Cyprus Detox

Hello Dear Readers,

Phew, had a loooong break in Cyprus, 10 days.  It was pretty nice and warm when we got there, warmer than London anyway, but by the last day it actually snowed a little bit in the morning, extremely rare for Paphos.  I spent most of my time relaxing, though I did keep up (mostly) my P90X to the very last day.  The hardest part was continuing to eat right.  I did ok at the start of the trip, forgoing my usual pre flight Full English Breakfast for granola and fruit, but envied Patrick chugging his Eggs Benedict and Latte.....

I think my mother in law doesn't believe there is any food worth eating in London and tries to fatten me up to tide me over till my next visit.  In the end though I did manage to lose almost a stone (that's 14 pounds) and dropped a bra size, hooray!  Still can't do a pull-up, but I've definitely improved my upper body strength.  As a bonus, the ache in my right hip is also a lot less, pretty much the physical therapy I needed to get over the worst of it.

We tried to make the most of the good weather by doing a little bit of sight seeing, taking a hike in the Akamas nature region and checking out an archeological sight.

 Here we are at the north east corner of the island, not quite as high as it looks, but a good hike.

Patrick even got in a little bit of yoga at the top, though I don't thing jeans were made for the crow pose.

And after all that hiking we had to indulge in some Frappe's by the seaside.  It's great going in the off season, the service is spectacular, and this place served the best bread I ever tasted.

 At least we weren't as cold as these guys, who are preparing to jump into the sea after the cross on the epiphany.  Greek Orthodox celebrate the 6th of January as the day of Christ's baptism (they will all swear they are Greek Orthodox, but I wonder how many actually know that's why they throw the cross?)  We actually got there early this year and had a front row seat at one of the cafe's.

We also met up with our friends Georg and Margharita, and their two kids.  It was getting pretty late when we got to see them, and Andreas decided he wanted to take a nap in his bathtub.  Of course then little George wanted to get in too, so Dad had to intervene and break them up, which HE did by getting into the bathtub!! Good times.

 We had a spectacular sunset over some 2nd century AD ruins, though this was near the end of our trip and getting pretty chilly, I had to pull my snood over my head.
 

We also, on Patrick's suggestion, spent a day at the neighboring city of Limassos.  We had been there once or twice, but never really to explore the city.  I was plesently surprised by the lovely seaside walk, quaint historical shopping area and sites of interest.  I think we'll definatly put this on our list of places to explore in Cyprus.

Overall not a bat trip, it helped a lot to have someone else to talk to in English!  But I'm glad to be home.  I've put myself on a Cyprus Detox Diet, mainly eating stuff from this amazing website that I just can't get enough of.  Really, I haven't tried anything from here that I didn't like, give it a go! 

I'm also working on my New Years Plans, this year it is to work my way through the enormous Lush box Chris gave me, paying lots of attention to pampering my body now that I'm past the 30 mark.  I also will be spicing up my cooking by working my way through the recipes on the Oh She Glows blog as linked to above.  Sometimes you just get tired of making the same things, or at least Chris gets tired of what I make, so I'm going to really make an effort this year to cook some brand new things every week.  Of course the biggest New Years Plan is to learn eveyrthing I need to for my amazing new job!

But first, I have to go change my bike tire, I've only been putting it off since October.......

Cheers and Happy New Year!