Greetings to all from sunny and warm Cyprus!!e
On the road again, so time to write up some Blog stories of my random thoughts.
October went by with very little Continental travels, kept me rooted to the BBL in UK, and plenty of football. But with November, things are looking a lot more continental for this month, and it all starts with Joensuun Kataja in the EuroChallenge here in Cyprus and we start with the journey here...
Monday morning - alarm rings at 4am, it's dark outside and not too warm either. Quick breakfast and off to Birmingham Airport to start my long journey across Europe. First flight Birmingham to Munich, losing count how many times I've taken this particular flight in the last 12 months - 40 minutes to catch my next flight, which is Munich to Athens. Half empty plane, but sitting next to a chatty Greek/American woman and we talk about Olympics (I worked the 2012 games in London, and she had worked the 2004 games in Athens). In Athens - 30 minutes to catch my Athens to Larnaca flight.. made it! Squuezed into the middle seat for this short flight.. nibbling on my third 'box meal' that the airlines have provided me today.
Off the plane and now the big wait of the day - has my luggage kept up with me on my mad-dash across the continent... YES!! Now time to pick-up my rental car, and while heading that way I remember that my Sat-Nav does not have a map of Cyprus.. GREAT! And I haven't looked at all where my hotel is situated, and it is getting dark - this should be fun :-) Car rental agency has decided that they'll change (upgrade) my non-airconditioned small car to an air-conditioned Jeep?? A Jeep.. so I suppose i can go off-roading now then... Get the keys.. check the car on the outside.. put the luggage in, get in the car... the gears seem a bit funny, WHAT?? They've given me an Automatic to drive... I've never in my life driven an automatic car.. always used manual geared ones. Oh well.. let's see if I get this thing to move?? After few attempts .. the car moves forward and I seem to get a hang of it. Just press the accelerator and hope for the best.
An hour later - approaching Nicosia, in the dark you can see the Turkish side have put up a HUGE Turkish flag made out of small lights.. that's a way to keep your neighbours happy. But for me, the toughest part of the day is about to start - how to find my hotel in the dark, with no Sat-Nav in a town that I have never been to before.. I had found the hotel on the map.. so now it was just the case of driving in the rush-hour traffic and hoping to make the right turns. It took surprisingly little time to find the place - had to stop two times to check on the map that I was going in the right direction, and once ended up having to back-track a little as I ended up on a one-way street. But.. all in all - it seemed to prove that I can navigate without a Sat-Nav as well.
Check-in - take a deep breath - and head out to get some dinner. You know things are going quite OK when at 8pm in mid-November you are sitting outside on the terrace of a restaurant in your t-shirt and having your dinner. Not the best dinner I've ever had... and those who know me, here's a shock!!.. from the chicken skewer and feta salad.. I enjoyed the Feta salad more than the skewer. And as said, those who know me.. they know I don't like salads :-) So I was kind surprised myself with this discovery.
Back to the hotel after dinner - shower - read for a while.. and then it's lights out, long day of traveling come to an end. Tomorrow..we start with the BASKETBALL!!