After an unexpected chilly weekend in the mountains, we returned to our EVS house in Nicosia where we were greeted by summerlike weather! 🌞
Since we still had two days left until our work in the KOKEN office formally began, we decided on exploring the marvelous old town of Nicosia a little bit more. Even though I can’t consider myself a cypriot local (yet), I still feel like Nicosia is a place one can easily call home. I instantly fell in love with its desert-like landscape (all hail the cactus 🌵), heavenly sunshine and simplistic architecture (no skyscrapers far and wide!).
Life seems to be moving in a slower, more relaxed pace on this island which has a kind of calming effect on my mind that is used to the hectic lifestyle in Germany. This surely doesn’t mean that I won’t try my best to use these 6 months ahead of me in a productive manner, but it takes the pressure of constantly giving performance away.
And speaking of productivity - on wednesday we finally spent our first day in the office! Theognosia, our project coordinator (who has been amazing so far!), gave us the task to do some research on the most important associations related to the EVS and KOKEN. To round off our first working day we met up with Theo, our mentor Symeon and two of the previous volunteers: Alexia & Alessio at the Babylon Pub.
Week two of the EVS ended with a sunday trip to Larnaca, a lovely town by the sea. The weather was on our side - 30 degrees are almost ideal for a laid-back day at the beach. But the seaside isn’t the only thing Larnaca has to offer - in the heart of its town stands an impressive church built in the 9th century. Legend says Lazarus, the biblical figure, is buried in a tomb beneath this church.
To put it in a nutshell - this week was filled with a lot of first times (first office day, first day at the beach, first time meeting our mentor, I could go on and on...) and has left me with this satisfying feeling of slowly settling in with life in Cyprus.
