Let's all eat falafel

Well, this is where I happen to be the next two days, and I have a reasonably busy schedule tomorrow during the day, and I am hoping to get in a decent swim in the sea and then find a great schwarma place and grab a falafel.

How to waste a day

Marble Arch, at one end of Hyde Park, London

Spent a part of today watching pigeons and tourists entertain each other in Hyde Park, killing time whilst some serial buffoonery was being rolled out at the Cypriot Embassy. In recent months, I have had three unfortunate reasons to visit representatives of the non-Turkish bit of that island in the Mediterranean, and each time they have changed their rules.

I don't think I saw a single non-Greek speaking person walk away without having been told something was wrong or missing with their visa application. The chain-smoking fellow behind the counter was an expert in ignoring people even when they stood right in front of him, and the actual consular officer, the one with all those enormous powers to peel off a visa and carefully stick it in your passport, was beside himself with importance as he told me I would be very lucky to get my passport back today.

For a tourist-needing nation, and a country desperately trying to come to terms with being in the EU, their attitude and approach to foreigners is quite extraordinary. Or perhaps it isn't? What a bunch of Wally's, but I don't suppose they will lose any Ouzo over it all.

Oh well, I managed to squeeze out another single-entry visa and head out to Larnaca and Limassol tomorrow, for a quick three day trip. One thing I think is clear is that the way Cyprus treats her visitors is probably a contributing reason for why the country has never quite made it to first-world or super-power status in the past several thousand years.

Somebody's got to do it!

Monday through Thursday this week was spent in Cyprus - mostly in Limassol - gathering information and background for a software project I am getting increasingly involved in. It was a good week - warmer for sure, enabling a few rambling walks down the sea-front by the hotel. I met some great people - some security concerns means that bit needs to be vague - and I enjoyed seeing Limassol again after having last been there 6 years ago.

One bloggable item comes from eating falafels at Sam's Foods - which currently holds the Guiness World Book of Records for having once made the world's largest donner kebab. An enlarged poster of the letter from Guiness hangs in the restaurant. His great lump of meat weighed in at 3,100 pounds, but has since been beaten by someone in Greece who managed to make one that weighed 3,700 pounds.

Nobody was speaking

I needed another round trip to London yesterday, to get a visa from the Cyprus Consulate - which is just of Park Lane, and near Marble Arch tube station. I had never seen the Marble Arch for whom the station is named, and had not realized it is very close to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park.

I got the visa, and walked via the subway to the park. Nobody was up on their soap box in Speaker's Corner - perhaps it was a but chilly! I was determined to eat my sambos and drink my flask of hot coffee, in the park, which was a bit naff, as apart from a small group of Spanish sounding tourists who whisked in and out in 5 minutes, I was the only person sitting on a bench!