Look! It’s Nick the Greek

I left Athens with a heavy heart as I was leaving Greece so soon having had such a great week there. In saying that, I happen to have landed on the only other Greek-speaking piece of land in the World.

So who is ‘Nick the Greek?’. He is someone that I used to work with at Essential Computing. He works in the marketing department and originates from Cyprus and his fiancé, from Poland. They both consider Cyprus their home and they even met out here a decade ago!

Before I left the UK I knew that Nick and his good lady were flying to the ‘homeland’ for Easter (Easter is a week later in Greece/Cyprus). Knowing this, I had a casual conversation with Nick prior to me leaving which went summit like: ‘Dude, I’m kinda around your way (ish) when you head home for your 10 days. Shall I come see you for a couple of them?’.

He said: ‘Of course man, get it done’ and that was that so here I am folks! (I’m really beginning to understand that it really can be that casual for some people) How cool.

So I’m staying with him at his Mother’s house which is situated in between the two of the three international airports of Paphos and Larnaca (although the 3rd is in the north of the island which is Turkish occupied and there is still a lot of bad feeling since the Turkish invasion those decades ago).

He came to pick me up so here we are after I ‘touchdown’. My smile is broken down as follows: 60% to have seen Nick and 40% to have made it on dry land (I was flying Ryanair after all).

We had a couple of beers that night and I was welcomed into their family home. What an honour.

However I then also saw where I was to be sleeping for my stay here:

Hmmm, ok, different…

Although admittedly I later realised on closer inspection that the sofa was immaculate, the sheets clean and fresh and the size of the sofa was larger than the single beds I’d be staying in! As for how did I sleep? Yep, you guessed it, like a baby. Another lesson learnt there then…

Nick has it quite tough back in the UK but you’ll never here him moan. I say tough in the sense that he travels from Bristol to Clevedon each day for work. Ok, not easy you may agree but you’ll know people that do it etc… right? Except how many of them travel each day by public transport? Namely those darn buses!? Exactly, not many. This means he has one of those like 11/12 hours day in total from the moment he leaves his house to the moment he re-enters. That’s tough and especially so when his existence in England compared to that of his homeland is really so different. Time stands still over here and I have to admit, I’ve kinda naughtily enjoyed this a little too. This way of life means they often don’t even know what they’re doing a few hours later!? Truly bizarre for the likes of myself and perhaps a lot of you too?

Let me provide you just one photo of what this man does not get to see when he is back in the UK – the view from outside his front door. Yep, that’d be a mandarin tree.

Oh look, a lemon tree too!

And the coolest thing of all, his Father’s old (like super-old) Mercedes. I think the exposure came out really well here.

After more lazing around, coffee, and general banter, we had some home-prepared lunch before a little walk on the shore line and so I naturally took the opportunity to capture a couple of images. Of the food too of course! 🙂

Souvla consists of large pieces of meet that you would typically eat with your hands. This is not the same as I had in mainland Greece name Souvlaki.