Cyprus.

I shouldn't really be writing any of this.  I don't want you to all know about Cyprus and it's infinite greatness.

We booked our flight to Cyprus because it was the cheapest flight out of Israel.

I have known some Cypriots in my life, and I know that the culture and food is similar to Greece, BUT DEFINITELY NOT GREEK, and that Cyprus is often looked down upon by Greece and other places much like Portugal is looked down upon by Spain.  

Well, I really, REALLY like Portugal, so there's that,

We arrived in Larnaca, on the east side of the island with exactly ZERO idea of what we should be doing.  We found an airbnb host who picked us up from the airport, and he and his dad spoke great English.

Surprise... Cyprus was under British rule for a very long time, so pretty much everyone here speaks English.  That's usually a strike against a place for me, but after basically fleeing Israel, having hosts who could help out without me having to try to learn Greek was welcome.

Finikoudis beach is a 5-minute walk from the apartment, and is about a 10 minute drive from the airport.  10 MINUTE DRIVE?!?  And the beach is amongst the cleanest, bluest, well-serviced beaches I've ever been to.  It's a "blue flag beach" which is an award for being clean, well-serviced, and beautiful,

Surprise... Cyprus has the most blue flag beaches per capita, the most dense concentration, and the most along along the coastline in any place in the world.  We went to a whole bunch of beaches and they were all beautiful, they were all mostly clear if not perfectly clear, with thin strips of sandy beach so you can easily get on and get off.  Toilets, showers, snack stands, booze, sun beds and umbrellas, all really inexpensive, especially considering it's on the euro and the dollar is really weak against the euro right now.

I have been to Italy, Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Thailand, Bali, and Vietnam, and the Cyprus beaches are the best beaches I have ever been to.  

The intercity bus is an express bus that goes across the whole bottom of the island in about 2 hours, for about $10.  The bust drivers were all really helpful in getting us to our destinations.  

There were ancient ruins, kourion, on a huge hill that overlooked a beautiful beach.  Ruins overlooking the meditteranean.  Spectacular.

Everywhere you walk, there are stray cats to talk to, fruit trees like figs, pomegranates, grapes, olives, limes just sitting there,waiting to ripen.

There are tons of tourists... But from Russia and England.  We've heard almost no American English.  That is, except one southern fool who kept telling his friend on the bus that he wanted to go to the archeological site at paphos, and he's been there before, but he should have probably gotten off at the last stop, and blah blah blah he just kept going on about how much he knows about Cyprus and what he's doing but he's still sitting on the bus, pontificating, running his mouth, doing everything except asking the driver where he should get off. 'Murica.

Oh, and the Americans sitting next to us at the pub, who were military and stationed at the Limassol military base that is run by the UK.   I asked them if they were planning on going to Israel.  OH NO, they all exclaimed, they were going back home, thank goodness,   Thanks, guys, for all your hard work...eating a burger in Cyprus after spending a couple of weeks on the Spanish coast.  Tough life.

So, other than THOSE guys, not a lot of Americans.  That's exciting.

People drive recklessly and on the left side of the street so it took a while before we were comfortable thinking we weren't going to get run over.  Stop lights are suggestions.  But the buttons that pedestrians press to cross the street?  They actually WORK.  You press one, it tells you to wait, and then the light changes for you for about 10 seconds, then blinks yellow, then goes back to being green for the traffic.  In New York, they're only for show.

The only problem we had was that we had was that we couldn't experience the pretty, cool, and comfortable mountain towns without a car.

I absolutely love it here,  I adore Cyprus,  

So I have nothing interesting to report.  Except that this was one of the happiest luckiest, vacation accidents ever.  And now I'm dreaming about retirement homes. 

Back to Israel tomorrow, for a day before we head off to turkey.  Gonna really miss this place.