Finally on My Way to Cyprus |
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13 December 2024 - Zürich
In 2020 I took off January and February from travel with plans to run a race in Cyprus at the end of March. Then Covid happened and not only did I not get to run the race, but I also didn't get to leave Norway for the year. Cold and dark and rainy. I lost my job, found a new one, but still somehow managed to find a marathon to run on Karmøy. Patience. I moved here to Switzerland as soon as I could! Tonight I am on my first Deutschebahn train. It's a sleeper train going to Hamburg, but I'm just going to Basel. My flight to Cyprus is at 6:10 from there tomorrow morning, so going there tonight is the safest option. Tonight was our Augmedi company Christmas dinner - fondue, of course. Eariler in the week I made pinnekjøtt that I brought from Norway for Iwona. It turned out perfectly surprisingly enough as it was my first attempt, but there was a lot of it so I finished it for lunch today. Meanwhile she entertained friends from Hong Kong with the cookies I brought from Denmark. This life is not so bad after all. Tomorrow I'm flying to Cyprus where it's 20 degrees and sunny. Perhaps even better than Hilton Head in December?
Cyprus is an interesting island. It seems that I can drive across it in just a couple hours, but on the left side of the road so it will probably take me three. It was a British island until 1960 and there are still two parts that are UK overseas territories, but no borders (unlike the shitshow in Gibraltar). In 1974 Turkey invaded and took the northern half of the island, a de facto situation that remains not de jure. Still, Cyrus is in the EU and I can spend my euros there. It's just not in Schengen while Turkey controls the northern half of the island. And these are NATO allies!
