Dates: May 27th-June 25th, 2005

The following is the complete itinerary for our trip to Nicosia, Cyprus:

Friday, May 27th – Appleton to Copenhagen, Denmark
We are flying out of Appleton, WI (ATW) on Northwest Airlines. We are connecting in Detroit (DTW) where we are on a Northwest flight to Amsterdam (AMS). We are leaving Amsterdam for Copenhagen (CPH) on KLM and arriving in Scandinavia at Copenhagen Kastrup airport on Saturday, May 28th. From there, we will meet my aunt, uncle, and cousins at the airport and take a commuter train to their home in Hellerup, Denmark (the train ride takes about half an hour because the airport is slightly south of downtown Copenhagen and they live on the north side of the city).

Saturday, May 28th-Tuesday, May 31st – Hellerup, Denmark
We are staying with my aunt, uncle, and cousins at their house in Hellerup, Denmark during this time. Hellerup is a suburb of Copenhagen with most of the Danish foreign embassies, but it is only about 3 miles north of actual downtown Copenhagen. During this time Scott and I have planned on enjoying the red clay tennis courts and doing some biking. Denmark has bike lanes on almost every single road in the country, which is quite nice. About 30 miles north of Hellerup is a city called Helsingor where Shakespeare supposedly wrote his play Hamlet. We are thinking of biking there and around the northeast coast of Zealand, the third main island of Denmark (where Copenhagen, Hellerup, and Helsingor are located). We also will take the train or ferry to Sweden which both only take about 30 minutes.

Wednesday, June 1st-Thursday, June 2nd – Copenhagen to London, England and back
On Wednesday morning at 10:25 AM we are leaving from Copenhagen Kastrup airport on EasyJet to London. We arrive at nonn at London Stansted airport (a little northeast of London) and then will take the train into the city. First stop, Wimbledon of course. Scott can’t wait to see the city, so we will see all of the sights: Buckingham Palace, houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey (and see Charles Darwin’s grave naturally – not many people actually know that it’s there, but my mom made a point of taking me to it a few years ago), etc.. We will then take the train back to London Stansted airport on Thursday afternoon for our flight back to Copenhagen.

Friday, June 3rd – Hellerup, Denmark
After getting back from England we still have one more whole day in Denmark. Then we are leaving for Cyprus.

Saturday, June 4th – Copenhagen to Larnaca, Cyprus
We are leaving from Copenhagen Kastrup airport and taking a KLM flight to Amsterdam. Then, we connect to Cyprus Airways for our flight to Larnaca, Cyprus (LCA). We are arriving in Larnaca that same day (June 4th) and then taking a taxi to our hotel for the night. We are staying at the Protea Hotel Apartments in Larnaca (http://www.cyprus-hotels.com/protea_hotel_apartments.htm) with two other people from our class. They are both arriving a few days before us and are staying at this hotel, so we all decided to share a two bedroom hotel/apartment for the night – and it only costs us each $20. The hotel is just a 50 meter walk to the beach, so we will have plenty of time to swim and explore the city before having to be in Nicosia, Cyprus for our class in the evening on June 5th.

Sunday, June 5th – Larnaca, Cyprus to Nicosia (Lefkosia), Cyprus
We have to be in Nicosia (it is also called Lefkosia) around 5 PM on June 5th, so we will probably just enjoy Larnaca for the morning and then head to Nicosia. Unfortunately, Cyprus has no railroads and the bus routes don’t run on the weekends (accept to a couple of the resort cities like Ayia Napa). So, we have to take a taxi from Larnaca on the south coast to Nicosia, which is right in the middle of the island and about 30 miles north of Larnaca. We will head straight to Cyprus College and meet up with our professor for the course. She is awesome but always on the move, so it will be a non-stop three weeks for sure.

Monday, June 6th-Friday, June 24th – Cyprus
For these three weeks we will spend the majority of our time in Nicosia, but we will travel around the island for the course and on the weekends. We are staying at Cyprus College for the first two weeks, and then we will be at the University of Cyprus for the last portion (both universities are in Nicosia – Cyprus College is right downtown and the University of Cyprus is a few miles away from the city center). We have class Sunday night through Thursday night, and then Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday off. There is a ton to see everywhere because Cyprus has been inhabited since 7000 B.C., so we will try and see as much as we can. One neat thing about Cyprus is that almost everything shuts down on Sundays and all of the migrant workers have their one day off for the week. The cool part is that instead of these workers being from Mexico and other countries in Central America like in the US, the workers are primarily Sri Lankan and Pakistani. One of our assignments to observe and reflect on their Sunday family activities (the parks are packed and it is truly a rest day). Also, on Sundays no matter how young or old you are you head home for the family dinner every week.

Besides spending time in Cyprus, we will travel across the UN Green Line into North Cyprus. This border was almost entirely closed until about two years ago, but now if you are not a Greek or Turkish Cypriot it is relatively easy and legal to cross. The Greek Cypriots are in the south and Turkish Cypriots in the north, and they can both cross this border as well. However, most don’t because of the deep divisions between the two groups. I don’t mean to start taking sides at all (especially before experiencing it there), but one main reason that Greek Cypriots don’t cross to the north is because they view the Turkish Cypriots as an inferior people who invaded their country. Turkey did invade Cyprus in 1974, and before this time Cypriots (both Greek and Turkish) lived together throughout the entire island. Hopefully we will understand more about this conflict after traveling there and taking this course. However, the difference between North Cyprus and Cyprus is quite obvious. Cyprus has one the highest per capita GDP’s in all of Europe, but North Cyprus is very poor with quite a bit of poverty. They have very limited economic infrastructure, etc., and the currency has very little value (they use the Turkish Lira just like Turkey, but it has much less value in North Cyprus). The students from last year, though, said that North Cyprus was absolutely great and the people were extremely nice and inviting. They said the same of the Greek Cypriots as well.

Just so you know, the Cyprus beaches are a big vacation spot for Europeans, especially Brits since Cyprus was still a British colony only about 45 years ago (in 1960). However, outside of the resort cities (Ayia Napa and Paphos) very few tourists are present. Also, there are virtually no Americans at all, especially in Nicosia. So our professor says that it doesn’t take long at all for most of Nicosia to know that we are there. She stresses though that we are not tourists. We are there to study the situation firsthand and learn about all sides of the conflict from the different political groups, etc. by listening directly to them. It is quite exciting because we will meet with members of parliament, religious leaders, civic leaders, an d many others that play an important role in Cyprus today. Some groups are fighting to re-unify Cyprus while others still want it to remain divided. There is significant pressure from the international community to solve this division of the island (this is referred to as the “Cyprus Problem”), so it will be great to learn about what is being done to deal with this issue with our own eyes.
The trip and class should be great. Make sure you check out Scott’s website often because he will be updating it on a daily basis with pictures and stories about our experiences. (Pictures: http://scottklettke.smugmug.com/Travel, Photo Blog: http://klettkephotos.blogspot.com)

Saturday, June 25th – Nicosia, Cyprus to Appleton
Our class officially ends on June 24th, so on the morning of June 25th we will travel from Nicosia back to Larnaca to catch our flights back to the US. We are leaving Larnaca (LCA) in the morning on Cyprus Airways to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam we connect to a Northwest flight to Detroit. Finally, we leave Detroit and arrive back in Appleton on the same day (Saturday, June 25th). Just for fun, on this trip we will be on ten different flights and travel about 15,000 miles.

One last thing: time differences. When we are in Denmark the time is 7 hours ahead of Wisconsin time (CST). In England it is 6 hours ahead. Finally, Cyprus is 8 hours ahead during the time of year when we are there. Let me know if anyone needs any other information.

Johnny Costello

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2005 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.