Siga Siga – adapting to Lefkosia (Nicosia) and the cypriot pace of life.

“Siga siga” is almost certainly the first phrase you’ll learn in Cyprus, or at least that we learnt here. It means “slowly slowly” and pretty much sums up how the Cypriots seem to approach life, until they get into a car that is, but that’s another story.
Coming from the six different countries, we have at least six different approaches to life and ways of doing thing. As I’m from the UK I’m used to everyone being quite rushed and although I don’t expect things there to be on time, there is a schedule and people try to stick to it. It was totally different for me as soon as I stepped of the plane and entered the airport. Trying to find the bus at midnight was interesting, there was a schedule, or more a suggestion, of bus times but the problem was finding which bus to get and from where it would leave though eventually I found the bus driver and arrived in Nicosia about 45 minutes later.

I’m used to northern Europe and have never been this far east or south, so the first thing to hit me was the weather it’s been sunny and hot (25-40°C so far). For this white northern european the first week was a struggle, but after 2.5 weeks here I find 30°C almost comfortable, although I slightly miss the rain, strange I know!

At the moment I’m still exploring Lefkosia and finding out about the local culture, but so far I’m loving the souvlaki and frappes (cold, foamy coffee). I’m sure in the coming months we’re only going to find more stuff that we like and get used to calling Cyprus our home.