Cyprus
My first trip ever over Europe would start out smooth. We had a scheduled 11 hour direct flight to Athens and then a 1 hour layover before flying an 80 mins to Cyprus. My flight to Athens was spent watching movies and playing Chinese poker with Bryan Colin. After being down as much as $2k and up as much as $20k, we ended with me being ahead $4k for the flight. (Don’t feel bad for Bryan. When I left the poker room here in Cyprus last night, he was beating up on Eli Elezra and Jeff Lisandro for about $75k.)
I took an Ambien half way through the flight which did not have the desired effect. It did not get me tired and thus never fell asleep. It did not mix well with my body as I became somewhat delirious when we got to Athens. I was told I was spewing nonsense but I don’t have any recollection of the events. Bryan has some good stories about me for the rest of the day. They are quite scary. Maybe he can post them in the response for the blog here.
We landed in Larnaca, South Cyprus on time and everything seemed set. We have now traveled 99% of our 5,000 mile trip. All we have to do is take a taxi for 50 miles from South Cyprus (normal European free country) to North Cyprus (somewhat lawless Muslim run country; of which we had no idea). We get to the middle of Cyprus and cross the armed border patrol. It is 95 degrees out and sun bearing down. We are in a Mercedes taxi with a middle eastern driver who is not the best with the 6 speed manual transmission. Apparently he thinks its normal to blast the air conditioning while driving with all four windows wide open in the blistering heat. The air conditioning was useless in this environment. About 5 miles through the border with the car rocking back and forth and the driver shifting up and down, and the Ambien still in my bloodstream, I was feeling more than a little queasy. I quickly knock Bryan’s arm and try to motion to him to get the driver to pull over because I am about to hurl chunks of everything that was inside my stomach.
I will skip the next few minutes as it was a disgustingly violent episode and the details are too gross.
So we were now pulled over on the side of a dirt road in what might as well been Afghanistan. This was not a safe place. With the sun beating down on us, there was puke quickly drying all over the outside of the car and enough inside the car that I felt bad for the driver. Bryan claims that I got some on his shoulder when I was trying to get him to make the driver pull over. Fortunately the driver was very understanding about it and had some bottled water in the car to give me. So we get back in the car to continue our journey.
Back on our way I give the driver a $100 tip since he handled the situation so well and figuring he needs to get the whole car washed now. This seemed to make him very happy. So I am feeling a bit better and we get about another 10 minutes closer to our Hotel and its Round 2. The same scenario happens again.
I get cleaned up again and we are now only about 15 mins from the hotel. Finally we get to our destination. Bryan takes care of everything with checking in and getting me in a room as quick as possible. It was clear to him that I was not functioning at a high enough level to do anything for myself at that point. Good thing for me Bryan was travelling with me. He proved to be a reliable friend! So I get to my room and I all I want to do is shower and pass out. Round 3, bam! At least this time I was near a sink and a toilet.
I think I lost 10 pounds in 14 hours of travel. Things can only get better from here. The resort is decent but the surrounding landscape is amazing. We are on the beach in a cove off the Mediterranean Sea and there are mountains all around us. Eventually I figure to make it outside.