My Other Travels Through Europe

December 09, 2007 First Friends Visiting Me To Cyprus

KENAX Translation Agency and Outsourcing

This page continues from Leapfrogging the Drabby Cyprus Winter.

On the plane I made sure to drink as much beer as possible, to continue on the binge I had begun earlier that day so that I could be well prepared and lubed for my grand entry into alcoholic party Prague. Drank right up to the point of getting off the plane, grabbed a city bus, and started dragging my very heavy stuff the ten blocks from the metro station to my mother’s pad behind the National Theatre. About half way there I passed the Battalion. It was now about 6:30 in the morning and the sun was slowly rising. As part of my usual protest against Prague winters, I shuffled through the streets with my heavy gear (cursing a bit that I had bought that 5 litre jug of hot Cypriot peppers), wearing the customary shorts and sandals and no socks. I wanted to come off my warm paradise island in style. Passing the Battalion a bloke hollered out, "Aren’t ya cold mate? Why don’t you come on in here and warm up over some beer?" I explained it wasn’t that cold, realised that my mother was waiting for me, but it was nice to be back in a city that never seemed to sleep.

And I must say that for the next month and a half there was practically no moment when the golden honey brew was not wetting the palates of my savouring lips. The moment I made it into my mom’s flat the crisp sound of a bottle cap could be heard freed from its grip and the gurgling sounds of an ice cold Pilsner pouring down my long awaited throat. Mom had her usual busy day of theatres and cultural events, so it was a great excuse to break away and rush to my best buddy George, who I had been emailing with feverishly prior to my departure and who was waiting faithfully for me at his place, fridge full of beer and canister stocked up with hemp for the next month and a half. It was amazing how all my friends had pulled in for me during my stay in Prague. Based on the meagre amount of money I had left in my bank, I calculated if I were to eat my mother’s food, I might be able to survive with a budget of 50 Kc a day, which is about 2 Euro (wont bother quoting US dollars anymore…). And amazingly this is precisely what I managed to survive on during my stay in Prague. Sure, beer is still cheap in Prague, but not THAT cheap. 50 Kc covered about two beers in the pub, or 5 beers from the grocery store. Yet I managed to be pretty well nonstop drunk my whole stay there. Everyone took turns buying me drinks and it truly brought a sincere tear to my eyes.

In the country with family over Christmas. If it's gonna be a cold winter, let there be fluffy snow!
Pictures of fluffy snow in countryside of Czech Republic.

I managed to scrape a little work together while there, some of which included reconstruction on a friend’s house. Grunt Ukrainian work carrying out broken furniture and dust, but also some smart purchases and helping her fix all sorts of stuff, including in her restaurant. And also some translation work. But mostly my friends and my mother carried me, and I was drinking beer like a pig wallowing with glee in the mud until I started getting a seriously soar throat.

My stay in Prague was magical like when I first came there 15 years earlier. Over the year and a half that I was gone all the poisons that had accumulated in Prague had dissipated. At the time I had left Prague I was full of venom: from the smug expats who seemed to badmouth everyone behind their backs; to the Czechs who were neverendingly bitter about everything possible; to the waiters, waitresses and every service staff in the city who would respond in the most aloof and indifferent way to any polite request you might ask them; to the stench and bitter cold of the air due to the atmospheric inversion which keeps all that gunk and poison at the bottom of the riverbed where Prague is located. Because I was so poor I couldn’t even afford a tram and mostly jogged everywhere, and boy did my lungs burn. I could barely jog a block without having to stop and gasp at my painful chest. I practically smelt the mutated viruses in the air. My body is strong and I rarely catch colds, but I guess the shock was too much for my softened state. I caught a cold but managed to kill it my usual common cold remedy manner. But this time the soar of my throat lingered for a good week afterwards. It felt like my body had healed but my throat remained soar, to the point that I was increasingly finding it difficult to talk. I was out one night with my ex-girlfriend and didn’t even drink alcohol because of the pain. I was finding it increasingly painful to talk and she suggested I go see a doctor, arguing that it might be angina or tonsillitis, and that if I do not treat it now it could spread throughout my sinuses and lungs to cause greater problems elsewhere, such as in my ears. I agreed with her, it was midnight, and I went to the emergency ward of the downtown hospital. "Yup, you got tonsillitis alright my friend."

Anyway, I was certainly not interested in surrendering myself into such eager hands, I got home afterwards and spent an hour researching the topic on the internet. Fortunately I may have had some affect on my mother over the years and she has turned into a bit of a witch doctor. She suggested Salvia, or basically sage. I did a lot of researching and apparently my body had become so overburdened with the various toxins from the alcohol, cold and air that it billowed over and resulted in a breakdown in my tonsils. Whose job is a first line of defence against these foreign invaders. I’ll write a new page on how I conquered this < , but basically it required detoxifying my body, mostly with a water flush and gargling a Salvia and sea salt mixture. And lots of other herbs.

Took a few days and I was fully recovered.

It was so refreshing to see beautiful Czech girls again. Pictures of beautiful Czech girls.

I planned to leave at around 4am because I hoped that the night shift guards would not have noticed my truck there in the dark over the past month and a half, and perhaps were off their guard, or even asleep. I had masterminded my escape, no one was visible in the parking lot at this late hour, and I was prepared to make my bold move to get the second ticket. I swung by to scope out the area, continuing on to the airport, and then walked back, surreptitiously walking over to the automatic gate. I stood in front of the ticket dispenser, pressed the button and… nothing. I jumped up and down, pressed the button, and still nothing. I noticed that there were cut marks in the pavement and it occurred to me that perhaps they had installed some fancy gadget since the days when my advisor’s friends had used the crafty system.

Piggie poised to break out of the pen. Was hoping I wouldn't hurt the tree.

It would be funny to mention that, on my flight back to Cyprus, there was no movie but a bunch of humorous little skits, a few of them by Mr. Bean. And that one of his skits was how he tried to get out of paying a parking tab, and all the creative ways he tried to get his car past the automatic gate. While I stood there staring at this ticket dispenser, all these thoughts flooded back to me and I had to think how typically ironic. I went back to the truck to ponder.

Why stare at the beautiful scenery when you can bury your head into a computer screen while playing games?
We'd often set up the movies on the dashboard, hooked up to one of the stereo systems,
with this beautiful view in the background. Pictures of Turkish North Cyprus.

The next day I went to the ticket booth where one is supposed to pay and hoped that my previously successful tweety bird approach would work here as well. I went to the booth and noticed a middle aged woman sitting there, which I immediately concluded would be a problem. Sure enough - she stuck to her guns with no compromise, informing me that I must speak to the supervisor the next day. Fortunately the supervisor happened to be walking by that Sunday, they explained to him the situation, he looked me up and down and said, "Out of the question. Pay the entire tab." He looked like ex military or something. Someone else there grabbed my ticket, pumped it through the machine and it showed 275 Euro. Well, that was just fantastic. My mom had already lent me some emergency money before I left Prague and things were bleak indeed. I went back to the truck to ponder again, shortly after which the supervisor rolled up in a car to check out my status. I also asked them what would happen if I had lost my ticket, and they told me that all cars and licence plates are logged every day and they'd be aware even if a toad were to live on the parking lot. They asked me which was my vehicle. I said caravan. "Oh, the blue truck with the graffiti." Well I was in a pickle yet again, wasn’t I? This time things seemed even more hopeless. I exercised my creativity and tried to brainstorm for a solution. I went to my "advisor" and asked if I could pay one of his friends to drive over the pavement so that I could press the button, but he and his friends were too scared to do that. I noticed that the parking lot next to where I was stationed was a free one with no exit gate. There was a warning sign that this parking area was reserved for special buses and that any unauthorised vehicle parked there would be towed away with a hefty fine. Which is why I had not parked there. But now I noticed that the only thing separating me from that parking lot was a cement island which was obviously too high for a regular passenger vehicle but not for a monster like mine, with its enormous wheels. I pulled out my measuring tape and confirmed that I had a healthy 20 cm clearance below the undercarriage. So I camped out in the parking lot for three days waiting for my sister to arrive, so that we could "escape" together.

Anyway, I’m glad it all turned out well and I’ve been put to shame again < , for my lack of faith. I truly could not imagine that my sister would just whip out her credit card and pay such an exorbitant sum. "It doesn’t matter, I’ll just hand the bill to mom. She sent me here to check up on you and make sure the truck is in order." (Thanks again mom!!)

We drove to town, slept on my beach spot near the centre, and the next day woke up to find that one of my tires had exploded. My sister said she thought she heard an explosion. So I hobbled on one leg to the recommended tire repair shop, my sister pulled out her credit card again (the last two old tires were now replaced), and providence was gleaming as usual. She had agreed to pay for all my food, beers and gas in exchange for the free accommodation, she paid for some other minor repairs, and agreed to get the steering fixed once we got to the Turkish side.

"You know my friend, if you had come here only a few years ago I could have easily made this for you. I had a whole shop full of people here doing such things. But look at me now. The place is empty and gone to hell. That capitalism is for the birds. The entire soustruznik industry has been wiped out. The middle man’s wages have been corroded to nothing, and it’s only big corporation after big corporation. And what’s with this Italian system? We are part of Europe now and everything is supposed to be according to the same standard, which is DIN 5473 and an exact circumference of 19.2 mm. Those Italians are just a bunch of useless and lazy gypsies." Well the rant went on for a good half hour and I had to chuckle the whole way through. Eventually, when back on the island, I went back to the little shop in Larnaca, the guy was digging around in his little anarchic mess and said, "There ya go." Apparently he had remembered me from my visit to him before I had left and transferred one of these adapters from his truck to his shop. So it was good to finally get that resolved and now I can fill up the tank anywhere in the world.

Over this time I got lucky and it seems I scored a rather large translation project which may potentially win me about 10,000$ over two months, which would totally save my arse. In the meantime, I decided that I will drop my CV throughout every major city on the Greek side, as a backup. I’ve been getting bored of the translations and for a long time have wanted to get into some other line of work. In any case it could at least introduce me to some people, as I feel the year and a half on the road has been too lonely and I need to be around people more.

Driving through the Trodos mountains during the winter. Video clip on previous travel Cyprus page.

Right now I am in Farmagusta. This morning my friend took a bus to Nicosia (the capital) to explore the last divided city on his own, and within a week I should start heading back to Polis, dropping my CVs along the way. In about a week my Turkish car insurance is also due to expire, but the price has increased substantially from last year, so I do not know if I can afford to extend it.

It is nice that things keep changing and I am particularly curious what if anything will come out of the crazy CVs I will drop throughout the coastline. I also plan to distribute my tour guide fliers to every travel agency. I feel I need to expand elsewhere, and meet more people. If costs are higher on the Greek side than in London, I imagine wages could be fairly high as well, and considering I do not pay for any rent or electricity, perhaps my strategy will cash in. We shall see!