Category: Cyprus

I live in Cyprus for many years now. It is a beautiful little island in Mediterranean Sea. It features warm weather for most of the year, sea, very kind and hospital people, plenty of jobs in IT industry, good food and plenty of alcohol, stable currency, and more. It’s really a nice place to live if you can handle small towns and villages. It’s also a great place to raise the kids.

Not much happens here. It is a quiet and simple place. Yet, when something happens or when I write about it, I post it to Cyprus category.

Strike cure found by Cyprus government

Air-traffic controllers were striking way too much recently.  Cyprus government took an unusually fast and serious action.  They found a cure.  Cyprus Mail reports:

The government bill, fast-tracked by the executive and the legislature working in rare unison, makes it a criminal offence for any ATC to refuse to work when required, and provides for penalties of up two years in prison and/or a fine of €2,550. The penalties are provided for under an existing law.

Given the economic downfall, unemployment rates, and the dependency of Cyprus on air traffic (being an island and a tourism attraction), I think this is reasonable and much needed.

TripAdviser can be confusing

I’ve heard plenty of good things about the TripAdvisor website.   I’ve never used it myself yet, but I know that a few people that I trust with reviews do.  Today, I was searching for information on a restaurant and Google suggested that I check out this TripAdvisor page.  Looks good, doesn’t it?  Here is a screenshot of it, just in case it will change in the future.

 

Reviews, ratings, and even photos – that is all very useful.  But I needed more.  Given that I had no idea where exactly the restaurant was, I thought the most helpful details would be the address or at least a phone number.  A link with “More restaurant details” only told me that I’d need a reservation.  But again, no information on how to actually make the reservation.

Without that basic info, the rest is pretty much useless.  Gladly, that’s not the only website on the Internet.  This one seems to have both the address and the phone number…

Cyprus photography by Brian JC Osbourne

I came across Brian JC Osbourne’s portfolio in one of the Cyprus-related Flickr groups.  There are only just a few pictures, and most of them have a simplistic, village even,  feel to them.  Yet, I did enjoy them quite a bit.  The choice of subjects and post-processing filters match the Cyprus atmosphere nicely.

Agios Nicholas church, 2012

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to stop by the Agios Nicholas church.  The church was destroyed a few years ago when it went completely under water of the nearby lake.  This year Cyprus saw plenty of rain, but so far the water levels haven’t reached that far yet.  There is still snow in the Troodos mountains, but I don’t think that melting those will be enough to drown the church again.

Have a look at my Flickr set for previous pictures of this church.