I’ve spent most of this week in towns, so I haven’t seen any wild animals yet. However, as always, I have seen lots of stray cats, which are very common in Cyprus. They roam the streets, sleeping under cars, on rooftops, and even in trees! Almost 2,000 years ago, there was a drought in Cyprus that led to an infestation, or very large number, of snakes. Cats were brought in to “solve” the problem! Snakes for snack, kitty cats? Since then, stray cats have become “king” here. Cats are such a common sight that many tourist shirts and souvenirs are decorated with pictures of and phrases about “The Cats of Cyprus.” Sometimes the cats remind me of my own cat, Smudge, back home! Other times, they scare the living daylights out of me, like one did this week. I was minding my own business, hanging my laundry up to dry outside late one evening, when I heard the “pitter patter” of rainfall on the tin roof above me—or so I thought. I looked up and—AAAAAAAAAAH! A ghostly cat’s face suddenly loomed at the edge, white as the moon, then vanished with a swish of its tail at the sound of my shriek. The English idiom may be that “curiosity killed the cat,” but that curious cat just about killed me with surprise!
Have you ever awoken from a nap but still felt as if you were dreaming? That’s exactly how I felt when I fell asleep on my flight to Georgia (the country) on my way to a Fulbright English teaching assistant conference and then awoke to the sight of a breathtaking winter wonderland unfolding beneath me. Gone were Cyprus’s lush green fields and rolling mountains, replaced by Turkey’s soaring snow-covered ones.
