Fri, Jul 10th - 9:35PM

**NOTE:  The last few days of the blog were delayed due to two things:  1) at the beach we had no internet at the house.  Tim and Tony were going into IW (Internet Withdrawal) by the 3rd morning, so the three of us, laptops in tow, walked into town in search of an internet cafe - which was actually quite easy to come by.  2)  Once we got back to the USA, the jet lag took it's toll; but I finally got the last post done.  Our thanks to all of you who took time to read it.

Day 9, July 5

We got a great night’s sleep – don’t know if part of it was being near the sea or not – but I’m  sure it didn’t hurt.  Steve and Mikhayla had to leave early because he had to catch a flight to London for a meeting tomorrow, so we went to breakfast with Tony.  The restaurant served a typical English Breakfast which was fine with us, after our ‘breakfast trays’ at the Almond.  Just as we were finishing up, Temu, Tina and Max came up from the beach and sat at the table adjacent to ours. 

We spent the day hanging at the beach, which was wall to wall people, since it was Sunday and doing a little shopping in the tourist section then wound up back and the house, swimming in the pool and reading.  Since it was Temu’s last night he wanted another Meze dinner, but no one else was up for that much food, so we all wandered downtown and chose a restaurant that looked like it would please everyone.  The food was tourist quality, but not bad. 

No one had heard from Steve, so we had no idea if we got the beach house for another night or not.  We decided that there was no use worrying about it, we’d deal with it in the morning.  Instead Tim and I took a long romantic walk on the beach – now mostly deserted.  The moon was almost full and I was marveling at the fact that we were walking on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea – it was like a dream!

Day 10, July 6

After Temu and Tina took off for the airport, Tim and I went down to the much-less-crowded beach and staked out an umbrella.  We swam and I FLOATED for the first time in my life because the water is so heavily salted.  It was amazing – I felt like a little kid!  After a couple hours I decided to head back to the house and shower the salt off and out of my hair and Tony came down to join Tim and ‘work’ at the beach.

Later that evening,  the three of us walked to dinner at another touristy place and then decided to cruise the ‘pubs’ and listen to really bad karaoke.  The whole town seemed to be stuck in the ‘80’s as far as the music went – it was rather entertaining!  At one pub, Tony ordered a Boddington’s with a big head and so did Tim.  Well, the beer came out almost flat as they were pouring it, so Tony said, ‘never mind, that keg is dead.’  Well apparently that did not go over too well with the owner.  He came over, smiling, and said that is the way most of his patrons like it.  Tony said that was fine, but he didn’t and the keg was still dead.  So the guy walked away and we thought he would offer a new keg, or another choice, but nothing happened.  Tim got up to go to the restroom and Tony and I looked over at the bar, wondering if we were going to get anything and the owner stormed back over and said, ‘Get out!  You can’t come in here telling me I have bad beer and criticizing my place!’  We looked at each other totally astonished.  “I don’t think we said that,” I said.  “No,” Tony said, “we weren’t criticizing your place at all, I just said the keg was dead.”  The guy was getting really mad now and as Tim came walking back toward us, one of the bouncer guys sort of body-slammed him.  Tim, not knowing what was going on, just kept walking.  “Come on you guys, let’s go,” I said.  By now Tony was getting mad at the owner for trying to kick us out, and the owner was threatening to call the police.  Now THAT would have made a great ending blog, wouldn’t it? LOL!  Anyway, I walked out, calling to Tim and Tony to ‘COME ON!”  So we left and landed in another place further down.  Tony ended up talking to the owner there, who was really nice, and told us that the other guy is a total jerk, so that felt a little better.  Tony decided he would have George take care of it later…hmmm…what does THAT mean????

But, we didn’t let that spoil the evening.  We played some pool, listened to some more bad karaoke and then headed back to the house VERY LATE – or early – lol.  It was like we just didn’t want our last day at the beach to end, but it was inevitable.

Day 11, July 7, 2009

George picked us up from the beach and took us to a restaurant far from the touristy part of the beach for a delicious lunch and a photo opp.  There were some very picturesque shots to be taken of the fishing boats, etc. 

Tony had suggested we just stay at his place until we had to leave for the airport and said he would make us dinner.  We gladly accepted the invitation.  He was very sweet and just showed us to our room and said to make ourselves at home and nap, shower, or whatever.  We were all fairly tired after our late night, so that was perfect.  He played his guitar and fixed a very tasty Indian dinner of Tandoori fish with rice and vegetables. 

Eventually it was time to go.  The cab came and we said our goodbyes, knowing that we had made not only a good business partnership, but some very good friends. 

So…there isn’t much more to say about the 23 hours in the plane.  By that point we were happy to be headed home and tried our best to get some sleep and stave off hunger with the faux food they serve on the flights.

Day 12 – July 8 – HOME!!

Upon arriving in Portland we were exhausted, but knew that in order to beat the jet lag, we needed to try and stay up until night time here.  We went across to the Grotto and walked the trails in the peaceful grounds for awhile, then grabbed dinner to go from Whole Foods Deli, came back to the room, ate and crashed.

Day 13, July 9 – Really home in Ashland!

YAY!!!! Cyprus was awesome; a great adventure; a wonderful opportunity; we made new friends and had great times….but we are happy to be back in Ashland – home. 

Did someone say ‘Dragon Potatoes?’……