My road! My home!
Everything I know
Overcoats- The Fool
Hello again! Thank you for coming back!
So far, in this blog, I have been mostly talking about packing and sightseeing. This week, I’m going to be talking about my home, my immediate setting, and my education. From now til the end of my study abroad, I will be staying in Maro with three other boys. Maro apartments are very spacious and it comes with a full kitchen, a balcony, and other normal necessities. However, there are some things that I have learned that are part of everyday life. One thing is that they don’t use dryers here; as a result, I use a drying rack here. Another thing is that they don’t naturally have hot water for showers. In order to get hot water, you will have to turn on a water heater before hand. Last thing that I have noticed is that their toilets over here are not pressurized. Therefore, when you use the toilet, you cannot discard anything down the toilet. Besides Maro, there are other housing options for SU or American students. These housing options include Dinos, Anthi, Gabriel, Rafis, and SIX. Most of these housing option are pretty much the same. The exception is SIX with it being classified as premium housing.
Interior of Maro 
Kitchen of Maro 
Common are of Maro 
An outsider view of Maro
Apart from my home setting, there are also some local areas that I often attend. The most popular spot for me is the local supermarket also known as ΣΚΛΑΒΕΝΙΤΗΣ in Greek. When I’m here, I get my basic stuff ranging from breakfast items (e.g. oats, cereal, eggs, and milk) to dinner items (rice, vegetables, and others). After spending roughly two weeks here, I observe some notable things. First, most grocery items here are cheaper than the States with the minor exception for imported goods. The other thing that I observe is that they lack normal everyday objects for us Americans. For example, I was asking one of the employees if they have maple syrup. She took me to the breakfast area and led me to the maple syrup, but the only problem was that there was only one brand of it and it was really expensive.
My local supermarket
STORY TIME
Before coming to Cyprus, I knew for a fact that everywhere besides the US uses the metric system. Yet, it didn’t click when I was in the supermarket. When I was getting some ham from the butcher, I initially asked for a pound for it. Suprise suprise, they didn’t understand me. Realizing my mistake, I laugh it off and ask for 2 kilos of ham. I think some of you guys might realize the problem here. I was under the impression that a kilo was half of a pound. It was the exact opposite. OOPS. Luckily for me, the butcher gave me a weird look again and just gave the “right amount” of ham. For those who are wondering, a 0.25 kilos worth of ham is enough for a week.
Other than the supermarket, there is a local bakery call Zorbas, which makes the best pastries around the area!
Some pastries at Zorbas
Aside from my home situation, I started my first week of classes. The classes that I’m taking will fulfill my political science, economics, and environmental studies requirement. Overall, my classes have been very relaxed with less coursework and students coming in like 10 mins late to class. Apparently, there is a thing call island time where people come in around said time. It’s almost never the case where people come on time or are there early.
Sidenote: If you plan on watching an American show (e.g. The Bachelor), make sure you get a VPN or something equivalent. The reason being is that said show is not available in your possible host country. Yet, there is a silver lining with your host country offering shows that are not available in the US. For example, in the States, Netflix doesn’t offer Rick and Morty. Luckily, for me, Cyprus shows all of the seasons of Rick and Morty. YAY!
Before I leave, please make sure to follow my travel blog on Instagram! Anyways, til next time, have an amazing day!
Tangible Adventures 