Mon, Jul 6th - 12:32AM

Day 8:  Saturday July 4 – No Fireworks here

To the beach!  Steve and a taxi picked us all up at the hotel to take us to the beach house.  We couldn’t all fit in one car, especially with all the luggage…I sheepishly said, ‘we haven’t learned to pack light yet’, as Steve lifted one bag after another into the back of his little Honda CRV.  He didn’t comment. 

The beach house is in the town of Proteras.  It is a newer home, as most of them are here, and sits back about a block from the beach.  It has a pool and an outdoor shower, which is heavenly.  We stopped at a beach down the road while the house was being cleaned.  We didn’t have suits on yet, but got to wade in the warm, heavily salted Mediterranean water.  It is so beautiful and clear and NO waves.  We had a conversation about why that is.  One reason, of course, being that it is an enclosed sea – duh – (I need to look at a map now and then – lol), but Tony also said the wind is constantly blowing away from us, and on the Israeli shore(across from us), there are waves from the wind.  

We went down to the beach again once we got settled in and took a nice dip.  We thought it would be cooler here, but it’s really not, it’s just that there is water here to cool off in when the heat gets to you! Everyone seemed to be in varying degrees of fatigue, so we decided it best to get take out and eat in the house.  As luck would have it, there is a Chinese restaurant directly behind the beach house – no joke!  So Tim and Timu went over and picked up a selection and we got to true real Cyprian Chinese.  It was pretty much like American Chinese – and they don’t use MSG – what a plus!

So…here were, halfway around the world from Ashland, and we were eating Chinese in a beach house on the Mediterranean Sea while everyone at  home slept, getting ready for the big day.  We did think of you all….and we weren’t missing the chaos of the day…but we kinda missed the fireworks…