Home Away From Home

Living in the University of Cyprus Hostel for visiting professors and graduate students in the Old Walled City of Nicosia is quite a rich experience.   The building was built at the turn of the century and has the look of the colonial period.  Inside, they are doing serious renovation---replastering walls, repainting, repairing windows, etc.  Consequently, lots of dust, ladders, scaffolding, and chattering workmen at 7:30 in the morning.  Gustas and Stephan are two of the younger workers. Gustas speaks English, Stephan just smiles.  And I now can say "Kalimera" for Good Morning, "Doxsi" for OK, and "Efcharisto" for Thank You. (All you Greek scholars, note the root "Charis" in that--for gift/grace--and then it makes sense as Thank You.  Those connections let me remember the words. Like the main street going to my office is "Kallipoleos" which means Good City.  Polis for city.  See?  It's not so hard---Ha!  The phrase, "It's Greek to me" has taken on a much richer meaning for me.   But I digress.



Arches and curving stairways in hostel

                                             

Stairs leading to my room



The building inside is filled with arches and curving stairways and ornate tile floors.  I love the inside.  The very center of the building has an interior courtyard enclosed by windows, so when I sit in the kitchen, eating my Greek yoghurt and almonds for breakfast, I look out at the couryard.  Unfortunately, the courtyard is filled with scaffolding, ladders, and workmen, too, as the renovations include the exterior walls.   I hope that the place is finished by the time I leave Nicosia, so I get to see it as a thing of beauty, not just a work in progress!



Interior courtyard being renovated

 The kitchen has those courtyard windows and one of the beautiful arches, but it also has an electric stove, a small washing machine, two big refrigerators, a microwave, and Palmolive dish soap.  Laundry is dried in a back courtyard, draped on drying racks. Well equipped and comfortable, especially when cooking for one.


Hostel Kitchen, modern and with its own archway

 



Back of hostel, where laundry dries



My room is...well, think "convent" if you've ever been in one of those.  Deep yellow walls, tile floors (ceramic but quite simple, not beautiful replicas of mosiacs like down stairs).   I have a desk and chair, a bed, a side chair that isn't very comfortable, a cupboard with shelves, drawers, and a place to hang clothes, and an electric space heater, which I use every day!  The thick stone walls of the building definitely hold the cold and damp. Best of all, I have external doors with windows that open out onto a tiny balcony, overlooking a tall palm tree and a vivid magenta bougainvillea spilling over the top of the house across the way. Those windows let in lots of light during the day and the sound of the Turkish call to prayer and the workmen's jackhammers at 7:30 in the morning. I've added a video of the call to prayer, interrupted by jackhammers.  We'll see if that works.

Floor of my tiny balcony

 

View from my balcony

Bougainvillea outside my balcony

I have made my room my own---with a swatch of sheer fabric draped over the window as a "window treatment," with a three Euro rag rug to put my feet on in the mornings, with pictures I stole from downstairs (where the workmen had piled them while they painted), with assorted pictures of my husband, kids, and mom attached to blue paper (blue for Greek), and with a small cyclamen plant, purchased at the open air market and gracing my desk.  It isn't much, but at the end of the day, it feels good to come home to my room, especially now that I have an internet cable and can SKYPE with my husband, my mom, my family.    

Doors leading to balcony, with my "window treatment"

My desk with INTERNET CONNECTION!



 Being here has given me a taste of an older culture and surrounded me with friendly, interesting companions for those conversational moments at breakfast and the end of the day. It has also made me grateful for simple things--a swatch of sheer fabric, a small rag rug, my own mug to take to my room with tea at night. I'm glad I'm living here for my time in Cyprus.