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.

Seaside

Olga and I went for a walk today. We spent some time on the seaside and than went to Chesters Bar for a quick snack. I have made a bunch of pictures on the way. I photographed everything I saw – people, sea, seagulls, yachts, signs, beer, etc.

While processing the pictures I realized that I am getting better and better. It is difficult to notice this progress on a day to day basis. But when I compare pictures of the same places and subjects which were made few months apart, I can really see the changes. Also, I am throwing away less and less pictures. Overall, I am very pleased with myself today.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-02-20_POTD

Tire care

Tires on my car are getting old and bald. Unfortunately I don’t have the budget to replace them now and driving like they are is not fun anymore. So I decided to swap the front tires with back ones to buy myself a couple of month.

I passed by the 24×7 tire care service. While one technician was swapping the wheels, balancing them and checking for other problems, I was talking to another one. He told me a few interesting things that I didn’t know or forgot about.

There is a specification of how bad one’s tires can be. Police is actually cheching tires on the cars once in a while. Offenders are fined 50 CYP per tire. I thought that there should be a law about it and fines and everything, but the accuracy of the claim should be taken with a grain of salt from the guy who sells tires for life. Anyway, so far I seem to have one tire which is illiegal.
In Cyprus, all cars older than 4 years must have an MOT check (mechanical compliance test). There is a fine for not having MOT certificate. But that’s not all. Without MOT certificate one can’t pay the road tax. Unpaid road tax is a finable offense by itself. And that is still not it. Without the MOT certificate, the insurance is invalid and non-enforcable. That’s right – if you will have an accident, your insurance won’t pay up unless you have an MOT certificate. Interesting, isn’t it?

So, all these news just show that I will be spending a bit more money in the near future than I wanted. Firstly, I’ll have to bring the car for service and get an MOT certification while I am at it. Than I’ll have to go pay the road tax. And than I’ll have to save some money for the tires. I need to buy at least 2 of those. All of these make an amount of roughly 400 CYP shine much nearer than the horizon. Oh, well… At least I enjoy every kilometer driven in my car.

My phone is back

Today I went to CYTA to pay for my mobile. Somehow everything went very quickly. There weren’t too many people in their offices at 7:30 in the morning when I came. All the clerks were still fresh and smiling and very polite. It turned out that I didn’t need any ID or any papers at all. I just came straight to the cashier who asked me for my phone number and told me how much I had to pay. I paid and my mobile was useful immidately. I mean I didn’t even step away from the cashier when I checked it.

It might sound strange for those of you living in technologically advanced countries, but I was pretty much surprised. Government body is using a computer system which works and is integrated as low down as the cashier clerk. Fantastic!

Even middle of nowhere, like Cyprus, can’t avoid progress and global computarization. That’s an excellent thought to ~~start~~ continue your day with.

Party at Milenka

About 20 people from the forum met yesterday at Milenka’s place for some rocking. Actually, the original idea was to sing songs by Vladimir Vysotsky and have some pies. But when it starts, it kind of difficult or even impossible to control. People were drinking everything from tea and juice to vodka and tequilla. Singing also was out of control with blues, rock-n-roll, and folk pieces all over the place. Overall, I had as good time as most of the people.

Just for the reference, the thread about the party is here. Starting from the third page or so you can find comments about the party and links to the photographs. I have made a few shots myself. The results are here.

Does anyone feel cold?

It is unually cold these days in Cyprus. Check the screenshot, which shows +4 degrees Celsius at 6 o’clock in the morning. I’ve been living in this country for 9 years now and I don’t remember anything like that. What is even more strange is that the skies are clear and the sun is bright. Usually, it warms up with conditions like this. Not this year though.

Luckily it’s not very windy or rainy or snowy. That would be a real freaking problem.

By the way, weather forecast doesn’t look that good either.