Month: January 2020

A Visit to the Limassol Castle

We’ve spent quite a bit of time in Limassol Castle. That is the only ancient building in the city and an old one. FIst, there was an early Christian basilica in the 4-7th centuries A.D. A bigger church was built over it in 10-11th centuries, and then at some point in the 12th century, the castle was built, incorporating different parts of the church.

Now, when you walk in the museum, you see a lot of arrows, indicating the meeting points of different buildings and epochs.


Unfortunately, there are not enough descriptions in the museum, I need to read way more to try to understand what it is all about. Also, there is not enough historical evidence regarding many of the periods. The castle was almost ruined during the first Ottoman invasion (by the city’s Venetian Governor). The Ottomans completely ruined it during recapture, and then id was turned into a prison. We ended up visiting the museum twice – by ourselves on Tuesday and with the organized tour Wednesday night, but there was still not enough information.

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Day Two and Exploring Marina

Since it was getting dark at 5 PM, we figured out that if we want to see something, we need to skip one session. And it was indeed the only session we skipped during the conference! It was on Tuesday, and that was the first sunny day.

It was almost warm in the places with no wind, and to our surprise, we saw several people getting sunbaths on the hotel deck, closer to the walls. 

I was not one of them, but I enjoyed the sun!

After lunch, I changed to gym shoes and jeans, and we headed towards the city center. It was about 5.5 km between the city center and our hotel. Since there is always a risk that I won’t be able to walk for several hours straight, we decided to take a cab from the hotel to the city center, and then walk back on our feet. 

I have to mention that there are tons of Russian tourists in Cyprus, and especially at Limassol. Most signs are dubbed in Russian, not English, or at least Russian comest first. Local organizers were talking a lot about “Russian money,” it’s influence on Limassol and on Cyprus in general, and the ways the Cyprus government tries to control the situation (mostly unsuccessfully). 

It’s funny that most of my friends and co-workers in the US reacted to my travel plans, either “what is Cyprus?” or “where is Cyprus?” The cab driver asked us where we are from, and when I said “from Chicago,” he didn’t even understand first. After I repeated more clearly, he exclaimed: Chicago?! How did you find Cyprus?!  

Although it sounds like a well-known anecdote, “How did you find Paris, Missis Astor?” he undoubtfully meant “find” in its original meaning:).

There is not much historical Limassol left. Marina, although beautiful and stylish, is very new construction. Here are some pictures:

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The Conference Overview and Day One.

The purpose of this trip was not tourism, although we took advantage of being in a new and exciting place. However, the day we arrived (Sunday) it was relatively cold, and also it started raining shortly after our arrival. 

I did not research “things to do” in advance, but I quickly found out that there are not that many tourist attractions in the Limassol itself. Sunrise and sunset are instantaneous, as it usually happens in the south. We entered a hotel in the daylight, and half an hour later, it was already completely dark. 

Monday was the first day of the conference, with a very interesting keynote, and my talk was also on Monday. 

I described everything related to my talk in my professional blog. At the moment I wish I won’t be talking on the first day! If I had an extra day, I would be able to attract more listeners. 

We ended up not leaving the hotel on Monday. There was a whole day of presentations and a welcome reception in the evening (and the weather was bad again!).

Opening session
First keynote – Erol Gelenbe

I had extremely interesting conversations during reception. Turned out, the next-day keynote speaker was listening to my preentation. I didn’t know at the moment who he was, but he was listening very attentively and asking tons of great questions. 

We continued during reception, and were joined by the first-day keynote and the forth-day keynote speakers :). You know how welcome receptions usually go: you mingle with people, not spending much time with one person, but rather trying to meet many. In that case, however, people were so interested in the conversation, that one of them asked me to wait till he will be back with refilled glass, because he didn’t want to miss anything from the story. I consider that to be the biggest possible complement 🙂

A few hotel pictures, so that the story won’t get boring 🙂

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My Talk at the Conference

Usually I publish the videos of my talks in my professional blog, but this time it is unfortunately just the first seven minutes, so I can’t use it as my actual presentation. Since it is recorded anyway, I thought I will post it here, just for friends.

Cyprus: Our Hotel

The hotel we are staying in is a conference venue, so we didn’t have much choice. The room view is amazing.

There are zero desks, but that is unfortunately expected. Ideally, we would need two 🙂

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Traveling to Cyprus

My birthday was on Saturday, and I spent most of it in transit. Started it with a birthday breakfast of hot-smoked salmon sandwich on rye bread at the Vantaa airport and then boarded a flight to Frankfurt. That flight and the subsequent flight to Limassol were extremely uneventful, being operated by Lufthansa :).

I didn’t know that we have to cross the border going to Cyprus. Cyprus is an EU member, but not a part of the Schengen agreement. However, they acknowledge Schengen visas, so it works at least one way :).

Upon arrival, we met our driver (we had a prearranged transportation to our hotel) and got into the car. Once again, I didn’t know that Cyprus had left-side traffic, so you have to be super careful. The highway from the airport was one-way, and the reverse route was not visible. Citing my surprise that nobody asked us at the border, how long we are going to stay, Boris joked that that’s because there is no way out anyway :).

This time of the year is off-season on Cyprus, so hotels are dirt-chip, and the first two days it was raining. We won’t do much sightseeing anyway, because it falls dark right after five. But here is the view from our room 🙂

I also managed to get an hour in the gym, hence I have my usual in-the-gym birthday picture:

A Short Stopover in Helsinki

Helsinki is most definitely not on the way to Cyprus – for anybody except me! This time, Boris and I agreed that I will come to Helsinki, and then we fly to Cyprus together. That was another reason I worried a little bit about the flight delay – our flight to Cyprus was at 7-20 AM the next day.

But as I said, everything got resolved. For a long time, I was suspicious about Icelandair initially, but now I like their flights – they are the shortest since they pass the Atlantic closest to the North Pole, and their connections are also quick. And now that I know they do not serve hot meals on board, I am OK with that :). Even this time, with three hours delay, I got to Helsinki at a reasonable time.
I love the new airport transit in Helsinki, especially since I installed the Helsinki Public Transit app :). Now I can buy my ticket on my phone and do not waste time at the station.

You can enter the station straight from the terminal
The trains operate every 5-10 minutes

The same ticket will be good for the train to get me home!

Delayed Flight

On Friday, my flight to Helsinki was delayed because of the snow. Funny how everybody forgets how to operate in winter when snow is expected! It was delayed just enough to make my connection impossible – I only had a little bit over an hour.
But I was amazed by how well Icelandair operated: the moment we landed in Reykjavik I received both email and text with rebooked flight; the new flight was by Finnair and less than three hours. The rest of my schedule didn’t suffer. Plus, they gave me a meal voucher, and I had a huge breakfast at the airport:

Turned out, that we were lucky: over 600 flights from ORD were canceled that night!

Office Life

On Thursday, one day before his last day, my leaving DBA brought donuts to the office. It was very touching; I knew that the reason for his departure was entirely personal, and that he enjoyed working in our company. But these donuts were really a final touch to the fact that it was great having him, and he will be missed!

Cooking & Talking: the Magic of Baked Salmon

One more time -I thought I published it on Wednesday; I did not, but do not want to edit the dates now, just imagine, it’s from Wednesday :).

I have lots of things to worry about at the moment: I need to find a replacement for my leaving DBA. I need to complete the end-of-the-year reviews for my team and myself. I worry that my glasses are not ready yet, which can put my surgeries dates in jeopardy. For the next week’s conference, we were asked to shorten our presentation to 18 minutes. 

I have a lot of things to worry about, but I am not going to. Because what I am thinking at the moment is the last night’s dinner in the Open Door Shelter. 

A Baked Salmon is always a hit, along with mashed potatoes, and when I make baked salmon, I always purchase it myself and bring in to the shelter in the insulated bag. 

When I entered the kitchen, it was empty except one girl who never showed interest in cooking with me, and would always make her meal, when I was making dinner with the others. 

— Hi, what are we making today? – she asked. 

I realized that, like many others, she didn’t want to compete for my attention and approached me only when there was nobody else around. I pretended to be not surprised, and we started peeling potatoes together. Later, other young people arrived and joined us. My most favorite staff was present, which always makes my job easier. 

All the easy tasks: lay the foil in the baking sheet, cut the lemons, chop the onions, make it easier for multiple people to feel that they are included in the process. Even now, on my way to work, I am smiling recalling their yesterday’s exchanges:

— Is it ready? Shouldn’t the salmon be darker?

— Shut up, she knows what she is doing! She is a pro! 

— Can’t you wait? Do you thin I don’t want a second? But I am waiting. We need to make sure everybody got a piece, and then go for seconds!

As always, there were a couple of people who tried salmon for the first time, and as always, the fish was gone fast, with only aluminum foil left 🙂

Another treat was that the girl who was in the program last year came in to lead a group activity. I was thrilled to see her. Most of the time, I have no idea how it turned for those who graduated from the program. It was a delight to learn that she is attending college and that she is giving back.

We sat and talked about the goals for the new year, about plans and hopes. And then there were hugs and goodbyes, and see you next time. 

The staff walked me downstairs and even outside. And as much as I am annoyed when my mother says she will wait till I turn around the corner, it feels different when leaving the ODS.