Alex was hoping to see skeletons. This museum is located at the Carlsberg brewery/bottling plant. The real excitement came after the museum when we were allowed to watch the beer being canned. Now machines are something that Alex is interested in!
We also did plenty of Halloween crafts during the week and made a worm and dirt dessert. Halloween is not celebrated by Cypriots, but we were able to get a couple of neighbors to hand out candy to the kids for a small bit of trick or treating. They only cared that they got candy. Alright, Kadi, here are the pictures.