Cyprus

I "woke up" in the sense one can wake up at 3:15am and took a quick shower before I headed out to catch the taxi to my flight in Tel Aviv. Waiting out on the stone bench, now one piece of luggage heavy (I had bought a Lute in the Israeli Market, and tried to mail in home, but no one could find a box the right size to fit the oddly shaped instrument into, so I have to carry it with me until I can find a place that can ship it), a taxi pulled up in front of me and signaled me over. "I take you to Tel Aviv airport" he said, and I said great. "200 sheckels" he added quickly as I was unhooking my backpack. I doubletook for a second, replying "what?! No I payed already. I payed my hostel 70 sheckels for a cab to the airport." "No this special," he told me, "This taxi is special, cost 200 sheckels. You pay hostel 70, this taxi 200." I told him there was no way I was going to pay him 200 sheckels. We argued on until a young man from france walked over, trying to catch the same ride over to the airport which he also already paid for. We both together argued with the driver, either one of us able to understand where this guy was getting his numbers from. He was saying things like, "not Hostel, special price" and something about a special 10 person offer, but there seemed to be only 2 of us. Finally a shuttle pulled up where we were standing, and all at once we both realized we were arguing with the wrong driver. This shuttle was the ride we were looking for, we'd just been haggling with some random taxi driver. So, we loaded our bags into the correct car this time, and drove out of Jerusalem.

As the guy from France and I were talking, he asked me what time my flight was at, and I told him 7:05. "Don't you think that's cutting it a little close?" He told me. "No, it shouldn't be," I told him, and then explained that we were picked up at 4am and then it takes an hour to get to Tel Aviv, and then I have 2 hours to get through security. "It's 5am" he said, "You forgot to set your watch ahead last night one hour." "What?!" And the rest of the shuttle confirmed it. This was not a travel day getting off to a good start.

I got to the airport, and it was now evidently 6:00am, so I ran to the nearest airport attendent and asked her to help me get to where I needed to be. She pointed me to the line I needed to stand in, and luckily the security is so tight that it makes finding where you need to be very easy. I just went where they told me to go, and stood where they told me to stand. I said a little prayer for God to help me get where I needed to go on time, and I caught a glimpse at the departure times. 8:05 is now what my flight time said, not 7:05 like my confirmation said. Somehow God had granted me an extra hour, or someone also forgot the time shift, or both. Whatever the reason, I felt much better. I got to the front of the line, and the attendants called me over to where they had to x-ray my luggage, and pull everything out and put it all back together, however, what they were most interested in was that I was carrying with me two different musical instruments. They asked me a bunch of akward questions, and I told them I was a musician who in my travels had picked up some instruments and was unable to mail them back home. They x-rayed them over and over again, sure that they would eventually find something which was nowhere to be found, and interviewed me as if I were going to give some incriminating piece of evidence away at any moment. When it seemed they'd finally given up the 3rd degree, one attendant told me I'd have to check the fiddle (because of the case it was in), but could carry on the lute, but he offered to wrap it up in bubble wrap for me, to make sure it would survive unharmed. I apprechiated that, so he dissappeared into the back for far too long, and returned with a giant roll of bubble wrap, and then preceded to incase my fiddle in a layer of packaging at least 3 feet thick, and sealed it shut with just as much masking tape. As he was finishing up my fiddle's inpenatrable bubble fortress, a short stalky man whom I later learned was the man in charge, stormed in and they began yelling at eachother in Arabic. He asked me what city I was going to and answered Larnaca. He slapped his head with the palm of his hand, and yelled something I couldn't understand, then he began to yell at me. "You need to leave NOW!" He belted, "your flight is ready to leave at any moment, we need to get you through to your gate RIGHT NOW!" He took my passport, to go to the front desk to get my boarding pass, at the same time having another attendant take me into another room to do the body check. When I came back they had my backpack in pieces all over the desk. They had taken everything out and were going through it piece by piece. The manager handed me my passport and boarding pass, and as I grapped for my bags he stopped me. "No, no no. You can take this (he handed me the lute), and the violin goes under the plane." "What about my backpack?" I asked. "It has not yet been checked, you have to go without it." I tried not to lose it right then and there. "There's no way I'm going anywhere without my backpack." He told me, "You have two choices, you can either leave it to be put on another flight that leaves two days from now, or you can miss your flight and stay here in the airport for two days. You have about 2 seconds to decide!" "You're asking me to enter a foriegn country with absolutely nothing but the clothes on my back for 2 days!" He glared at me coldly, "What's it going to be?" I had to make a desicion, and I stood staring in a daze for what seemed like an eternity. I'd been on a plane with a drunk and unruly passenger, alone in a car with 3 strange Egyptians, slept in the bed of a strange Arab man and his family, lost in the Sahara desert without water, and stuck in a terriorism scare at an Israeli checkpoint, but being separated from my backpack for 2 days was the scariest idea I'd every encountered. "Well?!" He persisted. I grabbed my lute and said, "Please make sure that gets back to me, with everything in it." And just like that, I was rushed through to my gate. On the way, the attendent leading me through (his name was Opher) apologized to me profusely, saying that none of this was my fault, his manager was just a complete idiot and didn't have any right to yell at me like it's my fault. I very much apprechiated Opher's kindness, and trying to calm my nerves. With his help getting me through to the front of every line, I made it onto my flight just as they were finishing boarding the plane. Before I walked onto the jetway out of sight, he said he'd make sure everything got back to me safely, and appologized one last time.

When I landed at the Larnaca airport, I gathered my fiddle from the baggage claim and pryed it from it's bubble cucoon. I stopped by the luggage information area and made them aware of the situation in Tel Aviv, and filled out the necissary forms, letting them know all my information and Andrea's address where I was staying. They said they'd call me as soon as they had anything to report, and my backpack would be sent to Andrea's address. When I had done all I could do, I went to the ATM to pull out some euros to use while I'm staying here. I pulled out 100 euros, but the machine gave me an extra 20. At first I thought, Awesome, maybe it's God giving me compensation for the backpack fiasco, it was enough to cover my ride to Andrea's apartment. However, as I began to walk away I looked at the 20 again. God (in my experience) doesn't work in terms of dollars and cents. It's unlikely that God would give me monetary compensation for emotional hardship. I had two choices, I could take the money, and use it, which would not make me a bad person by any means. I needed it, and here it was to use. However, If I took it, I might be choosing to turn my back on some greater reward. And even if looking at it from a purely "zen" point of view, the very last thing I need right now is bad karma. I turned around and found a service repair man working on an ATM next to the one I used. I told him what happened, and how the machine gave me an extra 20, and handed him back the extraneous note. He thanked me, and told me he'd fix the problem, and I turned around and walked away. I didn't feel any better for giving away free money, I just felt poor. But I have whole heartedly trusted God this far, I need to walk this situation completely by faith, and not try to control the circumstances. That's a very hard thing to do, but it feels, in a way, good to not have any control over my destiny. If I get through this trip alive, it's going to be purely by the grace of God without any doubt to the contrary.

I bought a bus ticket to Nicosia and met an older man who had recently retired, and was traveling like me, around Europe and the Middle East. His name was David. He shared with me some insight on traveling cheaply and safely, and we talked about where we'd both been, and the places we loved. When the bus arrived in Nicosia he shook my hand and said "I'm sure I'll see you again sometime in the future," and we parted seperate ways. I took a taxi from there to Andrea's apartment, and found the entrance to her building. Andrea was still at work, but she left me a spare key to her apartment, and a really sweet note welcoming me, and telling me to relax, and to help myself to anything. I took her advice, and ate some potato chips I found in her cupboard (as I'd had nothing to eat all day). I found by her TV, a box set of Audry Hepburn DVD's, and since they were the only things I could find that were in English, I had myself a mini Audry Hepburn marathon. Eventually, Andrea came home, and I gave her a big hug and thanked her for allowing me to stay in her home. I told her about my backpack situation, and she felt bad and offered up some of her own clothes (that looked somewhat masculine) for me to wear while I was staying with her, at least around the house.

That night Andrea took me out to dinner that this amazing Cypriot resturant with a whole bunch of her friends who welcomed me with open arms. We talked, laughed, drank absolutely amazing Cypriot beer, and ate wave after wave of wonderful Cypriot cuisine. The Cypriot culture is a mixture of Turkish and Greek, but their appitites are most definately Greek. They just eat and eat, and they never gain a pound, but they made fun of me a little because I couldn't keep up with their eating pace. Their food is great though, they put meat in everything, everyone who met me said "You're not a vegetarian are you?" To which thankfully I'm not. I made an effort to make sure I tried everything at least once and found that 99 percent of things I really liked. I even ate snails for the first time and really enjoyed them. Everyone was so friendly, and we had a great time. After dinner we went to a small bar inside the old city walls of Nicosia and I had a margarita, and talked to some of the guys about travel and Cypriot music, and they told me they'd make me a CD of good Cypriot music before I left. When I finally got to bed it was like 2:30am, and I fell right to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and slept wonderfully.
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