It’s a Small World

Swish, SWISH go the windshield wipers on our little Hyundi car, indicating that the driver intends to turn. Raucous, overtired laughter comes from the passengers. It feels like midnight, but in all reality it’s shortly after 7pm, local Cyprus time. Cypronians drive on the left, so hence the small fracas every-time Heath tries to signal.

Heath, Andrew and I are spending two nights on the island before heading on to Israel and ultimately Egypt. We met up in London Heathrow, Andrew looking like he was fresh out of the shower, Heath and I tired, hectic and old. Our flight from Chicago had been delayed, repaired, and finally was crew-less, and when they announced that they still didn’t have a hot clue if or when we’d be flying, I tootled off to the Help Desk and asked if there was any alternate routes that would land us in Larnaca, Cyprus Sunday evening. Fortunately for us, there was another flight to London that was already boarding, so we hoofed it to the gate and walked on. Unfortunately, the only available seats were 13E and 13K, both middle seats. Nobody in their right mind would want to trade for a middle, and since beggars can’t be choosers, we sucked it up. I really didn’t sleep much. I don’t know if it’s cause I bragged that I normally sleep well on flights, or if it was cause I sat down and my brain presented me with the thought “what if your legs will feel restless.” I think we all know how that went.

We had almost two hours at LHR, and we used every bit of it queuing in various security lines, waiting behind oddly closed doors, riding miles on a bus, making a quick dash into Boots for Red Bulls and then boarding a train to take us to our new gate. Boarding was chaotic, but cheerful (“Thank you for your patience, my lovely”). We had a last minute aircraft change, and cheers for us, our row 16 seats were really quite posh. Little foot rests and everything! That of course ruled out sleeping, cause if one finally has a decent seat on a plane, one must be awake to enjoy all its features.

We were spat out of Larnaca Airport into a veritable freezer. It was about 36*, dark and somewhat windy. Just plain a bit miserable temperature wise. I was seriously thrilled to finally be on Cyprus soil, as it’s been one of my bucket list destinations for years. I say we were spat out, but in all reality it took us half of forever to find which was the correct exit to use to board the rental car shuttle. We swarmed from door to door, followed a variety of arrows, refused “TAXIIII” offers and in general felt puzzled. Eventually we got it sorted, after a phone call to the agent, and a toasty warm van came to pick us up.

The rental people were a total scream, and kept us in stitches while we signed the long winded paper work. After admonishing us a few times to “remember to drive on the left, to not speed and to hardly ever smoke in the car (at least, you know, don’t leave ashes), we were set loose to terrorize Larnaca with our beastly driving. It really wasn’t so bad. We mostly obeyed the rules, as per the car’s start up message. We also made up our own rules occasionally, like, wipe the windshield when turning.

Night was at Le Mat Hostel, an old building a block or two from the beach. It was really nice and very cold before the heaters finally conquered the chill. I went down to the kitchen while I waited on the hot water to heat up and made myself a cup of tea. One of the greatest joys in life for me is walking into a strange “shared space” and having no idea who will be using it too. This time it was Peter from Brighton, UK. I scared him out of his wits cause he didn’t hear me enter. “Because,” he said, after his heart had slowed and his earbuds had been removed, he had been “deeply immersed in a really long guitar solo.” He was very political, and I heard all about the various parties and Prime Ministers in the UK from Margaret Thatcher on. Vaguely interesting, but I was so tired I was practically seeing in triplicate, so when Andrew joined the conversation I eased up to bed.

The water was hot, so after soaking away the travel grime one somehow acquires, we fell into our cozy beds. The high ceilings were greedy with the heat, but it wasn’t too cold. Somewhere a dog barked, two cats had a dual in the street, and I knew the Sea was close enough to smell. Perfect.