After that, I couldn’t “risk” falling asleep again for fear of missing a moment of this dreamscape, which quickly transitioned to snowy plateaus and eventually back to mountain foothills lining Georgia’s Black Sea coast. As the sun set over the glistening sea, I knew adventure in a new country was just about to begin…
Remember how I mentioned in my last logbook that it had snowed in the Troodos Mountains and even a little in my coastal village? Well, one of my Fulbright friends, Zack, just visited the Troodos this weekend for a hike and afterwards shared a few photos with me, which of course I just had to share with you. I couldn't believe they were the same mountains I'd hiked in previous summers. Did you ever imagine that a Mediterranean country like Cyprus could get snow? Seeing is believing, so take a look! I can't wait to go skiing for the first time in Cyprus with my three fellow Cyprus Fulbright English teaching assistants next month and check out the snowy Troodos for myself.
Ready to learn five Cypriot Greek words for “cold”? I bet you could use them to describe New York right now, too, so here you go: κρύο, κρυιάδα, σαγή, παγονιά, and my personal favorite, σώφος (pronounced “SO-fos”), which people use to laughingly say that it’s “so cold I’m dying!” (I’ve taken to using that word a lot lately since very few Cypriot buildings have central heating the way they do in the States.) Of those five words, only “κρύο” is used in the formal Greek language that is taught in schools.
