Through other countries and continents: first impressions and new friends in Cyprus

We are in Cyprus now. We bought cheap tickets from Kyiv to Larnaca at proper time of Wizz Air ticket sales, so we are celebrating Christmas by the Gregorian calendar 🙂

It’s cool here. 20 degrees above zero and we have even taken sea bathes!

Super and posh is Cyprus itself where, to tell the truth, we are for the first time.

It’s a strange and interesting mix of Greece with the British, Turkish and Byzantine influences in the Mediterranean Sea in the climate latitude of Israel.

But what is the most pleasant here – the people.

For a long time we haven’t met such sincere and interesting…hotel owners. Who, we hope, have become our real friends.

Just imagine: the next day after the late check-in you come to the apart-hotel office to pay for the apartment.

“Hi! – Hi, I’m Haig.”

The office of Petalmo City Apartments, Larnaca, is all over packed with trophies. Those are tennis cups for the won titles of the veteran tennis tournaments.

larnaca_petalmo_apartments_Haig_cups

Haig Ashdjian is an owner of the hotel, sporty and good-looking bearded man, who from the first minute of our acquaintance offers a glass of Zivania – the Cyprus vodka of 45% alcohol with a taste of Ukrainian ‘samohonka’ of a very good quality.

Haig Ashdjian (1)

Then comes the second glass and the third – interrupting the narration about his origin and his tennis carrier.

Haig Ashdjian (4)

Haig is an ethnic Armenian, the son of emigrators who moved to Cyprus from Turkish Cilicia (Kilikia).

He knows lot of languages: Armenian, Greek, Turkish, English, Swedish, a little of Russian and even some words in Ukrainian (Bud’mo, Haig! ;)).

Haig Ashdjian (5)

He had played for Cyprus in an official Davis Cup match and he is now a supervisor of the Davis Cup in Cyprus, the member of one of the committees of the Cyprus Tennis Federation, the active player, hotel owner, hunter and traveler.

Haig gives us two bottles of beer and a tennis ball, with a passing remark about his photo (which I noticed) together with Novak Djokovic on the tennis court.

Wow! It’s 300% that we haven’t ever met such hotel owners before.

And Haig is also a member of a local Rotary club – we can see his photo on the latest meeting of the club in Facebook.
It was Rotary club that raised the Zenon monument in Larnaca – Zenon was a founder of the Stoic school of philosophy).

Larnaca castle

So to sum up: what we can say to you, our friends. It’s the third our day here. But we do LOVE Cyprus already.
Cyprus and its wonderful people (and let’s put outside the brackets that there are more than 100500 of Russians here – there are more British anyway!)))

Larnaca rus (1)

Larnaca rus 2

By the way, Haig’s son is the director of one of the main museums of Larnaca – Pierides Museum, which we highly recommend to visit.

cyprus_larnaca_dinner_street

We spent the whole evening raising glasses of Zivania with Haig and his Armenian-Cyprus relative. It was such a beautiful, pleasant and… educational evening. It’s so cool to learn new languages, travel through different countries and wait for new friends to come to visit your country and place.

cyprus_larnaca_dinner

We are proud of this acquaintance and will be waiting for our new friend in Kyiv.

cyprus_larnaca_dinner_bike

And if you are going to travel to Larnaca (that is for sure worth to visit it) – stay in Petalmo City Apartments, with its wonderful owner.
Who promises to renovate his really inexpensive apartments 😉

cyprus_sand

 

Lesia and Dmytro, “Taste of Plantago”

Facebook Comments

.

ADD YOUR COMMENT