Today is my last full day in Cyprus, my flight leaves tomorrow at 3pm. I'm a little bit sad to be going, because I love all the people here, and I also haven't seen as much of Cyprus as I would have liked, and I also missed out on going to Egpyt and/or Jordan. Of course the main reason I missed out on all that was because I went to the Olympics, and that of course more than makes up for it! But overall I'm really happy to be going home and being with Sophie and my family and friends again.
The last few days have been great, on Wednesday I went out to an Italian restaurant with Prasad (one of my housemates) and two other guys from work, and I had a fantastic tortellini with a four cheese sauce, was one of the best I've ever had. Last night was drinks in a bar with a large group of people from work, including James (my trainer for the last two weeks), Mark who was in Cyprus for a couple of days on his way from India to his US home, and my other housemate Ganesh. Tonight a groups of us from the apartment complex are going to go to a Greek takeaway place at the end of our street for dinner, I think I'll have a final Souvlaki! Hopefully I'll also have enough money for an icecream, but I'm attempting to avoid getting any more money out, as the minumum ATM withdrawal is £20 ($60) and there's no way I'll get close to using that up before I leave.
So tomorrow I first have a 3-hour flight to Bahrain, where I have a 1.5 hour break. I then have a 17 hour flight to Sydney, including a 1 hour stopover in Singapore, arriving at 8:10pm. Unfortunately the last plane from Sydney to Canberra leaves at 8:30pm so I'll be staying overnight with Grandpa and Uncle John at Longueville. Then I fly to Canberra at 6:30am, arriving at 7:20am Monday. So it will be 37 hours between leaving my apartment in Nicosia and arriving at Goodchild St. And I'm still really looking forward to it!
I'll probably keep up my journal when back in Canberra, but I somehow don't think it will be as interesting unless you enjoy hearing about how all my sporting teams are performing!
Anyway thanks for reading, and I hope to see most of you next week!
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Thursday, September 02, 2004
North Nicosia
Last Sunday I went across the border into the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. I shared a taxi with some other guys from the apartment who were heading in to town, and got dropped off at the Ledra Palace Hotel crossing. The Ledra Palace was the largest hotel in Cyprus at the time of the invasion/rescue, but is now used as housing for UN personnel.
Lonely Planet said that I would have to show my passport and have my details entered into a log book on the Greek side, and that they would carefully check that I had no Turkish or Greek background. Cypriots are not allowed to cross from one side to the other, and it is impossible to cross into southern Cyprus if you start in the north; only day trips to the north from the south are allowed. Still, the border guards didn’t seem too fussed and just waved me through when I showed my passport. So I walked through the exclusion zone, which contained this shop:
Presumably it’s been frozen in time since 1974, since it’s not going to get a whole lot of Cypriot customers! Barbed wire lined most of the road, but the relaxed nature of the border guards on both sides made me feel very safe.
On the Turkish side they checked my passport and entered my details in a computer. I then filled out a form and they stamped that rather than stamp my passport, which apparently would lead to problems at other Greek borders. One of the border guards “introduced” me to a taxi driver, but I declined and walked the 100m into the old city.
I didn’t really do much in North Nicosia except follow the Lonely Planet walking tour, and then wander around some more. There were lots of amusing/heartbreaking sights, such as the football field that has its seating on the other side of the border:
Or the church on the Greek side that backs on to the Turkish side:
Apparently they’re still allowed to hold services on the proviso that the back door is never, ever used!
The areas around the border were very run down:
It was even worse than the southern side, but there were also some nice areas where they’re making a redevelopment effort:
The mosque which I’d seen from the top of the Woolworths building was quite impressive close up and was lovely inside, very white and clean, with Turkish rugs covering the entire floor. It’s a bit of an odd building, built as a gothic cathedral but converted to a mosque after one of the many invasions of Cyprus. I also saw some more mosques and churches, and Turkish baths.
I found a nice place to have lunch, and I went for a Doner Kebab meal, and it was delicious, and so very filling! It cost 8,000,000 lira, or about $7 (Turkey has a rather large inflation problem).
I headed back to the border, I had my piece of paper stamped again, and this time the Greek guard did check my passport carefully, and asked me where I was staying. And so ended my time in the TRNC!
Lonely Planet said that I would have to show my passport and have my details entered into a log book on the Greek side, and that they would carefully check that I had no Turkish or Greek background. Cypriots are not allowed to cross from one side to the other, and it is impossible to cross into southern Cyprus if you start in the north; only day trips to the north from the south are allowed. Still, the border guards didn’t seem too fussed and just waved me through when I showed my passport. So I walked through the exclusion zone, which contained this shop:
Presumably it’s been frozen in time since 1974, since it’s not going to get a whole lot of Cypriot customers! Barbed wire lined most of the road, but the relaxed nature of the border guards on both sides made me feel very safe.
On the Turkish side they checked my passport and entered my details in a computer. I then filled out a form and they stamped that rather than stamp my passport, which apparently would lead to problems at other Greek borders. One of the border guards “introduced” me to a taxi driver, but I declined and walked the 100m into the old city.
I didn’t really do much in North Nicosia except follow the Lonely Planet walking tour, and then wander around some more. There were lots of amusing/heartbreaking sights, such as the football field that has its seating on the other side of the border:
Or the church on the Greek side that backs on to the Turkish side:
Apparently they’re still allowed to hold services on the proviso that the back door is never, ever used!
The areas around the border were very run down:
It was even worse than the southern side, but there were also some nice areas where they’re making a redevelopment effort:
The mosque which I’d seen from the top of the Woolworths building was quite impressive close up and was lovely inside, very white and clean, with Turkish rugs covering the entire floor. It’s a bit of an odd building, built as a gothic cathedral but converted to a mosque after one of the many invasions of Cyprus. I also saw some more mosques and churches, and Turkish baths.
I found a nice place to have lunch, and I went for a Doner Kebab meal, and it was delicious, and so very filling! It cost 8,000,000 lira, or about $7 (Turkey has a rather large inflation problem).
I headed back to the border, I had my piece of paper stamped again, and this time the Greek guard did check my passport carefully, and asked me where I was staying. And so ended my time in the TRNC!
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Sunday at the Olympics, Part 2
I left the basketball at 5pm and started the long journey back to Athens in order to get to somewhere near the end of the Marathon route by the expected finishing time of 8:30. Leaving in the middle of the match worked out well as there was hardly anyone at the tram stop so I easily got a seat. The machine even gave me my change! So it appeared it would be a better trip back in, but unfortunately when we reached the tram stops for the beach people just poured in and the tram became really, really full. So it was a long and unpleasant journey, although it was quite funny that a couple who had been near me on the tram in were near me again on the tram on the way out, quite amazing given the size and number of trams and my odd time of departure.
Anyway I arrived back in to Athens at about 6:30, so I still had heaps of time before I needed to go to the marathon route. I walked around the tourist area some more, still searching for the waffle parlour from Soph’s and my previous trip, but I couldn’t find it (I’m pretty sure it’s been replaced by a more generic café). I ended up getting some Souvlaki at Quick Pitta, mainly because they had a TV where I could watch the middle stages of the marathon.
With the help of an information booth volunteer I had chosen a spot to watch the marathon and I headed there at 7:30. I walked through a nice park, with a pond in the middle with a LOT of ducks! I was in a bit of a rush but I had to stop and get a photo:
There were hundreds of people heading in the same direction and I started to realise that maybe I should have left a little earlier. I got to a street running parallel to the marathon route which I had planned to use to get to my chosen spot, but they had blocked it off even to pedestrians. So I had to go down to the marathon route itself, and unfortunately the footpath was completely packed with spectators. There was a way through at first but halfway along it pretty much closed up, so I had to really force my way through which wasn’t much fun at all. Eventually I came to spot where I could cross the road, it was a dual-carriage road and the other side was quite empty as it didn’t have a good view of the route itself. So I headed up the road until I got to another spot where I could cross back over. I found a great vantage point, there was an inlet where the tape was at an angle to the road so I could look up the marathon route and not have to lean out to see past people.
At first I was next to a couple of Brits, they were getting constant updates on their mobiles as to how Paula Radcliffe was going. They disappeared though, not sure if they went somewhere else or if they gave up after she pulled out. There was a great atmosphere with people of all countries around, there were lots of Japanese fans, there was a Cypriot flag nearby and a conga line of Kenyans went by after their runner had passed. I had my flag tied to the tape and I was directly in front of a big parking lot sign so I’m hoping to be able to spot myself on the replay! I stayed and watched for about half an hour after the winner went past, looking at the results list I think I would have seen all but 2 or 3 runners.
I also noticed that the same couple who I had seen on both my tram trips today were about 20m along the tape to my left! Such an astounding coincidence! I was just about to go talk to them when they both lit up cigarettes… so I decided I’d wait until they finished but they left before then. Oh well.
It was now 9pm and I was a bit of a wreck, so I decided I’d just head to the airport. At the metro station I went to the ticket counter to get a ticket (it’s €8 to the airport, normal fare is €0.60 or 0.70), but I was told it was free if I had an Olympics ticket! I’m not sure if that meant it had been free for the whole day, and I’d wasted all the fares I’d bought from machines, but they only added up to a few euros anyway. The trip was quite long, but was enlivened by an argument between two men who hadn’t bought a ticket and some ticket collectors. It was all in Greek so I’m not sure what the outcome was, but the fare-dodgers seemed upset so presumably they were fined. I also talked to a couple who turned out to be from Cyprus, although their flight was that night and thus they wouldn’t be joining me in sleeping at the airport.
I wandered around the airport for a while. I arrived in time to see the men’s 100m final so I was pleased to be able to see that. At 12am I’d hit the wall so I tried sleeping in various locations and positions. I was moved away from one by a security guard for “security reasons”, I have no idea what difference it made me moving to another area, but I managed to get reasonably comfortable on a couple of side-tables, using a bag as a pillow. I slept right through until 4:30am so it couldn’t have been too bad!
Anyway I arrived back in to Athens at about 6:30, so I still had heaps of time before I needed to go to the marathon route. I walked around the tourist area some more, still searching for the waffle parlour from Soph’s and my previous trip, but I couldn’t find it (I’m pretty sure it’s been replaced by a more generic café). I ended up getting some Souvlaki at Quick Pitta, mainly because they had a TV where I could watch the middle stages of the marathon.
With the help of an information booth volunteer I had chosen a spot to watch the marathon and I headed there at 7:30. I walked through a nice park, with a pond in the middle with a LOT of ducks! I was in a bit of a rush but I had to stop and get a photo:
There were hundreds of people heading in the same direction and I started to realise that maybe I should have left a little earlier. I got to a street running parallel to the marathon route which I had planned to use to get to my chosen spot, but they had blocked it off even to pedestrians. So I had to go down to the marathon route itself, and unfortunately the footpath was completely packed with spectators. There was a way through at first but halfway along it pretty much closed up, so I had to really force my way through which wasn’t much fun at all. Eventually I came to spot where I could cross the road, it was a dual-carriage road and the other side was quite empty as it didn’t have a good view of the route itself. So I headed up the road until I got to another spot where I could cross back over. I found a great vantage point, there was an inlet where the tape was at an angle to the road so I could look up the marathon route and not have to lean out to see past people.
At first I was next to a couple of Brits, they were getting constant updates on their mobiles as to how Paula Radcliffe was going. They disappeared though, not sure if they went somewhere else or if they gave up after she pulled out. There was a great atmosphere with people of all countries around, there were lots of Japanese fans, there was a Cypriot flag nearby and a conga line of Kenyans went by after their runner had passed. I had my flag tied to the tape and I was directly in front of a big parking lot sign so I’m hoping to be able to spot myself on the replay! I stayed and watched for about half an hour after the winner went past, looking at the results list I think I would have seen all but 2 or 3 runners.
I also noticed that the same couple who I had seen on both my tram trips today were about 20m along the tape to my left! Such an astounding coincidence! I was just about to go talk to them when they both lit up cigarettes… so I decided I’d wait until they finished but they left before then. Oh well.
It was now 9pm and I was a bit of a wreck, so I decided I’d just head to the airport. At the metro station I went to the ticket counter to get a ticket (it’s €8 to the airport, normal fare is €0.60 or 0.70), but I was told it was free if I had an Olympics ticket! I’m not sure if that meant it had been free for the whole day, and I’d wasted all the fares I’d bought from machines, but they only added up to a few euros anyway. The trip was quite long, but was enlivened by an argument between two men who hadn’t bought a ticket and some ticket collectors. It was all in Greek so I’m not sure what the outcome was, but the fare-dodgers seemed upset so presumably they were fined. I also talked to a couple who turned out to be from Cyprus, although their flight was that night and thus they wouldn’t be joining me in sleeping at the airport.
I wandered around the airport for a while. I arrived in time to see the men’s 100m final so I was pleased to be able to see that. At 12am I’d hit the wall so I tried sleeping in various locations and positions. I was moved away from one by a security guard for “security reasons”, I have no idea what difference it made me moving to another area, but I managed to get reasonably comfortable on a couple of side-tables, using a bag as a pillow. I slept right through until 4:30am so it couldn’t have been too bad!
Sunday at the Olympics, Part 1
I got up at 4:45 (the earliest I've been up in a long, long time), had a shower, got my things, checked out and headed for the bus stop. I was there in plenty of time for the 5:30 bus, and this time I checked very carefully that this bus was going to Athens! The bus trip was very quick, so I had plenty of time to get breakfast when I arrived. I went to Everest, which is a fast-food style café, and I had a cheese and bacon croissant and a hot chococaramel. I caught the metro in to OAKA and it was again very quick and easy, and I arrived at the complex at about 7:50. It was all quite deserted, as you'd expect, so I went to the velodrome to see if it had opened up early. It had, and the cyclists had already started warming up so I had a great time watching them for the next hour or so! There were often 15-20 cyclists on the track at once, and it was funny to see some of the sprinters tag on the end of the pursuit teams and follow them round for a couple of laps. I went and sat in an "official photographer's position" for a while, it was right on the fence so I could get some extreme closeups:
The Australian pursuit team didn't take part in the warmup which was a shame, but all the Aussie sprinters were out there.
My seat was unfortunately one of the few in the velodrome that was in the sun, although about halfway through the session it got high enough for me to be in the shade. I'm so glad they built a roof though, I assumed that I would be out in the sun and it would have been very unpleasant!
I knew that I would be seeing a qualifying session, but I thought that I would still see some head-to-head races. However my session only consisted of the sprinters and then the pursuit teams setting qualifying times in order to progress to the races themselves. However on the plus side I saw Australians set the fastest time in each of the events, and they all went on to win gold medals! It was a great atmosphere, all the seats were full by the end, and the German fans were especially good, shouting "Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!" every time one of their riders passed.
So all in all I had a great time at the velodrome, probably not as exciting as the water polo but definitely better results!
Next up was Australia vs Brazil in women’s basketball, and unfortunately I was in the far north of Athens and it was happening in the far south. It looked easy enough to get to though, there was a tram connection on the transport map I had that would take me directly to the stadium. So off I set...
The first hitch was when I arrived at Syntagma Square, one of the connecting stations, but after some searching and asking I found that they hadn't actually built the tram line to that station. So I had to go back to the metro and go another couple of stations, and then I found the tram stop easily enough. The ticket machine didn't give me my 40 euro cents change, but otherwise the journey out was OK, although it did take well over an hour. I had a seat though so I was happy enough.
We arrived at the "Helliniko" stop, and since I was heading to "Helliniko Olympic Complex", and the stop was right next to the complex on the map, and the stop was actually right next to the complex, I figured that it was the one to go for. However this proved not to be the case. A group of us (I certainly wasn't the only one who got it wrong) crossed an extremely busy road at a pedestrian crossing that cars completely ignored, walked two stops worth along the road, and then found we had to go back across the same extremely busy road at a pedestrian crossing that cars completely ignored, in order to be able to take the bridge back across the road and get into the complex.
All this of course was in high-30s heat, so I wasn't in the best of moods after I found that Helliniko is just a big flat expanse with enormous stadiums dotted around, and virtually no shade anywhere.
I was quite hungry so I went and got lunch - I got Gyros (shavings of meat off those spinning pillars), was €5 but was actually an excellent meal so I didn't feel too bad about the huge markup. I had to drag a table from the sun into the shade, and it was the last one available so I was lucky to get it. I filled my water bottle at the bubblers (was warm here, had been cold at OAKA) and headed to the basketball stadium. Unfortunately they hadn't opened the gates yet, even though it was only 45 mins to tip-off (I got in to water polo and cycling well over an hour before the start of each event). And there was absolutely no shade at the gates... so I went and stood under a small canopy for 20 minutes. Naturally there weren't any seats under the canopy, they were all out directly under the sun.
They finally opened up the gates, and I headed in. The stadium was enormous, it was quite clear that it was not going to be full for the Australia match, although the Greek match was on second so I thought it might fill up for that. The players came out for the warmup, with Lauren naturally getting the loudest cheer. I was in the upper section, and the main Australian support section was directly below me. I thought about going down and joining them but I could see that they were having their tickets carefully checked so it wasn't going to happen.
The game itself was great for the first half, especially in the first quarter when it looked like it was going to go down to the wire. A tall Brazilian was getting all the rebounds and they were shooting really well! But in the second half Brazil just seemed to stop defending properly, and they weren't even competing for rebounds, and Australia just ran away with the match. Lauren was definitely the star; she hardly missed a shot all match.
So it was great to see the win but it didn't have the excitement of the water polo.
I thought that the next match would be starting very soon but the timer countdown said it was over an hour away! So that meant I would only have time to see one quarter before I had to head off to the marathon. When the players finally came out to begin the warmup, the Greeks got an enormous cheer from the crowd, and a big ‘Ole!’ as each player was introduced. However when the Japanese players came out, they were greeted with very loud boos and whistles, it was much worse than at the water polo last night. It continued throughout the match every time the Japanese had the ball. So I didn’t mind leaving early as I was disgusted with the crowd. The Greeks were up by about 15 points at quarter time so I figured the match was over anyway… I found out later that they only ended up winning by 1 or 2 points so it would have been a good match after all!
The Australian pursuit team didn't take part in the warmup which was a shame, but all the Aussie sprinters were out there.
My seat was unfortunately one of the few in the velodrome that was in the sun, although about halfway through the session it got high enough for me to be in the shade. I'm so glad they built a roof though, I assumed that I would be out in the sun and it would have been very unpleasant!
I knew that I would be seeing a qualifying session, but I thought that I would still see some head-to-head races. However my session only consisted of the sprinters and then the pursuit teams setting qualifying times in order to progress to the races themselves. However on the plus side I saw Australians set the fastest time in each of the events, and they all went on to win gold medals! It was a great atmosphere, all the seats were full by the end, and the German fans were especially good, shouting "Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!" every time one of their riders passed.
So all in all I had a great time at the velodrome, probably not as exciting as the water polo but definitely better results!
Next up was Australia vs Brazil in women’s basketball, and unfortunately I was in the far north of Athens and it was happening in the far south. It looked easy enough to get to though, there was a tram connection on the transport map I had that would take me directly to the stadium. So off I set...
The first hitch was when I arrived at Syntagma Square, one of the connecting stations, but after some searching and asking I found that they hadn't actually built the tram line to that station. So I had to go back to the metro and go another couple of stations, and then I found the tram stop easily enough. The ticket machine didn't give me my 40 euro cents change, but otherwise the journey out was OK, although it did take well over an hour. I had a seat though so I was happy enough.
We arrived at the "Helliniko" stop, and since I was heading to "Helliniko Olympic Complex", and the stop was right next to the complex on the map, and the stop was actually right next to the complex, I figured that it was the one to go for. However this proved not to be the case. A group of us (I certainly wasn't the only one who got it wrong) crossed an extremely busy road at a pedestrian crossing that cars completely ignored, walked two stops worth along the road, and then found we had to go back across the same extremely busy road at a pedestrian crossing that cars completely ignored, in order to be able to take the bridge back across the road and get into the complex.
All this of course was in high-30s heat, so I wasn't in the best of moods after I found that Helliniko is just a big flat expanse with enormous stadiums dotted around, and virtually no shade anywhere.
I was quite hungry so I went and got lunch - I got Gyros (shavings of meat off those spinning pillars), was €5 but was actually an excellent meal so I didn't feel too bad about the huge markup. I had to drag a table from the sun into the shade, and it was the last one available so I was lucky to get it. I filled my water bottle at the bubblers (was warm here, had been cold at OAKA) and headed to the basketball stadium. Unfortunately they hadn't opened the gates yet, even though it was only 45 mins to tip-off (I got in to water polo and cycling well over an hour before the start of each event). And there was absolutely no shade at the gates... so I went and stood under a small canopy for 20 minutes. Naturally there weren't any seats under the canopy, they were all out directly under the sun.
They finally opened up the gates, and I headed in. The stadium was enormous, it was quite clear that it was not going to be full for the Australia match, although the Greek match was on second so I thought it might fill up for that. The players came out for the warmup, with Lauren naturally getting the loudest cheer. I was in the upper section, and the main Australian support section was directly below me. I thought about going down and joining them but I could see that they were having their tickets carefully checked so it wasn't going to happen.
The game itself was great for the first half, especially in the first quarter when it looked like it was going to go down to the wire. A tall Brazilian was getting all the rebounds and they were shooting really well! But in the second half Brazil just seemed to stop defending properly, and they weren't even competing for rebounds, and Australia just ran away with the match. Lauren was definitely the star; she hardly missed a shot all match.
So it was great to see the win but it didn't have the excitement of the water polo.
I thought that the next match would be starting very soon but the timer countdown said it was over an hour away! So that meant I would only have time to see one quarter before I had to head off to the marathon. When the players finally came out to begin the warmup, the Greeks got an enormous cheer from the crowd, and a big ‘Ole!’ as each player was introduced. However when the Japanese players came out, they were greeted with very loud boos and whistles, it was much worse than at the water polo last night. It continued throughout the match every time the Japanese had the ball. So I didn’t mind leaving early as I was disgusted with the crowd. The Greeks were up by about 15 points at quarter time so I figured the match was over anyway… I found out later that they only ended up winning by 1 or 2 points so it would have been a good match after all!
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