Afternoon in Kyrenia

With a valid passport, you can drive to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.  There are a lot of great historical sights.  Some friends and I went there for a day trip on Saturday.  We enjoyed the 13th century Venetian architecture, as well as a tasty lunch and a little bit of souvenir shopping.

guard tower

not bad for 15th century architecture

with two Turkish flags flying above the Venetian castle

under the heat lamp- smart kitty

Wherein I visited Rome to hit the tourist attractions before 2015 ended

Fountain Trevi

the Pantheon

San Luigi de Francesca church, where a great children's choir was performing

the very famous Carravaggio painting in San Luigi- "The Inspiration of St Matthew"

Beautiful marble work in Plaza Navarro, with random child to the left

In the amazing little wine bar, enjoying some amazing Italian wine and cheese

The Vatican (but I didn't go inside, b/c it wasn't worth two hours in line to get pushed by other tourists through St Peters)

The River Tiber by night

famous Piedmontese bridge- Constantine dreamed that God wanted him to win, so had all of his soldiers paint crosses on their shield.  They won, and he and all of his soldiers converted to Christianity, somewhere around 330 CE.  

For New Years Eve 2015, we had a wonderful 4 course Italian dinner, followed by hours of fireworks set off by everyone in the neighborhood.  I could lie on the couch and see the neighbor's handiwork.  

Christmas lights in Vienna

Votivskirche

floating cylinders

Chandeliers of light

the Rathaus

huge heart lights decorating a tree

What are these?  I don't know, but they were sure pretty.  Vienna wins at the Christmas lights in public spaces.

Christmas in Wien

Christkindl Markt at the Rathaus, with so many lights

a visit to my favorite coffeehouse...in the entire world

how classy is Cafe Sperl?  This classy.  

Good Austrian breafast- cafe and schnecken

I even got to visit the Institute for European Studies building, which is a palace.  I studied abroad in a palace!!!

Hundreds of trees waiting for good homes, with the Graben Memorial behind

What would a trip to Vienna be without a visit to the Stephansdom?  

Irdalion site

Some friends and I visited the Irdalion site and museum outside of Nicosia.  Cyprus is overflowing with archeological finds.  At various times in history, Cyprus has been under the control of the: Phoenicians, Venetians, Ottomans, British, French, Turks, Syrians, and the Greeks.  We have artifacts from all of those, many of which are intact buildings, and many of which are still being excavated.

 

Old wine and olive oil vessels pieced together

Many teams of archaeologists are always digging around the sites.  They find thousands of pieces of broken pottery, and bring it back to the museum grounds to assemble.  Each of the boxes in this photo contain many shards of broken pottery, which the archeologists then piece back together.  

So many pieces

We went to hear the lecture about the site.  It was given by one of the women who sits on the Board of Cypriot Museums.  What we didn't know was that the lecture would be in Greek.

Thus, I sat in a corner and admired an old coin collection for about 40 minutes

But someone had set this up on the actual dig site.  It was a nice sight to see as we were leaving the museum.  

Thanksgiving in Kalopanayiotis

I am working at an American school, which means they gave us two days off for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Some friends and I rented a lovely little cottage in Kalopanayiotis, a village about an hour outside of Nicosia.

Team Thanksgiving!  David, Julie, Janet, Laura

Our three bedroom cottage had a lovely floorplan, a great kitchen (to cook turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, broccoli, root vegetable gratin, and pumpkin pie), and a gorgeous balcony.

I walked uphill for about 45 minutes, and this is the amazing view that
rewarded my hard climb.  

Our non-negotiables included a fireplace

prepping the mashed potatoes on the balcony of our adorable cottage

Janet and I prepping the turkey- we forgot twine,
so improvised with fresh rosemary stalks and tinfoil

Our Thanksgiving table in the cozy rented cottage

View from the cottage balcony

Same view, after the fog rolled in

the village has a rustic vibe

lovely foliage

We had a full moon on our first night here- sometimes
called the Mourning Moon, it is the last full moon before
Winter Solstice- this picture doesn't do it justice, but it was
so bright and gorgeous and lit up the entire sky.

Turin!

I signed a contract for AISC in early March.  Two days later, I checked the Foo Fighters tour dates, to see if I could catch a show during the summer in the US.  None of the dates worked out, but there was a Saturday night show in Turin, Italy, in November.  Two very close friends from Panama live in Turin, so I invited myself to their house for the weekend.   Two days of hanging out with awesome people, and then my first Foos show in five years.  Perfect!

the Piazza in Turin

me, Ashley, Austin in old town Torino

Lovely decorations in Turin

We had a great time hanging out together.  Ashley, Austin and I were all new int'l teachers in Panama together- they are good friends.  Which I needed.  I put on my specially chosen 'concert outfit' on Saturday night, and we headed to the venue.  The attacks in Paris happened on Friday night, and the concert was supposed to be on Saturday night.  We found this sign hanging at the dark, closed venue:

Everyone felt profound sadness around the cancellation- one
woman was crying outside of the venue

Concert venue, or I refer to it, The Palace of Broken Dreams

AH-MAH-ZING fish soup.  The restaurant was near the Palace of Broken Dreams,
so at least I got a phenomenal meal on Saturday night.  Stadium food and
Foo Fighters would have been better, but this was a great second choice.

But even with the cancellation of the concert, it was a great weekend with good friends.  Here are some of the awesome things that I saw during the weekend.

The gorgeous rooftops of Chieri

Apertivos on Friday afternoon- the Italians always have snacks with their wine

A Nonna in Chieri, keeping an eye out for trouble

The cathedral where the Shroud of Turin is located-
but it was closed by the time we got there.

Turin has a famous Museum of Film.  This is an original copy
of the original Star Wars poster.  Luke and Lea looks funny.