Cyprus

A frequently asked question from friends and family drives this; the question being, “how do you make friends abroad?”

I love getting to know others and hearing their stories, and of course, enjoy sharing my own in return. There is beauty hearing the contrast of our upbringing, and despite all differences, our humanness is one and the same no matter the origin. 

While I made many lovely acquaintances through travel, my visit to Cyprus had a “secret sauce”, a mystical cocktail which drew me in, and  many others like me. I pondered what that ingredient could be, aiming to formulate some hypothesis.  

Let's begin by explaining the living situation. 

I rented a little house on a rooftop. A notable and defining feature of this living space - in order to reach the front door, one needs to cross through another co-living area. To paint a picture, the home is located in old town Nicosia where many of the streets are for walking or biking only. Among shops, restaurants, and a plethora of shisha bars (hookah, or flavored nicotine), was a discreet door next to a dentist office which looked nothing similar to a home entrance. 

Once you enter the door, you see an apartment door to the left and a flight of stairs to the right. The door on the ground floor was a private apartment, and up the steep two flights of stairs, a shared apartment space of  4-5 rooms, living room, 2 bathrooms, and a kitchen, then one more flight of spiral stairs  to reach the rooftop. 

Three steep hauls later, feverishly out of breath might I add, one can walk the remaining few steps to the one bedroom house and enter the front door.

Great security as a solo female traveler, knowing that at least someone would be home, should an odd character cause me trouble. 

I will admit this was a bit odd at first, passing through another home to get to my own, but I was accustomed to group living having frequently stayed in hostels earlier in the year. Majority of those living in the apartment beneath me were students obtaining advanced degrees, and on the first floor, an extremely memorable Tunisian computer scientist. 

The very first night,  I recall a small group hanging around on the rooftop smoking shisha together, listening to music and enjoying the good weather. Without second thought, I joined in. It was a shared space anyways, and I am at peace crashing a party, though I’d prefer to call it “gracing the locals with my presence”. However, many of these newfound friends were not locals at all, but from all over the world. They were French, Tunisian, Italian, Hungarian, German, and Finnish,  to name a few.
Though our upbringings had many cultural differences, we all had one thing in common: we chose to spend time living on a small island of Middle-Eastern-and-Euro-fusion. The group had it all: the American traveler, the Tunisian scientist, the French who were pursuing advanced education (with deep interests in politics, of course), and the musically gifted, bearded, philosophical, and  arguably most eccentric- the Italian. So the list goes on. Men, women, gay, straight, brown, white, Muslim, Christian, Agnostic - we were equipped with an array of spices in our cupboard. Best of all, we would sit on the rooftop for hours a day giggling and smoking shisha, sharing music, food, drinks, stories, debates, and grew quite fond of one another.

Besides being at the same place at the same time, this group had more in common - the desire to enjoy life and learn more about it.

My kind of people -  serious enough to hold space for a difficult conversation, and unserious enough to let things go unanswered, playfully making fun of one another in the process. Grateful for this kind of bond. 

I believe the “secret sauce” was a rich value system connecting us:  aiming to understand the world, and open to respectful contemplation. This is quite hard to find, but I believe the group’s diversity played a role in allowing the space to truly respect where each of us was coming from, and most importantly - listen.

Traveling has altered my view of “home”. I’ve lost the feeling of home in a physical place but found  it within. So cliche I know, but true. 

This ideal is forever evolving of course, but my new definition of home is within an emotional and intellectual space, rather than physical. The experience living on that little rooftop was home. Not the house itself, not Cyprus, but that particular time, with a special group, in a richly inquisitive space. This is home. And although I likely will never experience that particular version of home again, it will forever be a notable craft of art in my memory. 

What does home mean to you?

Possibly you view home as your immediate family, or friendships you’ve tended to over the years. Maybe your home is in a cause, or via an activity that you love. Possibly your home does very well have something to do with a physical place. Whatever your home is, I advocate for tending to it. Build a strong foundation, water the flowers, and fix the pipes when needed. 

Thanks for listening. 

The moon looked way cooler in real life let’s be honest

To the friends I made in Cyprus - thank you, have deep love for you and I cannot wait to build more “homes" like this one. You have sculpted a strong framework for the  friendships I plan to make  moving forward.