Just catching up on a few stories.  One of them is about my first Turkish lesson.  Learning Turkish will be work and I hope I’m not too lazy because that would be my only excuse.  Cypriot Turkish and Turkey Turkish isn’t pronounced exactly alike, but it is the same written word.  If we return to Turkey at some point, as we hope, I would be able to use it much more than just the time here in Cyprus.   The lesson was certainly fun and I wish I’d been there from the start of the course.  One of the other students, Pete has writes up the lessons on his computer and said he would email them to me so maybe I can begin to catch up.  I’ll have too look for a dictionary in Girne next time we go or I’ll download one from Amazon.  We’ve been lucky enough to have had sun most days since we’ve returned here.  The rest of this week is iffy and rain is called for from tomorrow until maybe Sunday.  Denise leads walks even in the rain, but I’m not sure I can talk Randal into going.  We’ll see.

Ru

Deks Walk # 2; Monday Market; Painting Hike, Turkish Lesson # 1

Last Thursday was bright and sunny so Randal and I joined Denise for our Deks Walk # 2. We walked across the road from Deks and up into the hills past cultivated fields, huge tractors, a small farm with sheep and then finally turning onto an almost hidden path into the forest where we came to the remains of a tiny church.

Denise Randal Scruffy (Julia’s dog) Julia, Dedi (Mick’s dog) and Mick

The guess is that the church remains are very old and that the land was once cleared for a community of Greek Orthodox Cypriots. Randal says the trees now are maybe 20 years old perhaps growing up sometime after the 1974 Turkish invasion of North Cyprus.

Hay on a truck and water in the tank under the tree and sheep that were guarded by a friendly German Shepherd and what looked like a shepherd/husky mix. Here German Shepherds are called Alsatians.

Returning to Deks (just beyond the small church on the right) for our after hike lunch of meze.

Sunday was Census Day and we were counted as “retired American tourists” during our interview with the census takers. 

Monday is Market Day in Yenierenköy so we went early while all of the vendors were still open for business. Last week we got there mid-afternoon and most were closed up.

Lots of great produce

You can see from the photos that some women dress traditionally and cover their hair and some wear more western style clothing. I bought broccoli, green beans, cabbage and a pomegranate. That was probably my first and last pomegranate and I’m not sure it was actually quite ripe when I cut it open and made a mess eating it. Our white cutting board will never be the same. And I bought some heavier socks. I’m on a quest for warmer, thicker socks. The first I bought in the Lamar Supermarket were too big and too thin. The ones I bought here are ok. Maybe when we go to Girne I’ll find some. And leg warmers too for riding the motorbike. I could have brought some from home but who thought it would be as cold as it is on the bike. While I was buying some veggies I met our census taker and she remembered me too. And at one of the stalls I bought 2 small blue ceramic bud vases that are sort of shaped in a way that they can be used for a tiny milk pitcher while serving tea. The young girl who helped me spoke flawless English so I complimented her. She smiled and said that was because she was English and was in Cyprus on vacation visiting family!

A simit in the hand is worth a dozen in a bag to take home!

Grandmother gave me permission to take the photo of the girls eating their simit and banana. The simit is visible in the right hand of the girl in front. Her sister has a banana in one hand and a simit in the other. Randal bought another huge loaf of bread which comes with a free simit which I ate in about a minute when we got back to the boat.

Monday afternoon I took myself for a hike into the hills just across from the marina. I took my paints and painted a terrible picture I’m not showing. I’ll have to try it again. No one is around to watch so if it’s terrible only I know.

This is the scene I tried to paint but it didn’t quite come out except for the land pieces sticking out into the water. I can’t seem to paint foliage at all or dirt roads.

My first Turkish Lesson at Deks.

Tuesdays at 10:30 Denise teaches Turkish. There is no charge and she even serves tea! I walked the 2 miles from the marina and did a not great sketch of the big church out front while I waited. There was a skinny sweet dog sitting in the enclosed porch area so I fed him two packets of cookies I had in my backpack. He left when Denise drove up with the other students.

On my way to Deks I walked past these giant aloe plants.

Our classroom.

Pete, Evelyn and her husband Rustam

Pete has a boat here in the marina. Evelyn, originally from Poland is married to Turkish policeman Rustam. We started in with lessons immediately so I really can’t tell you much about any of them other than that they have been studying for 6 weeks and seem to have learned a great deal of Turkish. Class began at 10:30 ish and went on past noon! I doubt I’ll catch up with the others but I will learn more than I know now. Our homework is to find a word that starts with each of the 29 letters of the Turkish alphabet except for the silent G.

I caught a ride back to the marina with Rustam and Evelyn who were also taking Pete back there. They have offered to pick me up if I’d like but I do like the walk. Pete normally rides his bicycle but it was in town for repairs.

We had to go into town in the afternoon for a few things. Randal needed a new connector to connect our new Digiturk satellite TV box to our old Chinese TV. I wanted some yarn and some yogurt. I’d bought some yogurt the other day but there must be no preservatives in it because it seemed to get way too tangy way too fast. The expiration date was 4 days after the date it was packaged as is most of the yogurt in the local shops. Maybe it was the brand I’d bought, this in a plastic container and not the ceramic container from my first shopping trip. Today I asked the woman who owns the small shop where I’d bought the yogurt in the ceramic container about the expiration dates and she was amazed that I wouldn’t use a pint of yogurt in 4 days because her family would use it in one day! People here and in Turkey eat yogurt by the ton with everything. Randal likes it with cucumber and onions chopped up in it. But he doesn’t eat it every day or think of it unless I give it to him with a meal. I eat maybe a third of a cup of plain yogurt with my oatmeal for breakfast. Sadly, none that I have bought here tastes as good as the yogurt we are served at Deks. I will have to ask Denise the brand she uses. It was so much easier to buy it in Marmaris from the cheese guys. They had a huge tub of it and would scoop some out into a container. That was great yogurt, like Deks! The other funny thing, with all of the sheep here, the local shops sell acrylic yarn and not wool. Yarn and knit and wool will be some of the vocabulary words I use for my homework. And boat so we can explain we live on a boat. And goat and cow so I can tell the difference in the cheeses.

Randal has hooked up the TV and I wish he had earphones to go with it because I can’t tune it out. Oh well, in the winter it will be nice to have it when the weather is bad.

This huge truck was expertly squeezing itself through the main street in town.

Randal and his Glenfiddich

We saw the truck in town making its rounds and then we saw it at Deks where we biked because I’d forgotten to ask Denise about the Sunday bazaar Deks will be holding. I’m hoping to sell the clothes Randal and I no longer wear and give the money to the two charities supported by Deks with the profits from their Bingo and Quiz nights. 

  Just came back from the marina office where we were interviewed by the census takers.  I asked the reason and they are attempting to learn about tourists as well as count their own population.  It took about 10 minutes because we had two forms and one translator.  Now we’re back to boat chores which I don’t mind since we can’t leave the marina anyway until 6pm.  By 6pm we’re bundled up in our stay on the boat and keep warm clothes so don’t go out anyway. 

Ru

Sheep and Goats and Hellim or Halloumi Cheese

They look like the sheep in the Certa mattress commercial!

My walk Friday afternoon into Sipahi and the walk Randal and I did Saturday morning both involved herds of sheep and goats, which not only makes me think of yarn and knitting, but especially the wonderful white cheese I love. There is a cheese factory in Yenierenköy and I was finally able to find its website along with some information from a website about rural development in Europe.

“ Dairy In the Karpaz area there is only one modern private milk factory in Yenierenköy (Akgöl Dairy plant http://www.akgoldairies.com/) Actual amount of milk processed is around 20 tons/day (which is around 50% of the installed capacity). The dairy is oriented on one product hellim, which is 95% for export markets (particularly in the Middle East). The managers of the plant report that there is a potential to substantially increase exports of their product, even in the actual markets, allowing at least to use the installed capacity, and that the limiting factor is the insufficient milk

supply.”

http://www.tccruraldevelopment.eu/rdst/images/docs/ldskarpaz.pdf

Because North Cyprus isn’t recognized by most of the world, its products have been embargoed.

“European Union have put a ban on direct trading by the Turkish Cyprus. Such embargo has raised the cost of business and exports because the islanders have to trade through Turkey…..Dairy is another source of earning foreign exchange from export of cheese. Cyprus Cheese has high demand in the outside world. There are small manufacturing units in TRNC. The infra-structure development is quite impressive.” http://www.trncinfo.org/tanitma/en/index.asp?sayfa=haberdetay&newsid=902

The Akgöl Dairy’s website is quite interesting and it’s in English. They explain the different cheeses and how they are made. They also mentioned storing cheese in clay pots like the ones my yogurt came in. “Village Halloumi is still produced all around the island, stored either in traditional earthenware pots or, increasingly, in the refrigerator.” Maybe this is why the yogurt I bought came in the “earthenware pot” though Akgöl doesn’t list yogurt as one of their products. Judy on BeBe has a special water sealed ceramic pot for butter than makes refrigeration unnecessary.

My walk Friday afternoon was my usual up the hill into Sipahi towards the basilica. But now they have a ticket collector at the gate so I just walk past it. Luckily I made all of my visits in August when it was free. Instead I walked down the street of the home where I’d gotten help with the puppy that had found me.

Everyone’s second car is a tractor.

Back in our bike riding days we used to joke that our second car was a bicycle. But here lots of people farm so tractors are more necessary than bicycles. Actually we don’t see many bicycles on the road except those owned by cruisers.

Unpicked pomegranates left on the vine looked really pretty against the green grass and white window.

When we left Cyprus for the US our taxi driver told us we would return to a country that had turned green. Well, it’s not as green as Ireland, but there are many fields that are now green and the dirt is dark brown soil rather than dusty brown desert.

Shepherd and his flock of sheep.

He and I had an interesting conversation since he spoke about as much English as I do Turkish. I wanted to know if the sheep were for wool of food. I think we figured out they weren’t for food because I could mime eating, but the knitting mime didn’t quite work. His brother came along as well as the small boy who lived across from the basilica with his puppy. The older boy is in grade 10 and his younger brother in grade 4. They go to the school in Yenierenköy up the hill from the cheese factory.

I started back down the hill because by 4pm the sun starts to set and the temperature seems to drop 10 degrees. However, I couldn’t pass up the sound of sheep/goat bells in the distance so turned off the paved road onto a dirt road heading back into the hills. This truck pulled onto the dirt road shortly after I had and the passenger jumped out and started running back across the main road, I thought for maybe a missing sheep or two.

These sheep seemed to be heading to another pasture.

Actually it was a whole herd and they seemed to be aiming for me!

I just backed into some brush because they were coming quite fast and some were big, with horns! It’s hard to tell from this photo how surrounded I was. Once I decided they wouldn’t trample over me, I worried that I’d scare them away from where they were supposed to be going. But these herds of sheep are well trained and the young man was able to get what looked like about 60 or 70 sheep to do exactly what he wanted and go where he wanted them to go. I guess that’s why the expression about following along like sheep arose. They do follow. But so do goats and lots of other animals.

Sunday, December 4^th, is census day in North Cyprus and everyone has to stay in the marina close to their boat. Apparently everyone on the island is counted and not just those who actually live here. Knowing we couldn’t go off for a walk Sunday, I wanted to do a longer one on Saturday. So Randal and I biked down to Deks, parked the motorbike, and did the loop hike we’d done the prior Saturday past the icon church near the stone statues. It takes about 2 hours and then it’s time for lunch at Deks!

Not long after we started a man drove by in a pickup truck. He was wearing a NY Yankees hat! He waved and that was that. Later we would see him again. As we neared the church we heard the sound of animal bells. I say animal because it could be sheep, goats, or possibly cows. This time it turned out to be a herd of goats!

A multicolored herd of goats.

They pretty much ignored us, followed the other goats and the man on the mule.

Still wearing his NY hat but this time riding a mule.

He led the way and the goats followed herded along by the dogs and the sound of the man’s occasional calls.

The goats passed just by the church ruins but none stopped to go in.

We didn’t take the same route down the mountain as the goats, but occasionally we would get to the same point at the same time. I was worried about one silly, tiny white goat that kept lagging behind and then bleating forlornly for the herd. I wanted to “help” it but Randal told me to leave it alone and not confuse it or have someone think I was rustling tiny goats. Eventually it found some other stragglers and I guess they all got to where they were going.

If this was an old well, it was dry now. I threw down a stone and there was no splash.

An Arthur Rackham fairy tale tree.

http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/is/enroom/illustrators/rackham.htm if you want to see why I say that.

Randal with his Efes beer and my pot of English tea while we wait for our usual lunch of meze.

We are always “starving” when we start lunch and too full by the end having eaten every bit plus I drank the entire pot of tea! There is humus, white cheese, thick yogurt, olives, pickled beets, sun-dried tomatoes and bread. Yum. We have lots of the same stuff on the boat, but it always tastes better at Deks served in a collection of small white bowls.

The “bar” part of Deks Restaurant and Bar.

Cypriot halloumi (pronounced "ha-loo-mee").

Grilled Halloumi cheese

Halloumi cheese originated in Cyprus^[4] and was initially made during the Medieval Byzantine period,^[8] subsequently gaining popularity throughout the rest of the Middle East region.

The cheese is white, with a distinctive layered texture, similar to mozzarella and has a salty flavour. It is stored in its natural juices with salt-water and can keep for up to a year if frozen below −18 °C (0 °F) and defrosted to +4 °C (39 °F) for sale. It is often garnished with mint to add to the taste. Traditionally, the mint leaves were used as a preservative, this practice arising from the serendipitous discovery that Halloumi kept better and was fresher and more flavourful when wrapped with mint leaves. In accordance with this tradition, many packages of halloumi contain fragments of mint leaves on the surface of the cheese.

The cheese is much used in cooking and can be fried until brown without melting, owing to its higher-than-normal melting point. This makes it an excellent cheese for frying or grilling (e.g. in saganaki) or fried and served with vegetables, as an ingredient in salads. Cypriots like eating halloumi with watermelon in the warm months, and as halloumi and lountza – a combination of halloumi cheese and either a slice of smoked pork, or a soft lamb sausage.^{[citation needed]}

The resistance to melting comes from the fresh curd being heated before being shaped and placed in brine.^[9] Traditional halloumi is a semicircular shape, about the size of a large wallet, weighing 220-270 g. The fat content is approximately 25% wet weight, 47% dry weight with about 17% protein. Its firm texture when cooked causes it to squeak on the teeth when being chewed.

Traditional halloumi is made from unpasteurised sheep and goats milk. Many people also like halloumi that has been aged; kept in its own brine, it is much drier, much stronger and much saltier. This cheese is very different from the milder halloumi that Western chefs use as an ingredient.

Although it is made worldwide and is of rather disputed origin due to the mixed cultures in the Levant and East Mediterranean, halloumi is currently registered as a protected Cypriot product within the US (since the 1990s) but not the EU. The delay in registering the name halloumi with the EU has been largely due to a conflict between dairy producers and sheep and goat farmers as to whether registered halloumi will contain cow’s milk or not and if so, at what ratios with sheep and goat’s milk.^[10][11] If it is registered as a PDO (Protected designation of origin) it will receive similar status as 600 or so other agricultural products such as feta and parmesan cheese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloumi

Med Mooring

I was looking for the spelling of "passerelle" and came across the following where I found my answer.

“Is there any special mooring hardware I should be using? And how do I get off

the damn boat!? “

www.svsarah.com/Whoosh/WhooshCruiseMedMoor.htm

Answer here in Karpaz Gate Marina; a passerelle which is French for footbridge or gangway or, in our case a plank borrowed from the boat across the dock. They had a new spiffy one so gave us their old one. We’d been tied alongside the dock in August so hadn’t needed a passerelle. I’ve gotten used to it, but if it had been a longer plank, I’d have hated it.

Our weight lowers it to the dock so we don’t have to step down at the end but this way it doesn’t bang about when the boat moves.

Our neighbor’s spiffy new passerelle with wheels to roll with the boat’s movement when it rests on the dock so it doesn’t bang. Ours is held off the dock by our gate which we lowered to allow us to get on and off from the swim platform on the stern.

No rail and too long; I would hate to have to deal with this version on a catamaran down the dock.

Another passerelle with some barely visible robe lines to hold onto while getting on or off.

Our new parking space.

An anchor is dropped from the bow and then you back up to the dock and tie up so you don’t swing and more boats can be crammed into the marina. We have more space than many on our right and the boat on our left is for sale and empty.

Yogurt

Lots of options for yogurt though not like in Marmaris where I bought it from the wonderful cheese guys. There is a cheese factory in town and we need to explore that somehow and find the names of the really local products. I just guess most of the time. At a small shop in Yeni Erenkoy I asked for the thickest and was told to buy this Akova because it was the thickest but that  it was more expensive than the others. It was 6 TL about $3.20 for 750 grams (Yogurt: 1 cup = 245 grams so a little over 3 cups of yogurt.)  It is a bit cheaper than the Chobani yogurt I bought at home though not by much. But this yogurt came in a non-returnable ceramic pot.

I asked if the pot was returnable because what would you do with a zillion ceramic pots? But the date of production and the sell by date, a space of about 4 days was stamped on the bottom in blue ink and that’s the reason the shop owner told me was why it’s not recyclable.   I bought one but won’t do it again because one souvenir ceramic yogurt pot is enough. I could make my own if I could find powdered milk but no market so far has had it. Yogurt is very available and mostly cheap so it’s not a problem. I’ve already begun using the now empty pot for “stuff by my bed” though the top was tossed after I took the photo. It was just soft flimsy plastic. I would recycle but there’s not much, any really on North Cyprus.  I need to ask the folks at Deks what brand of yogurt and cheese they buy because theirs is really good.  Tomorrow, Thursday,  we’re going with Denise on another Deks walk.  We ate lunch there today, Wednesday and asked what the walk would be.  Denise wasn’t working, but Dibs told us that Denise would choose a walk "depending on whether Randal and Ruth came!"  How’s that for great new friends!

Shovel Riding

Construction worker transported in the shovel of the tractor at the marina.

I just barely caught this so it’s not great. Lots of tree planting at the marina now as we go into the rainy growing season. The bucket was lowered to the ground and the worker stepped out. I didn’t like elephant riding so I don’t think I’d like shovel riding.

A Visit to the Greek South Cyprus, The Republic of Cyprus.

Bill and Judy had their rental car available Tuesday so asked if we wanted to take a drive to South Cyprus just to see the procedure and do some grocery shopping. We went off but found the prices in the south higher so only bought a few things we don’t often see, like salami and chorizo. We bought it at a German supermarket, Lidl which is a discount food store chain. Our friend Helen emailed that she thought salami was Italian and I emailed that I thought it was Jewish because my father ate it. And I though chorizo was Portuguese because we ate it in New Bedford, but Judy ate it in Texas and though it was Mexican. You can get Kosher beef salami but the salami we bought in Lidl is pork. Our frig now smells like salami. In Israel we’ll get “Jewish” salami but my guess is it will smell just like this stuff.

Border Crossing

Photos weren’t allowed as we drove across the Green Line that divides Nicosia the capital of Cyprus but I snuck a few.

No armed guards or anything, just eventually a booth where you get your piece of paper stamped by the Turkish Cypriot who don’t stamp passports which would make future entry into Greece impossible. You have to get out of the car to go to the booth which Judy and I did while Bill and Randal waited in the car. Then you drive a little further and wave at the Greek booth without getting out of the car. Returning from the south you do it in reverse; wave at the Greek booth and stop for a re-entry stamp at the Turkish booth. We asked for a new 90 day stamp and it was no problem.

A UN Building.

It looked pretty abandoned. Perhaps the UN doesn’t patrol the Nicosia crossing. We were told they deliver food to Greek Cypriots in north Cyprus because they were given refugee status.

The Mall

Our first stop was a motorcycle shop on the way to the Mall: we’re always looking to see if we can find a larger motorbike that would be the perfect size and shape, but no luck this time. Then we went to The Mall to go to Carrefour to do some food shopping. We stopped at the food court for lunch and everything seemed expensive at first. Bill got a McDonald’s burger, fries and a drink for 5.20 Euros about $7. Randal and I got salads and they were about the same price for a large salad in a “taco” bowl. The day before Randal and I had each eaten a filling grilled chicken sandwiches in pita bread for 6TL , about $3.20 in a small restaurant in Yeni Erenkoy, the village just down the road from the marina. The food court was filled with high school age kids eating so they could afford the prices. Maybe we’re just still used to Southeast Asia and have no clue even after being back in the US for 3 months.

The Mall decorated for Christmas and some Euro notes.

The southern part of Cyprus, the officially recognized part of Cyprus in Greek Orthodox.

Since everything seemed to be more expensive in South Cyprus we just bought a few things I hadn’t found easily in the North, like whole wheat flour, some chicken broth in cans, and I needed baking soda. I tried to find milk powder and some of the “3 in 1” instant coffee packets Randal drinks. I asked one of the Greek store clerks but she spoke no English and I, of course, no Greek. But she took my hand and led me down two isles to another clerk who spoke some English. “No” was all the English she needed because they didn’t have that or the milk powder a Greek woman shopper helped me ask about. The small, older clerk who had taken my hand had been so sweet and holding hands as we walked such a different experience than I would have had at home. She was small and a bit plump and just perfect. The younger clerks had no desire to make any type of contact, physical or just human. They wanted to just impart information and that’s it. And that’s really enough but just so different from the first sweet woman who had tried to help me.

We shopped at Carrefour and Lidl and then a new supermarket in the north which had almost as many choices and lower prices. In the cheese isle they had too many choices. The men working in the cheese isle only spoke Turkish and just sort of gave up on me so I just picked what I hoped was a less salty white cheese. But in the fruit juice isle, the young clerk wanted to be helpful. I told him I wanted juice without sugar like the Diet Cranberry from Ocean Spray. I didn’t mention Ocean Spray to him, just diet juice and he found one for me. ( At least it has no sugar added so has half the calories of sugared juice. I have bought Ocean Spray cran/raspberry juice here, just not the really low calorie kind we have at home.) Then I told him about my cheese quest and he walked back to the cheese isle with me and helped me find a low salt white cheese. It is also low fat which certainly can’t hurt. I was also looking for a new shower curtain. The clerk didn’t speak English so didn’t know what I meant by shower curtain until I mimed a curtain and then shower which looked silly but she understood what I meant and showed me where they were. It was about $9 US, cheaper than the one in Carrefour which was 9 Euro.  I have no idea how much they cost back home but they were a lot cheaper in Malaysia! I should have bought a dozen.

Sunset

We got back to the marina about 4pm just in time to watch the sun begin to set. It really was these shades of red and the dirt mounds from the construction site and the palm tree made me think of the pyramids of Egypt which hopefully we’ll see when we have the boat in Israel.