For my sister’s 40 trip around the sun (almost), we’ve embarked on another holiday treat, this time to Cyprus and more specifically to the beachside town of Larnaca. Our trip to the airport, journey through security - aside from Sam’s case inevitably being selected for a search proceeding with her educating the security man on solid cosmetics - we made it to the departure lounge with plenty of time for a delicious lunch!
Once on our plane, we had to do the airlines’ seemingly favoured course of practice in sitting in our seats, seat belts on and ready to go for almost an hour before take off, despite the fact we were all locked up and ready to go in advance of our takeoff slot time! I’d organised my free tea fill up from ‘Spoons so had supplies to last until the drink cart came round. I’m sure you can imagine the horror on ordering a delicious cup of tea of being offered earl grey. First of all I thought they’d misheard because that is the nonsense my sister drinks. Turns out, she’d ordered a cold drink, because she’s funny like that and they just didn’t have any breakfast tea so offered earl grey. As if it’s a suitable substitution. IT IS NOT! It was an absolute tea crisis! Both air stewards seemed to agree; the man said it was outrageous while he apologised and the lady offered me the tea bag she had in my bag (I think she realised how upset I was!). It was very kind of them … but they should never have been put in such a position by Wizz Air (I think this action demands a name a shame!). As it was, I had my own emergency tea bag stock, got the nice man to fill my flask with hot water and made my own delicious tea using emergency milk creamer. So I avoided the earl grey and got a free cup of tea (for the second time that day).
We hurried through the airport after landing after waiting some time on our plane for a parking place only for my passport scanner not to work so Sam sailed through this time while I had to go and queue at the desks where the typical slow paced incompetence of boarder security was on full display! We did make it out to meet Andreas, who having arrived on foot, beckoned us to a table and we filled out paper work, handed over more money then followed him trustingly into the road. Fortunately, this was a success as his tiny wife was sitting in the car, ‘parked’ in the middle of the traffic lanes with its hazard lights on. They jumped out, we jumped in, they walked off, I immediately stalled and couldn’t work out how to restart, the cross airport man chose that moment to hammer on the window and gesture me on my way. Fortunately, after a minute or two of slight panic, we restarted and off we went navigating by phone maps successfully to our hotel! Our car is an original mode Kia, possibly from the early 90s. It’s engine warning light is constantly on, it has quite the rattle and the key, once folder shut, doesn’t pop back out without some manual force. But it seems to get us from A to B!
Our little twin room is very nice and has a lovely sea view balcony! The clocks in Cyprus also ‘fall back’ so we’ve remained two hours ahead. Our earlyish start was breakfast by the sea, a little walk and mostly reading by the pool. They have strict rules about no outside food or drinks allowed so we’ve also been to Lidl and stocked up on secret supplies.
Sam is now sitting next to me, slightly impatiently watching as I type as I think it’s time to walk along the beach path to go and find somewhere yummy for dinner!
Tomorrow we shall take rattler on a day trip to explore some of the island!
Input from Sam:
Pip made a terrible fuss on the plane about the airline not having English breakfast tea - it was actually quite embarrassing! She then couldn't scan her passport at border security and was very stroppy about it. When she did finally get through we picked up a car from some random Cypriot man who I think just lent us his car for the week. Despite that, we got to the hotel and have had a splendid day, strolling, sunbathing and paddling.
That was all very funny! I love Sam's typically succinct summary alongside pip's diatribe! XX