Merry Cypriot

Preparing the Kite

Yesterday it was Clean Monday (we thought it was called Green Monday at the time) and traditionally on this day all the Cypriots go out into the fields and eat vegetarian food, apparently it has something to do with Lent.  Here they seem to mostly go down to the picnic site by the Salt Lake.  A bunch of us  thought we’d join them.  Hannah prepared a most delicious veggie curry with rice and a glorious Sangria to drink with it.  We also brought some Jewish bread that Sam had, olives, hummus, salad and strawberries… coo…The weather was fantastic, I’d say it was the first really warm day since I got here, we could even have swum in the sea.  Quite a few of the locals were in fancy dress, many of them were flying kites, all of them were eating together in large groups, presumably families.  I felt so very happy just to be there.

Kite flying

After we had eaten we thought we’d try and find some live music, we wondered off and found a stage playing traditional music.

Dancing on the stage

We even found a stall handing out free wine and lager !  There was such a lovely friendly atmosphere, all kinds of people were dancing everywhere, men and women, old and young, even priests in all their black dress get up.

There was a lot of drinking going on so the crowd was very merry.  We all had the best day.  Exhausted from so much sunshine and Sangria we retired to our rooms at 7pm with big contented smiles on our faces.