Tuesday, June 24, 2008

une fois n'est pas coutume...

voici mes vacances à Chypre... style à l'anglaise! j'ai peur car je n'écris plus assez en français - ça s'oublie. Ces derniers temps j'écris en anglais - et beaucoup, en plus. Mon travail récurrent consiste à écrire des articles en anglais. J'avais envie de raconter mes vacances en anglais - surtout car la Chypre c'est un peu comme l'angleterre mais avec le soleil - c'est pas moi qui le dit, c'est une anglaise rencontrée sur place - et c'est pas forcément une bonne chose.

Je vais faire un effort pour reprendre le clavier très bientôt, ou mon lectorat de 2 que vous êtes risque de m'oublier, si ce n'est deja fait... Voici quelques photos pour tenter de me faire pardonner.

We stayed at the Konnos Bay, on the eastern side of Cyprus, facing onto Syria - a rather basic but nice self-catering arrangement on a beautiful coast, unfortunately taken over by the British tourism industry.

Tattoo towns and clubbing mecca "Agia Napa" are down the road from there, but we pushed further with our Toyota Lancer and air con' on full blast. Amongst others, we went to Nicosia, the capital and "the last split city in the world", where you can get a visa to have Ayran and Turkish pizza on the other side of the road (and for a quarter of the price), and to Pana Whatsit, where Rob and Tina from Liverpool tried to sell us some of their traditional Cypriot lace.

Famagusta's last and closest viewpoint (EU side) was also the only opportunity to see the sorry sight of this previously popular and affluent beach resort now under Turkish occupation since the seventies. Anita has been making a nice living by charging tourists a euro each to look at the checkpoint (soon to be re-opened) and the no-man's land which stands between the zones, all from a terrace at the top of her house.

This desolate area under UN control acts as a buffer since the violent events which set apart the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. We gladly paid up - it was strangely, quietly, and uncomfortably worth it.