Cyprus: Land of Beautiful Beaches, Delicious Food and Awesome Cocktails!

4 things that are best about Cyprus are: The first three are mentioned in the headline and the Fourth is Misho. He is the best host and guide anyone can have in the unknown world! So if you are going to Cyprus, ask for Misho Hristov!

Day 1: My first day in Cyprus, for the lazy person I am, I woke up really late - at 12. Misho didn't even make an effort to wake me up, like he always does! But then I won't complain about it, he just wanted to be a good host.

Landed in Cyprus at 9 pm Cyprus time, 11 pm India time and 7 pm UK time. Misho's friend George had come to pick us up. I was kind of confused what to expect george to look like, I actually thought he would be this tall bulky hulk kind of a guy with an angry face. But he turned out to be a bit different. He is cute, a little plump and tall guy with a decent sense of humour. He is funny, witty and basically a good company to have.

My first encounter with Cypriot food was basically a few snacks - a sausage roll, some chicken puff and some fried thing that I don't remember the name of. But that was GOOD! So I thought to myself, I wont starve in Cyprus atleast! Misho's house: what can I say? I just felt like home. It's warm and welcoming. A place I could call home. After a couple of hours, I did meet his brother and his brother's girlfriend who were going out for dinner. They waved at us and that's all the conversation we had.

So, like I explained I woke up really late, the plan wasn't decided yet. There were 3 different plans: go to the beach with Neven (misho's brother) and Sonia (Neven's girlfriend), go to Gauba for a trance party from 3 to 8 or go to Ammos in larnaca which is like a lounge on the beach to chill. Since I wasn't keen on a trance party at 3pm in the afternoon and didn't really want to venture with Neven, I decided to chill at Ammos. Which in my opinion was the safest plan. So, we arrive at Ammos and as expected it was 'the' place! Impressed. Drink: Mojito. Impressed. So we chilled for a while, and then as usual I was hungry and Misho had promised me, he'll take me to eat good sea food. So we decided to go to Ocean's Basket. Which according to George was the worst place for sea food. But I took a chance with Misho's choice since his choice with food is usually good. So much against George's will, me and Misho went to oceans basket. And to my Surprise, this place served by far the BEST sea food I've ever eaten! Superbly fantastic. A must for everyone visiting Cyprus. So I had prawns, mussels, squid, calamiri, linefish, chips and some rice! And it was awesome!!!! Super impressed! And yeah not to forget Misho's friend worked here and she (Plamena) was really sweet and cute, and the other waiter as well. He said that Ocean Basket will take another 7 years to reach india, can you wait till then? Lol, it was funny but was a good experience.

After this, we head back home, Misho prepared some soup for all of us. I had a casual conversation with Sonia about german, working in cyprus and Bulgaria and few things here and there. Now comes the fun part where, we were all sitting on the dinner table like a small family and probably this was the best dinners I've ever had. With Neven pulling jokes on Misho, and we were talking about different food etc. Oh it was FUN! these little things in life bring you happiness. We tried to say some of bulgarian tongue twister and it was funny, second impression of Neven: FUN! impressed. Then we had to go out for a drink again, but this time to meet another friend of Misho; Veronica. So we ended up in a lounge called Lush. Impressive and posh. Unfortunately I couldn't have much of a conversation with her, since she spoke very little English. But she seems like a cute women. But I enjoyed my time at this place with good music, amazing ambience and fantastic cocktail- Lush passion. Basically, Misho was being the punching bag, that he always is, to his friend, while after a while I was getting bored! But none the less, Misho made up for this by treating me with ice cream. Now my meal seemed complete with ice cream. It was a nice drive back home.

Day 2's plan is to go for some home shopping and other shopping in the city somewhere. And Tuesday (Day 3) there is a plan to go to the water world or something like that. So, it's seems like a funfilled week ahead. But my first day at Cyprus was something superbly fantastic. Especially the food! Ahh, where will I ever get food like that??

Day 2: The plan is to go for some home shopping, so we head towards carrefour, which is something similar to what we have - hypercity. Tonight's menu has been decided by Misho -it's minced meat stuffed in peppers. Sounds yum! So, the trip to the super market is nothing great, but atleast I know where I'll get everything I need the next time I am here. Lol! Talking about the minced meat, misho purchases half a kg of meat pays the bill and realises that it wont be enough for the 6 pepers. So he decides to go back in and get another half. While I was requesting him to let me stay in and wait for him, he decides to let me wait outside in the heat. But that's fine since, this is what you can expect from Misho! Anyways it's about 1:00 pm and apparently the other stores are shut during this time, since it's the lunch break! Huh? Did I hear that right? Yeah, well every country has it own rules! So we'll visit the stores around 2ish. The best thing about sitting next to Misho while he is driving is: all the Greek swearing that he does is absolutely amusing.

So we get back home with a promise to head back in the city for some shopping and 'coffee'. Misho prepared the dolmades, basically peppers with minced Meat and rice for tomorrow and we had our lunch. Over the lunch Sonia asked us if they could join us for shopping and coffee. So, around 3pm we left from home and reached the city, saw a couple of shops, the collection here is pretty average. Not that impressive. But my agenda was to go to Zara and get that damn bag! And to my surprise I got it. Finally! I was so glad! Anyways, we headed towards the beach front to have coffee, but since I was hungry we decided to go to TGIF instead of haagen daaz. Well, frankly - the cocktail were super awesome! Flattered. Jack Daniels chicken. Super awesome! Wow! And the view even more better! And well, they had an offer for 2 for 1, even much better! So after a good day of shopping and eating and drinking super awesome cocktails throughout the day, we left for home. But before that we did go for a small walk on the beach, wow felt awesome! I think I was missing this terribly...
So the rest if the day was as usual: me helped mishi to make dinner: zucchini with yoghurt+dill+garlic. And we decided the plan for next day! So day 3 we are going to limassol, another big city where all the rich Russians live!

Day 3: Early start to the day, since getting to limassol is an hours journey. It's apparently a big city. Nothing special during the day, but the city and beautiful and so is the water. Time to eat and I try the moussaka a traditional Cypriot dish with minced meat, aubergines, potatoes and breshka sauce. First impression yaaiekks, what have I ordered, but after a few scoops in the pot, it tastes yum!
Time to go back home, so what's the plan? Well no one knows. Oh yeah the plan is to eat the chuski made by Misho. But unfortunately, the rice in the chuski didn't cook that well. But the whole preparation was super awesome! Time for some chit chatting, it was more like finding similar words in bulagrian and Hindi... These guys came up with the weirdest of the words in Bulgarian... But it was super fun! Lol!! Neven and Sonia are leaving tomorrow for Bulgaria. And me and Misho probably will be going to napa beach for some swimming! Yay! Finally... Anyways the plan for tomorrow is to go to the beach! Super Excited!!!

Day 4: All excited and waiting to go to the beach... And this is Misho's favourite beach - Kanoos, about 30-40 mins away from his house, we drove in Misho's little 'tank' lol! On the way, I was waiting for this beach to arrive, because I had heard lot about it from him. So the music goes on... I am enjoying the drive with the safest driver in the city. We arrive at a junction, where the road starts winding and goes down the mountain... As we entered this winding road, you could see tress alongside giving you shade and glimpses of the blue/ green sea. These little pieces of snapshots made you believe that you were either in heaven or you were just dreaming! Hell no! It's true! this is paradise! Never seen anything fantastically beautiful ever in my life... the sea was BLUE (you know what I mean - it was blue!) and a patch of it was light green! You could see it from the winding road... and the trees they smelled different and welcoming! WOW! At this moment I had decided that I will come to Cyprus every year! It was time to Swim and Sun bathe! While Misho was Sun bathing I was busy hiding myself under the umbrella! But nonetheless I was tanned! Damn it! The water was warm and nice, had a quick swim and everything was good!

We stayed there till 4-5 and then got back home through the city, which is a very famous tourist destination. Later that night we went out for a couple of drinks with plamena, veronica and a couple of others... But before that, Misho had promised to take me out for dinner, so he did. I wanted to try Chinese and he took me to his favourite place - Taipe. The food was good, was a heart to heart talk with Mish here... Wanted to stay there and chat with him further but, we had to go meet his other friends too. It was a tiring day, the plan for next day was to visit Elitza in Nicosia and then the next day a bit of shopping in Larnaca and just chilling.

Day 5: As usual, my host is busy making breakfast for me after I wake up! And we prepare to get to Nicosia for visit Elitza and see some of the malls in the city! So we go around in the malls, nothing great... then as usual we end up eating at TGIF! Again... We went for a round in the city and then finally met Elitsa and had a good chat with her, she is a sweet girl and I could make friends with her quickly... It was then time to get back home and relax. While Misho was preparing dinner, he put on his childhood days videos for me. It was fun to watch him as a kid. There is not much that has changed in him, he is still that child that I saw in those videos. Well it's time for another round of drinks tonight... once again at ammos. This time that I went to Ammos I thoroughly enjoyed myself... the music was good, there were ploe dancers dancing away all night... people were getting drunk and happy... it was a fun night! Tomorrow would be a day to do nothing and just relax at home, since that would be my last day here...

Day 6: We woke up early for some leftover shopping in the city... headed towards the city to buy things that I wanted to buy... I guess I didn't mention about Misho's car earlier... it was a tad dirty and dusty from the outside.. Mish had decided to clean it once I left... So we get to the city, park the car and get to our shopping business. When we come back, this is a hilarious scene, where 2 ladies are walking past mish's car and cursing and abusing pointing at his car. I was wondering what they were talking about! Later when we got in the car Mish was swearing at them... later I am told that these women were upset because Mish's car wasn't clean! Lol!!!

Later during the day, Mish took me around his village - Oriklini, we went up the mountain from where we get the view of the whole city. Beautiful!

Day 7: This was the toughest day of my life... I was choking with emotions the previous night and on our way through the city to the airport. Finally we arrive at the airport and it't time to say goodbye! Goodbyes are never easy! And I couldn't agree any more at that point of time. I hugged Mish, trying really really hard not to cry... I didn't speak much... because I knew, if I did, I would cry and not stop... so maintained it... It was really difficult but I managed. It was the final goodbye until we met again!

I brought with me so many memories: memories of the places, of the people I met on this journey and memories of my time spent with Misho! This is the journey of life, you meet new people, get close to them and then get away. But your memories stay. Forever.