The island of love

The air is bitterly cold. I can see my breath as I stand at the side of the road waiting for a car to take me to the airport. That’s right it is time for another travel log. It is February 2001 and most of the Novell's System Engineers are off to the island of love, Cyprus. It is kind of a funny name since Turkey invaded and then has occupied the northern 1/3 of the island for the last 20 years. You would think that all of that love would have convinced them to go home and make love to their wives or girlfriends. In addition, I really like all of the SE’s but love is a bit strong. Any way it has warm Mediterranean breezes blowing across it even in February so that coupled with the fact that it is the cheapest place in EMEA to do System Engineer training and jet lag shouldn’t be much of a problem for us Europeans. I know I am not European but England is next to Europe.
 
We made it uneventfully to Cyprus airlines. The plane was bit long in the tooth but had the nice feature that the seats folded forward as well as moved a bit back. So if you were lucky enough to have no one sitting in front of you, you could push the seat down and rest your legs on it as if it was a settee.  The food was an interesting mix of airline and Cyprus cuisine really a poor mixture. I told the airline that I am allergic to fish and when I told the flight attendant this after she delivered me a meal of fish with a prawn salad for a starter she removed the meal. She then decided to ignore me for the rest of the 4-hour flight, so much for the island of love.
 
We got into Cyprus and it was raining my “Chief of Staff” tells me that it only rains 14 days a year, as the water drips down my back I ask if that is 24 hours times 14 or if this is one of the 14 out of 365.  I am a Very Important Person and I am travelling with Susan so I assume that the car they send for us will be very nice and roomy. I don’t know if it was nice because the driver could not get our bags in the boot. He said the famous line well don’t worry we can put some of the bags up front. There are four full grown adults and I seriously doubt that the four of us will fit in the back of a Mercedes “C” class taxi for the two hour plus drive from Lanaka to Paphos. Susan works her magic and we end up with a much bigger car that provides each of us a seat. It is not all that nice because I swear it has a small leak in the front near my bag and left leg.  The driver gives us an extra tour of the Cyprus and we see some of the back roads that even the Turks would have passed by.   I am not the best driver but even in Cyprus I believe that a Red Circle with a white line indicates that one should not enter the motorway, I am either mistaken or we had a crazier driver than normal.
 
The hotel looms up in the now darken sky but it looks nice. Susan is greeted as if she is a returning hero and I am greeted as if I should be happy to carry her assistant’s bags and fetch water. Susan is whisked off to the executive floor as I am told to make my way down to the hold of the hotel near the lift engines and boiler room. The room is clean, small, and has a view of the waste bins. I decide that being the boss is not all that it is suppose to be cracked up to be.
 
We meet up with the Germans and Swiss SE’s who luckily have arrived the day before us. I say luckily because the rest of the German team will arrive late. They were delayed by snow in Dusseldorf, Berlin, Humburg and Munich; you would think that the Germans would know how to handle snow.   The guys that have spent the day here and don’t want to stay in.  I don’t want to risk another taxi ride so we promise to meet up at the bar later and a few of us end up at dinner. I am glad I couldn’t talk the German and Swiss team into joining us since I got stuck with the bill.
 
Later at the bar, shocking I know systems engineers drinking; we meet the Hotel manager who has an unpronounceable name. Susan tells me that she cannot remember or pronounce his name. I jump to her rescue and introduce myself and ask him three times to repeat his name on the third try he tells me to call him “Al” all the stupid Americans do.  He speaks fondly of Susan Lockhard, but I do not catch that he is mispronouncing her last name, which is Lockhart. We all decide that it is a Freudian slip because she has beat them down so often on the price of everything that the must feel that she has her purse locked tight and is hard as nails to negotiate with.   She got everything included in the price of the room even meals that we eat at other restaurants and we still end up under budget. I am pretty sure they feared that we were some fly by night company because whenever they asked for a deposit or some additional money she would turn hard and lock the purse tight.
 
Four days before we leave for Cyprus I finally get Cheryl to let me buy a new digital camera. I didn’t really need a new camera because I have two old ones but I have always wanted a “SLR” digital camera so I could swap out the interchangeable lenses. This one was very cheap only $3,500, which, I assured Cheryl, was a very good price for a top of the line SLR digital camera. I got the camera sent to my office since I am sure someone is always there to sign for it.  It came, as I feared without a lens, I had a rough time explaining this to Cheryl, as I recall which I think is pretty well having it burned into my brain, she said, “You paid $3,500 dollars for a freaking camera and it doesn’t come with a lens?” I might have the freaking part wrong.   I was now the proud owner of a top of the line camera that I couldn’t play with because it will not do anything without a lens attached to it. Two days before Cyprus I go to a camera shop and buy a $500 dollar lens.   I take 500 photos mostly of the steering wheel since I have to drive up to Sherwood Forest to meet with a customer the day before Cyprus. I would have included some of the photos but they are freaking huge.   So yes for those of you keeping score I spent $4,000 dollars for a digital camera that takes digital pictures that are too big to send to you across the internet, but in my defence they look damn good on my computer. They do load a bit slow.
 
We (read Susan), In fact whenever I use the word “We” it normally means that I decided that someone else should do something which I would like to have done and that I will take credit for after they complete it. We only means me when Cheryl says it.   We tried to save as much money as possible like when we decide to bring our own overhead projection system. We (read Susan) carried it as luggage.  We also decide to reuse the sign that had mysteriously showed up missing from our last training in Kuala Lumpur. The only cost was two jars of paint Susan and Chris Neal one of my Regional Managers used to change the name from Kuala Lumpur to Cyprus and the hotel name to the Coral Beach.
 
The training room had a great view of the Mediterranean so of course we closed all of the curtains. It was nice to sip some coffee and eat a small snack during the breaks while looking out over the water with the sun shining and the warm breezes blowing. All of the SE’s commented on hard it was to work at Novell that week, and how much they missed training in Provo Utah in February.
 
The training was very good, we had three American’s come over and complain about jet lag, but they did an excellent job as always. We also had great speakers from EMEA so the event was well received and I think we will have a good turn out for the next training.
 
We didn’t have anyone sleeping during the training for a number of reasons. The first is we did not invite the Japanese, the second was that the training started at nine in the morning instead of the normal seven o’clock start, and the third was that the hotel bar closed at one in the morning.  The hotel put on a live band each night that we where there and I think more than a few of the guys went to bed dreaming of the two girl singers. One of the girls must have mistaken her belt for her skirt but when I offered to clear it up the other SE’s told me not to bother. They were there to hear her sing and it did not bother them that she was flashing them each time she hit a high note.  I have to admit they are a very understanding crew it was a bit distracting to me, but I learned to cope with it.
 
The first night out we went to an old traditional Cyprus tavern where we cursed the Turks and toasted the Greeks or was it Geeks, either way the wine flowed like water and the food came at us in waves. It was like thanksgiving without the American football.  We eat stuff that I still don’t know what it was. The guys at my table passed the food by saying, “Here, try this it is not Chicken.”  The one time it was Chicken we where all disappointed even though it was all very good.
 
The next night out we had Italian and I got to sit next to the Italian SE’s, Susan was asked to sit with French table and was required to drink large amounts of wine, at least that is her story.   The food was excellent and the wine flowed like water. In fact in Cyprus the saying is the water flowed like wine since it seemed very hard to get water but surprisely easy to get wine.   We ended up at the bar again but the young lady remembered her skirt that night so most of us called it an early night.
 
The last night of training as the SE’s left we had some problems with the bills since we had shoved everything into the hotel rate, coffees, the training rooms, all of the meals. We did not include the drinks because we were afraid some of the guys might order water and I understand that water can be very expensive. Susan worked it out made sure that everyone got on the buses so no sleep for her but I sleep well knowing that my family would arrive the next day.
 
Cheryl wanted to do something since the kids were off from school, we had planned to travel to Egypt but I could not fathom travelling two hours to the airport to take a four hour flight to meet them in London to fly back over Cyprus to get to Egypt. She could not fathom flying into Egypt alone with two kids. Therefore, we decide that I would stay in Cyprus and family would meet me there.   The kids were tired but Matthew some how talked me into letting him bring his PlayStation so we spent a couple of hours getting it working.   He had a great time in Cyprus. He taught Katie how to climb on the rocks to the absolute terror of his Mom, he played PlayStation every night and then spent about £50 on one of the video games in the arcade over the week.  
 
We travelled around Cyprus by jeep with a guide. We learned a lot, they cover their bananas with blue plastic bags to protect them, Cyprus has been invaded by just about everyone, and they hate the Turks.  We also went into town by bus, which I thought the kids would find exciting but they didn’t. They did find the McDonnell’s and Pizza Hut exciting, which I didn’t. I bought Susan a gift from all of the money I saved on bar tabs this trip. I explained that Novell was not going to pay for booze so if they ordered something to pay for it and not run a tab. In Kuala Lumpur people would come and go and the bill always ended up on the table waiting to be paid by me.  So all the SE’s chipped in for Susan’s gift, we got her a very nice linen table cloth for those of you that wanted to know.
 
For those of you keeping track I bought a $4,000 camera for myself and a nice gift for my “Chief of Staff” it is Valentines day and I am on the island of love with my wife, that can only mean one thing, Diamonds.  I will confess to not really knowing what, Cut, Clarity and Caret meant before this trip, I do now.   I also have faced fear a limited number of times in my life and most of those times involved gunfire, but when your wife looks at diamonds and then looks at your camera then says, “Those are a bit too small for my taste.” I swear 50-caliber machinegun fire does not seem so bad.
 
We got the diamonds sorted out after my American Express was declined, Cheryl reminded me that it was most likely due to a large photographic purchase I had recently made. She also explained that the diamonds could be purchased on two separate credit cards, so she now has a Visa and a MasterCard diamond.  The pair looks very nice in her ears. She also explained that since the earrings cost so much that she would only wear them on very special occasions. This stuck me as funny and I commented that maybe next time I would buy her jewellery what was so expensive that she would never wear it.   Matthew found that really funny and kept showing her real junk jewellery saying, “Hey, Mom this is junky enough for you to wear all of the time. It worked out since I have not seen her without the earrings in since we picked them up.
 
 
We got a babysitter for Valentine’s night dinner unfortunately we did not book a reservation and I could not stand spending one more meal at Pizza Hut, even if we did have a 20% discount for being regular customers. We asked the front desk to book us a taxi to take us into town but the lady said she knew of a very nice restaurant (She didn’t) and would see if they could find us a table.  We take a short taxi ride to the “restaurant” it is completely empty, we are the only couple in the place on Valentine’s day, not a good sign. The prices were cheap, as was the food; Pizza Hut looked better every minute. The food wasn’t really that bad I had a “T-bone” steak and if I could have gotten the guy to add some sunny side up eggs and hash brown potatoes it would have been a nice “Denny’s” in the States. Not exactly the Valentine dinner I expected on the “island of love.”
 
The rest of the week went well, more climbing on rocks, swimming, and bus trips to Pizza Hut. The airport we needed to fly out of was two hours away so it was a long last day, a couple of hours in a taxi, a hour a couple of hours at the airport and then a four hour flight back on Cyprus Airlines, they served Fish.