As I’ve mentioned in the previous post, it’s not that much of the old Limassol left, but we still wondered some of the older streets before we headed back to the hotel.
Limassol: Walking the Old Town and the Seashore
Author: Hettie D.
My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996.
I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future.
I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life.
As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.
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.
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:
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!).
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 🙂
Continue reading “The Conference Overview and Day One.”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 🙂
Continue reading “Cyprus: Our Hotel”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.
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!
