Bienvenida a Costa Rica

Well, it's official-- I've moved to my second post. Bienvenida a San Jose. So far, so good. Costa Rica is absolutely gorgeous. So far, I've checked out the beach, the mountains, and Arenal volcano erupting at night. I have been horseback riding along the rivers, visited a private wild cat sanctuary, and soaked in hot mineral springs in the middle of the jungle.

Where NOT to Park in Cyprus

I came back from a series of meetings today to find my license plate had been slashed off of my car. Well, not completely...there's still an "H" tacked on to the back. Thank God my diplomatic plates were actually in the car. Evidently, I parked in the wrong public parking space. I left my car in the public space in front of a convenience store, and the owner was so angry about it that he went and screamed and made a scene in front of the embassy. In fact, I was called out from a meeting at the Archbishopric and a security guy had to walk with me in order to go claim my car. Now, considering that this was a public space, on the road, I was quite confused, but evidently it's ok to park on sidewalks in Cyprus, just not on the public spaces in front of certain stores.

Kakopetria

Over the weekend I visited one of many Cypriots' favorite mountain villages, Kakopetria. It's a charming mountain village tucked away in the Troodos and is only 45 minutes by car from Nicosia. A Cypriot friend told me that Kakopetria used to be a resort for many Middle Eastern sheikhs and businessmen. As one of my Swiss friends said, it's like a little Swiss village in the middle of Cyprus. It's the site of an old mill that now houses a restaurant famous for its trout. It's also got beautiful water falls, lovely hiking, and a sweet downtown section. I visited with my friend John and his friend Roya, who was visiting from Pakistan on her R&R, and brought along my puppy, Sam. We stopped for coffee right on the town square, at a place with a roaring fire inside. I liked it so much, I went back the next day by myself to wander around and explore! While I was there, I ran into a woman named Eleni, who sold homemade jams and fresh rosewater and who gave me a delicious olive pastry and fresh clementines-- the sweetest I've ever tasted.

"What's Kerosene?"

A week after the elevator incident, my friend Caterina invited me to her house for a curry dinner with some Scandinavian guests. After taking the stairs to Caterina's place, I enjoyed a lovely curry dinner and then offered to give my friends Fredrik (who's Swedish) and John (who's not), a ride home.

After dropping John off, Fredrik and I stopped at a gas station. As we were pulling up to the pump, Fredrik spied a price sign and asked, "What's kerosene?" I told him it was a heating fuel typically used in the winters for homes and lamps. He then wondered aloud why it was at a gas station, and then I told him I had no idea.

I put 20 Euros worth of fuel in the car and pulled out. We made it to the traffic light before the car started seizing up and making strange sounds so that I had to turn around. I pulled back into the gas station, and...I had filled the car with kerosene. It was stuck right between the 95 and 98 octane, and had the same sized nozzle as the regular gas. I was horrified. My car wouldn't even start. I had to call John so that he and Fredrik could push my car back into a parking spot.

Luckily for me, and perhaps, too coincidentally, the gas station had a garage next door who happily flushed my engine and replaced my filters. What sort of country puts the kerosene in with the gas?!

My Big Fat Greek (Cypriot) Wedding

The day after my first visit to a Cypriot gay club (it was a busy weekend), I attended my first Cypriot wedding. The son of one of my Cypriot colleagues was getting married, and I was invited. It was absolutely lovely.

My Cypriot friends/ colleagues coached me that it was advisable to go to 2 out of three events. In Cyprus, a wedding typically consists of the church wedding, a reception, and a dinner. Only best friends and family go to all three. Good friends and colleagues go to two. Friends, business associates and acquaintances go to the reception, which can include up to 2000 people. Out in the rural areas, whole villages are invited. Many young Cypriot couples view weddings as revenue opportunities-- it is not uncommon for a young couple to net up to 30,000 CYP (that's about $75,000) at their wedding.

So, I selected the church wedding and the dinner. The Swedes and I arrived half an hour early...everyone else arrived a few minutes after 3:00 pm and crammed into the church. In Orthodox weddings, attendees can sit on either side of the church; there is no "bride's" or "groom's side." The seats are benches with bottoms that fold back, so that you can stand up the entire time. Unlike an American wedding, the bridal party did not process formally down the aisle, and once up in front of the priest, the bride or the groom DIDN'T SPEAK...not even once. The priest did all of the chanting. As my friend Caterina explained, the wedding isn't about the bride and groom, it's about God. She also informed me that the only time a woman is allowed to go behind the altar in the Orthodox church is on her wedding day. Well, you can imagine how I feel about that, but... During the ceremony, the priest crowned both the bride and groom with interlinked silver crowns, which he placed on their heads, switched, and then placed on their heads again. It was a beautiful ceremony.

Afterwards, I grabbed a hot dog at Goody's (a Greek fast food chain), rested at home and then headed over to the reception at the Hilton for dinner starting at 9pm. The dinner was lovely, but I was mortified when there was a call for single women and out of the nearly four hundred people in attendence, only 4 women went up! I was one of them. It was three Russian women (the bride is Russian) and me. I have a hard time believing that there were only four single women. Or were there? Talk about pressure...which was relieved shortly thereafter by lots of alcohol and Greek dancing. It was a great night.

"Bi"- Communal Love

The day after getting stuck in the elevator with four of my now-closest colleagues, I spent time in another closet, so to speak-- I went to my first Cypriot gay club, Secrets Freedom Club. Yes, that's the name of the club. A group of us, after partying at a club in Nicosia, decided at 1am that it would be a good idea to go check out the scene in Larnaca. You see, we really wanted to go dancing. And people in Nicosia, even if they are in a club with very loud music, don't dance. They stare at each other and blow cigarette smoke, but no Nicosian would be caught actually MOVING to music. Our rationale was that, a gay club in Larnaca HAD to have better music than the club we were at and actual dancing to boot. So, we all piled into a few cars and headed out to Larnaca.

Much to our delight, the club had lots of dancing people. Interestingly, the club reflected the geopolitical realities of the island-- the men were in one half of the club, and the women were in the other. Men and women, at least in Nicosia, never mix when they go out. Each area was further subdivided into Greek and Turkish-Cypriot areas. However, unlike Cyprus as a whole, there were lots of mixed G/C- T/C gay couples. Could the Cypriot gay community serve as a template for bi-communal integration?

Elevator Rescue...Cypriot Style

On the way to Caterina's pizza party, four members of the American diplomatic community and I became trapped in a Cypriot elevator and were rescued by the Nicosia Fire Squad (who stopped fighting a fire in order to come save us). As Dave Barry would say, I could not make this up. Anyway, the fun started when all five of us trooped into the European-sized elevator, which is about the size of a teeny weeny broom closet. Although we were well under the posted limit of 400 kgs (that's approx 1000 lbs for you Americans and Brits), we realized something was wrong when the elevator made a loud sound, jerked and well, stopped. Naturally, the first thing we did was ring the elevator bell, which gave out a weak tinkle. That's when we realized-- NO ONE REALIZED WHERE WE WERE. And why would they? Then, we picked up the phone. No connection. We called the posted elevator service number. The technician for our area was on vacation. What were we supposed to do-- wait until he came back in two weeks? We called the Embassy. The phone kept breaking up. I was screaming into the phone in English on one end of the elevator while Eleni was screaming in Greek to the police department on the other end.

One of our colleagues figured out we were in the elevator, went out to his car, and came back with...an axe. Who the h*ll carries an axe in their car? All of a sudden, my colleague Mark swung the axe into the cracked elevator opening and we all leapt back against the wall. After we convinced him to get rid of the axe, he stuck his fingers in the opening to try to pry it apart. After screaming at him to remove his fingers in case they got caught, some members of the pizza party came out and started hanging around the elevator. We were informed that the Marines, the police and the fire department were on their way. About 20 minutes later, the fire department arrived, stuck a key in some hole outside elevator, and popped the door open. One by one, we leapt from the elevator and jumped...six inches. It had felt much more dramatic. Much to my disappointment, all of the firemen appeared married and pissed that we had interrupted their fire. So, in the end, I said good-bye to the firemen (how do you thank someone from rescuing you in an elevator? I mean, what's the protocol here?) and my colleagues and I trooped upstairs to eat some pizza.