The Price of Cypriot Hospitality

The Cypriots are a very warm and welcoming people.  It's wonderful, but these relationships come with customary responsibilities . . . it's considered an obligation to sit. . . and eat. . . or drink when the offer is made—and we want to fit in as real Cypriots.

Our sweet little Opel Vita can navigate even the tiny Patroklos Street

It typically takes us up to an hour to get from our Opel to the front door.  Once we introduce ourselves, our neighbors are so friendly that from then on, we have to stop and sit for coffee, for wine, for some local fruit or homemade sweet (that we can sometimes identify!) or for Zivania (...the local version of Grappa).  Also, our neighborhood is very much like a small village— the locals want to check out the new couple and share gossip.  Our Greek is improving slowly (siga), but our conversations thus far are mostly limited to talking about food or how much we are enjoying Cyprus—although we mostly talk about food in English, too.

A woodworker named Savis is across the street in his shop (I have spent a little time helping him to put together some lattices).  The neighbor directly next to us is Gregory (Lori for short).  Lori's wife and children are in Greece for the summer, but his sweet old dog, Doxa, welcomes us home every day with big tail wags and adorable noises.

Savis and Lori, along with Nikolas, and a small group of men are fixtures at the corner "coffee shop" from six or seven until late into the evening.  The ladies around the corner, Andrulla and Elena in one direction, and Despo and Eva in the other direction, are on their stoops for most of this time as well, although they tend to turn in earlier.

When we last sat with Andrulla and Elena, they gave us this bottle of fresh lemonade concentrate, and some peach marmalade, both made from fruit grown at their family home in the mountains.