Greetings from Charlie

Charlie (via Melyssa) sent an email to let us know that he's doing fine. Over Christmas, Melyssa went to Yunnan with her brother so she hired two ayis (maids) to take care of Charlie while she was gone. What a lucky bunny!

Another little furry friend

This is Georgie. We brought her home on Sunday. We think she's about 6 weeks old. Her full name is George Monbiot, after a writer who was given an award by Nelson Mandela for outstanding environmental achievement in 1995 . His motto is:

Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it.
Tell them something new and they will hate you for it.

Ain't that the truth?

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2000/06/09/about-george-monbiot/



She likes to climb, and we like to watch her.



Rich is nice enough to help her up so she doesn't fall.



Isn't she cute?

More on Paphos, Cyprus

I've decided that if I wait any longer, I'll forget what all the pictures that we took in Paphos were about. So here we go...

First of all, Paphos (or Pafos, depending on how you want to spell it) is in the southwestern part of Cyprus, which is an island is the southeastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It has a long history, having been inhabited since the neolithic period (also known as the "new" stone age, from 8,300-4,000 BC?). It's no wonder that the entire city has been labeled a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Also, Paphos is known as the home of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. (For a basic introduction to Greek mythology, go here: http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/5065/grchar1.htm ).

Though they use English as well as Greek, I wish I had taken a little cheat sheet on the Greek alphabet with me so I could have tried to read the signs. I learned two phrases and used them both once, I think, maybe even just to myself; what a shame. Using my own phonetic spelling since I don't know how to write them in Greek, they are: a-fair-a-stow (thank you) and see- ga see-ga (slowly, slowly). An American that we met at a sidewalk barbeque who was more than happy to see another American on the island (there aren't many) taught me 'siga siga'. It's used in the same way 'man man' (slow, slow) is used in Chinese... man man chi (eat), man man zou (go), man man he (drink), etc. I wish English had a similar word that had the same feel to it... maybe it would slow us down a bit. I guess we've got, as my dad would say, "Take 'er easy!"... but it really just isn't used enough. Here's a link in case you're interested in learning a little Greek yourself: http://www.cyprusisland.com/01_Information/basicgreek.htm

Here are some more photos of our trip:

An abandoned traditional Cypriot Home



The Cypriot tradition is for the family to build a house on their lot for their (oldest?) daughter for when she gets married. Until she does, they often lease the place out in order to pay for it. Smart.



I loved the audi that was still sitting in the "drive".



This is a traditional kleftico oven that they use to slow cook their meat. Kleftico is also the name of their famous slow-cooked lamb dish.



Me in front of the main room of the house, which is just down the road from Geoff and Sylvia's. Rich and I took the camera there one morning before we headed and and ended up taking about 200 photos of it. It was somewhat magical, as I think deserted homes tend to be...


A few random pictures of Paphos



I loved this house and also daydreamed about the life of the traditional family that probably lived there until Geoff told me that an English woman owned it.



This is the bat cave not far from Geoff and Sylvia's (far enough away, though). The more photos we took, the louder they got. I ended up running, leaving Rich by himself. Can bats hurt you?



As I said before, Paphos is a haven for cats. They're everywhere!!



This is one of my favorite photos. Not sure why. I just like it. Do you?



A picture of a pear cactus that apparently tastes good (like kiwi) - once you figure out how to eat it without getting all the thorns under your skin. They're called 'opuntia' in Greek. In Mexico, which is where they are from, they're called 'tunas'. Apparently, they were brought to Europe by the first Spanish colonists from Mexico in the 17th century and are common in the Southwestern part of the US. (Thanks, Amy for helping me figure out its name!)



Me with a banana tree that, like the thousands of other banana trees in Paphos, is covered in blue plastic to keep the 'nanas safe.

Now on to some of the tourist sites...


The Harbor



View of the harbor.



The Paphos Medieval Fort (part of the Paphos Castle?), originally built to protect the harbor. It was rebuilt by the Lusignans in the 13th century, then dismantled by the Venetians in 1570, who found themselves unable to defend it against the Ottomans, who in their turn restored and strengthened it after they captured the island.



Geoff saying hello to the resident pelican that hangs out with people sitting at one of the many coffee shops by the harbor.

The Catacombs (also considered Ayia Solomoni Church?)



Built in the 12th century, this was originally a Christian catacomb.



This is what Rich calls our band photo. Can you picture this as a CD cover?



This is a sacred tree sitting at the top of the catacombs that people have tied things to in the hopes that it would cure them of a disease. Interestingly enough, Tibetans and Native Americans have similar traditions.



I like how the tree looks like a monster in this photo.



Neat design.

Panayia Chrysopolitissa Church and Byzantine Basilica



Us at St. Paul's Pillar with the church, which was built in the 13th century, behind us. According to tradition, Saint Paul was flogged here at some time before the Roman Governor Sergius Paulus was converted to Christianity.



Poor Rich... always getting picked on.



One of the many columns in the area next to the church that is being excavated.



One of the many mosaics that they've been finding in this area.

Church on the hill



I can't remember or find the name of the church that I remembered as Church on the concrete, so I think it's referred to as Church on the Hill or Church on the rock or something like that.

Theoskepasti Church



A painting on the ceiling of this modern church whose name means 'Veiled by God'. According to tradition, God sent down a fog to protect the original church during the Arab raids.


Petra Tou Romiou (Aphrodite's Rock/Aphrodite's Birthplace)



This is where Aphrodite was said to have rose from the waves...

Lempa Village


Reconstruction of a neolithic settlement that was unearthed here.



Another building... the red color and the beams that hold up the roof remind me of some of the temples in Beijing.



A reconstruction of a neolithic man... or is that Rich?

The Ruins



A mosaic of Kato, one of many the mosaics that can be found in the House of Dionysos, House of Theseus and the House of Aion. These mosaic floors are from the 3rd century AD and are considered to be among the finest in the Eastern Mediterranean. They mostly depict scenes from Greek mythology.



Another mosaic. Amazing that these treasures were only unearthed about 50 years ago!



I'm not sure what this was doing on the site, but it caught my eye, so there you go.



Rich next to one of the statues near the mosaics.



Amphitheater near the mosaics.

Saranta Kolones

This was a part of a castle that was built in the first years of the rule of the Lusignans (beginning of 12th century) maybe on the site of a previous Byzantine Castle, which was destroyed in the earthquake of 1222.

Daytrip to Liverpool

First of all, I have to tell you my big news!! I solved my very first Rubik's cube ever! Please congratulate me. I feel so proud... and pretty lame at the same time for having spent so much time obsessed with a cube, but anyway... on to the point of this entry.

Rich and I went to Liverpool last week for his interview at LIPA (Liverpool Institute for Performance Arts), a school that Paul McCartney helped to start after he found that the building (which was his old grammar school) had become derelict (I can't help but think of Zoolander when I see 'derelict' in print). If you want to know more about the school, go here: www.lipa.ac.uk


We were only there for a day, which happened to be an extremely gray and windy day, so our pics our limited... but they should give you an idea about the city nonetheless.



Rich standing in front of the gates of LIPA.



A sample of the political views (and the literacy levels?) in Liverpool



A view from the waterfront



Me at the Albert Dock. As I found from a BBC website about Liverpool, the importance of these docks might be understood more by the following inscription (next to a statue of Christopher Columbus in a park in Liverpool): “The discoverer of America was the maker of Liverpool’.



A pic of a bus/boat that can operate on both land and water. Sweet. (I think it's part of the Beatles tour, if you're interested in taking the Yellow Duck Marine for a ride).



Me with a very large anchor- something to keep me grounded- in front of the Merseyside Maritime Museum. Back in the day, Queen Elisabeth I awarded sailors in Liverpool with privateer status, which basically made them licensed pirates. Yarrrrrrrr.... By the way, if you're interested in learning how to talk like a pirate, go here: http://www.yarr.org.uk/talk/



The shopping district, with a ferris wheel and a radio tower in the background (if you notice on the radio tower, it says that Liverpool is the European Capital City of Culture in 2008- the sign vaguely reminds me of the Beijing 2008 logo).




Liverpool's Town Hall is located on Castle Street, which was one of the original seven streets of Liverpool that was dated back to when King John granted the Royal Charter in 1207 . Surrounding the Town Hall (the original one, not this one) on Castle Street were many banks- made to handle money made from the slave trade.

Unfortunately, I don't have a better picture of the Town Hall to see all the symbolism in it. There are elephants and pineapples on the railings that symbolize the trade that came in and out of Liverpool. Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and protector of cities, is the figure on the top of the dome. There are also four statues at one end of the building that symbolize the four seasons; they used to be part of the Irish parliament in Dublin.




The Queen Victoria Monument. The Liverpool Castle, which was built some time between 1232 and 1247, used to sit in the same place and witnessed some of the most dramatic scenes of British history during the Civil War (1640s). It was ordered demolished after the Civil War and the area around it was further damaged from bombings in WWII.




Last but not least... a pic of China town, where we ate our picnic lunch. The characters on the gate read from right to left (so instead of "Zhong Guo Cheng", it says "Cheng Guo Zhong"), unlike modern day Chinese, but the characters are simplified, not traditional. Is that how it is everywhere? I was expecting traditional characters... Anyway, though it was too cold that day for many people to be out and about, we did witness a very China-like situation here: A man holding a small child (must have been 1 or 2 years old) with one hand and steering his bicycle with the other!!

OK, that was more detailed than I had originally thought it would be; hope you enjoyed it.

Anti-Procrastinating Procrastination

If you've been reading this blog, you might have noticed that I've been busy with completing (and complaining about completing) my term papers. Well, you should congratulate me, because last Friday, I handed in two of them. Now, I'm working on my third and final paper for this semester- it's due next Monday.

Yesterday, in my attempt to prevent myself from procrastinating, I decided to engage in "anti-procrastinating procrastination" (coined by Rich). I figured that the fewer projects I had to work on, the less likely I would be tempted to do anything besides writing my paper. Therefore, I decided to get them all out of the way before I started.

By dinner time, I had done the following:

1. washed the dishes
2. vacuumed the carpets
3. swept the floor
4. dusted
5. wiped down the entire kitchen
6. tidied up the living room
7. did two loads of laundry
8. made the beds
9. went to the library and collected some books on reserve
10. wrote an entry for my ESL website
11. created a spreadsheet for our advice column in Time Out
12. filled in information such as problems listed and amount paid for the spreadsheet from June 2005 on
13. uploaded photos from cameras
14. updated blog
15. checked email and responded to all the emails that had not been responded to
16. took a nap
17. played a few games of Sudoku
18. reorganized my book shelf
19. looked in to how to officially change my name (which still hasn't been done!!)
20. plucked my eyebrows (apparently this is a very common thing to do when procrastinating, according to Radio 1)

So... I didn't get much done on the paper front, but I did get all of that out of the way. It's obviously working, cuz I don't have much else to do today except write my paper and I am 1/3 of the way there. I know I shouldn't be on here now, but you have to take a few breaks, right?

Speaking Chinese, Racism and Bop It

Just for the record, I spoke Chinese twice yesterday during our shopping trip in Oxford. Twice.

The first time, we were in a sports shop trying to find some umbrellas (as two of ours are broken and the other two have been lost... by me... oops) in the bargain bin. There were loads of other things in the bin marked down to 19p, so even though most of them were useless, I was still looking. The person next to me, as he was also searching for a bargain, chuckled and said something to me about looking for cheap things. From his short utterance, I was almost certain he was Chinese, so I asked him, in Chinese, if he was Chinese. He laughed, not because he thought it was funny, but because (I assume) he thought I was speaking English and didn't understand me. So then I told him that Rich and I had lived in China and that we speak Chinese (again in Chinese) and then all of a sudden, it all clicked for him. "You speak Chinese!!" He was pretty excited, but mostly, just stunned. So we carried on shopping, said a few more things to each other, and then we had to go.

The second time was on the bus ride home from the city center. A man got on the bus and tried to use a ticket for a different bus company. The driver told him he couldn't use the ticket for the bus we were on. The man started arguing; someone told him he could use this bus- he didn't understand. After a few minutes of "negotiation", the guy sat down. The driver turned the bus off and told him if he doesn't get off the bus, we wouldn't move.

Rich yelled out to the guy, "Pengyou", meaning "friend" in Chinese, because we thought he was also Chinese and we wanted to help him. A woman, about our age, looked at Rich in disdain and told him to shut up. She had that look in her eye, like she thought Rich was being a trouble-maker.

The guy didn't move, and neither did the bus driver. So we walked up to the guy and explained to him in Chinese what was going on. We told him that he had to get off the bus, because otherwise we wouldn't move and that he shouldn't worry, we would help him find another bus. He still was a bit hesitant; it seemed like he was confused and that he felt like he was being treated unfairly. He asked us to talk to the bus driver and make him take him. We told him that the culture here is different than that in China; if the bus driver stops the bus and says you have to get off, you have to get off!! While this was going on, the woman that had told Rich to shut up, actually apologized to him and said, "I thought you were going to be racist."

In the end, Rich offered to buy a ticket for him; he refused and bought a ticket his own (why the bus driver didn't offer this in the first place, I don't know... they do tend to be pretty unhelpful), instead of getting on the bus he had the ticket for and the next stop was ours, so that was the end of that experience.

There were three things about that second experience that really made me think. The first was that it rarely happens when someone has a wrong impression of you in a situation like that on the bus and then in a few minutes, it can all turn around, and their impression can change... and you know it has. The woman thought Rich was being racist for yelling at an Asian man on the bus, when actually, he was just trying to help. The fact that we spoke Chinese (or to her, perhaps it was just 'foreign speak') seemed all too bizarre to her as well. We do have to give her credit for actually apologizing, though.

The second was that bus drivers could really use some compassion training. This is not the first time that there's been some kind of misunderstanding on the bus and the only answer from the bus driver has been, sorry, you can't take this bus. Rich and I spent two hours in London one night trying to get a bus back, only to find a bus that we had tickets for parked 200 meters from the bus stop. He was at a stoplight, it was 4 in th morning on a cold night, and we had the right tickets. Would he stop? No, he wouldn't even roll his window down to talk to Rich at first. Come on. On our way into Oxford city yesterday, a middle eastern (?) man tried to get on the bus with his bus pass or id or something, and the bus driver said, sorry, the photo doesn't look like you; I'm not taking you. He made him hold his hair back, move his head, etc., to try to identify him; again, it was raining (yes, it has actually started raining a bit more in England!!), could he not just have let him on the bus???!!! If bus drivers could at the very least tell the riders their options, like, sorry, this isn't the bus you are looking for; you need the U5 bus. If you wait a few minutes, it will be here... This seems especially important in an International city (like Oxford), where English is not the first language of many people...

The third thing was that I couldn't quite figure out why the Chinese guy was behaving the way he was. I was surprised that he didn't just get off the bus and say sorry. Most Chinese people don't really want to draw attention to themselves, right? I guess he was just so sure that he was right and that the bus driver was wrong that once he started arguing with him, he couldn't back down for fear of losing face?? My guess is that since he was headed to the hospital (which we found at when he finally bought his ticket) at 9pm on a Saturday night, he must have been in a hurry and that he had more important things on his mind than dealing with a bus driver like that...

What a strange day that was. Today, I get to start my third paper. The other two are finished... finally...only one more to go!! Yippee!!

Also, just for the record... On Christmas day, I thought I scored 290 on Bop It (a present from Jim and Claire). Well, I was wrong. Yesterday, I got a new high score- 250, so I guess I had only scored 219 that day... :( I don't think I had messed up either, so is 250 the highest score you can get?? Someone fill me in.

Happy New Years!!

Thursday night, we got a call from Simon, saying that he was in England and was thinking of heading out to Oxford, so we were lucky enough to spend the last few days of 2006 with him. We took him to the Eagle and the Child and Terf Tavern on Saturday and had a great time. The Terf even sells bags of marshmallows to roast in the fire pits outside- great fun!! The flash wasn't working well, but you can use your imagination... the marshmallows were pink and white, by the way, if that helps you at all!!



On the way there, we stopped at a game shop, where Rich and Si decided to entertain the other customers with their juggling.

Here's a pic of them showing off:




On Sunday, we drove to Thornbury, Rich's hometown, to say hello to Si's parents and to pick Si and Lazy John up to go to Ross'. We had a big dinner with Bangers and Mash and then spent the evening playing a children's game on PS2 (I still did miserably, even though it was made for 3-5 year olds...), and making fun of celebrities... or maybe that was just me.



The next morning was great fun- Simon chose Thomas (age 5, Ross' nephew) as his victim for a pillow fight, but I think Simon may have felt more like the victim in the end. Well done, Thomas!!




So that was how we spent our New Years- how did you spend yours?

A few new years resolutions:

1. eat more locally produced food
2. no TV (we're still going strong!! we watched a bit on X-mas in Cyprus and on New Years at Ross', but we are still TV-less and loving it at home)
3. try more new recipes