I went to Cyprus for work. You know, work, so didn’t see much of Cyprus. I travelled with a colleague who was in a wheelchair and I am delighted to report that people are very nice to you if you are travelling in a wheelchair. Your pushing companion also gets to skip the queue.
I was staying in a hotel near the beach. Breakfast felt like I was on holidays.
I mean come on.
Was I delighted to be whisked away by minibus at the crack of dawn to the conference centre with windowless rooms? I am only human, I was not.
But we did get a tour of Nicosia in the evening where we saw the monument to liberation from the British (enjoyable).
We also saw the archeological museum which was interesting.
Not satisfied with my baking in Cyprus opportunities in May, I also went to a conference in Lisbon last month. Toasty, but I was last in Lisbon before I was married and I had forgotten how beautiful it is. I would definitely like to go back again on my own dime.
Obligatory tram photo.
On my return flight to Dublin on Saturday morning I was sitting on the aisle side with an American in the middle and an older woman from Cork at the window. I knew she was from Cork because I heard her telling the American man so. We waited a long time on the tarmac to get off (I missed the session in Dalkey book festival I had been scheduled to attend that afternoon, alas). The American and the Cork woman began to talk about politics and I started to feel sorry for him so I staged an intervention. “I heard you saying you were from Cork earlier,” I said to her. No further intervention was needed. We established the following over the body of the misfortunate American: she lived around the corner from my parents; she remembered them from when my brother had been a primary school pupil in the school where she taught (we verified his identity from the photo I have of him in his plum velvet communion suit which pops up whenever he calls me, I’m hilarious, it was the 70s); her son is married to a (very good) hockey player who was in my sister’s class in school; she lives next door to the mother of a friend of Mr. Waffle’s from college; and she plays bridge with my best friend from school’s mother. This is possibly the best illustration of why, fond as I am of Cork, I quite like the anonymity of the big city. I felt quite sorry for the poor American.
Anyway, been anywhere nice for work yourself?