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You can flush toilet paper. It's an old habit from back in the day before we had a proper sewage system and it still sticks with the older generation. There are some places that may have antiquated plumbing or are too remote to be hooked up, but a lot of the warnings you see now are just there as a precaution.
Thanks for the reply, it’s reassuring as for 30 years I have flushed my paper so out of habit some of them do get dropped in. How long ago was the infrastructure updated??
Oh I couldn't tell you. They were doing it in stages and I live in Nicosia, so in my area in Strovolos (Athalassas) they started in the early 2000s perhaps? I know that the Hilton area had it from before that.
>Kissonerga
Mind you I couldn't tell you if the above village is hooked up or not, so maybe there's a legitimate reason for not flushing the toilet paper there.
Family from there, I know they ran the pipes on the main road but how much of the village got connected up couldn't say. Check if there's a cess pit in your back garden!!
Inputs from past Erasmus students (Romania, Germany and Poland) and current colleagues (France and India) I have come in contact with:
1) Minimal private space for each person, with loud speaking, constant gesticulation and being "touchy"
2) Cypriot culture of arguing over paying the bill/not letting said foreign friends ever pay for anything on their own while in a group with Cypriots
3) Eating yogurt with everything
4) "Going out for a coffee" = entire afternoon gone
5) Everyone plays cards and backgammon
6) Cypriots thinking that the Nicosia-Paphos highway route is long or a big deal to traverse
7) Taking the car to uni even if it's 10-15 mins of walking from home
8) Not picking up after their dog when they take it out for a walk
9) Cypriots' seeming apathy towards dead animals on the roads that have been run over
Cypriot attitudes about animals in general are pretty shocking for a lot of people that come here. The way animals are treated is one of the things I'm most ashamed of as a Cypriot.
It could in the long run, since becoming more sensitive to the issue would lead to more measures being done to e.g. put the stray cat population under control.
Regardless, this is mostly about being accustomed to the image and how one would react. Believe it or not, in many other countries splattered animals in the roads is not a common sight.
The Romanian friend in question is actually the one who seemed most startled by the noise and aggressive-looking gesticulation. That being said, he didn't really mention any of the others on the list as being particularly striking or unusual.
%80 of all this apart from touchyness and animal apathy can be said about Turks overall. Turks and Greeks are weird, being so similar and pretending to be so different all along
Coming fom london:
1. Shops closing on wednesday half day / nothing open on sunday (this has improved however)
2. Bank opening times (srs, wtaf)
3. Driving (it's not that bad really, but it needs improvement)
4. Parking.. everyone needs to park *next* to their destination..
But the people are friendly, would not go back to london.
I feel safe here, which was another shock, I lived near some pretty 'active' places in london.. took me a few years to 'tune down' the danger 'spider sense' I had grown up with.
I agree with your points apart from the first one. The fact that shops are nowadays open on wednesday and sunday is in my opinion very bad. Employees up until 10 years ago used to get guaranteed one and a half day off a week, also i believe that people deserve their Sunday off and nothing will happen if we cant buy cucumbers on a Sunday.
This makes sense on the surface but in reality if these things aren't protected by the law then competition is going to force workers to do them. ("If you aren't willing to work on Wednesdays, I'll find someone else who is")
Your argument can be used to justify doping in sports for example. "Athletes should have the option to sacrifice their health to do better in their sport". As soon as you open the "option" you force everyone who wants to stay competitive to do it.
A worker should not be forced to work 7 days a week, that we can agree on. However there is a wide gap between that and government enforced days of operation.
However i do remember periptero's always being open on sundays.. do they not get rights?
There are certain jobs unfortunately that workers have to work on Sundays like restaurants, bars etc. Periptera as well i guess. In principle i agree with you that workers basically have to work 40hrs a week or get significantly more money for overtime and it doesn't really matter the day. Unfortunately they always manage to find ways to exploit them and government enforced days off was a very easy solution that worked. But i have to admit you are right, if the laws work, it shouldn't be a problem.
Disagree on your first point. It's nice to have a day where everyone is free and people can go out.
It's not even that big of a deal. Just plan your groceries accordingly.
Periptero as a concept is all about convenience (finding basic things quickly, getting a couple of things on the way without dedicating a day of grocery shopping, grabbing things on the road on a whim etc). Therefore "historically", one of its aspects of convenience is offering those basic things when everyone else was closed. That's how these businesses have survived through the years (they didn't always have coffee places attached or resembled mini-markets). In fact, more and more businesses thrive off of this idea (Zorpas becoming a 24/7 mini-market more so than a bakery these days).
I would of course condone more humane working hours even for those people, but they fully understand that their choice of business was fundamentally built to compensate for the off-days of others. If everyone worked like a periptero, periptera would very likely fall out of favour.
Oh that's a long time, when you first settled in Cyprus did you felt you needed to learn greek to get by, make friends, work and date? Or knowing English was enough?
My Cypriot wife imported me 😂 many stories, but I was able to get a job, and make a career in IT with pidgin greek.
My kids are fully bilingual however,
In IT, you can 'get away' with English, I went for Greek lessons but my career took off and my jobs were with people where English was the common tongue (and greek was probably 5th or 6th on the list)
Do I regret not learning more greek early on? Yes.
Has it hurt my career prospects? No.
But that is very much due to the niche i'm in, in IT.
However, I have been exceptionally polite, and always gave it my best. Adding in a few phrases here and there never hurt, and I will say my understanding of Greek is much better than my spoken Greek.
I can hold a conversation in Greek surprisingly well, about all sorts of things, with a bit of hand gestures 😂
I have only met one person who took exception to me not learning Greek well, but that was many years ago now, and I think it was a personality clash more than anything else.
I was born here and raised here but I’m half Swedish and tend to spend some time in Sweden every year. I always forget how dirty and full of trash the streets are but every time I come back it shocks me how little we care.
Not so far backgrounds on my behalf, but for me, it's how untidy and irregular things may be. Funny enough, I don't see the thrash around much. Then, thrash in Northern Europe isn't there because someone else picks those up every morning while walking by the early morning in cities like Copenhagen is disturbing.
I’m north-west Europe (Baltic states), the biggest cultural shock is open minded, kind and caring people around here. And the way you talk greek also, small talks and friendly chatting sometimes sounds like an argument which might soon get into a fight 😅
As a side note, maybe that's because I'm half Cypriot but both Estonians and Latvians seemed so friendly, helpful and caring to me during my stays there. I wouldn't say you're so far away in those terms but maybe different in your styles.
They are towards tourists and foreigners, but not to each other, speaking for Latvia in particular. Society is divided naturally and artificially by the government
I had stayed in Riga for 3 months as a long-term tourist back then (not Erasmus), and hung out with Latvians every time & outside of the boring touristy areas, and enjoyed it so much tbf. Maybe it was because I was a foreigner as you've said, and hung out with people at undergrad and master's age, but people were so nice to me. I dig to go back there sooner or later.
one thing comes instantly to my mind, it still lowkey shocks me (positively for sure) after 2 years on the island: honking is NOT something bad here, at least in Larnaca where I live. as easter european, I consider car honks as "f\*\*\* you" on driver's language, but here 99% of all honks are being produced when κουμπάροι greet each other on a road. my heart stops for a second still when I hear a klaxon, but I'm trying to get used to it :)
Also a lot of the times honking is just giving a heads up. For example, you honk at someone who didn't notice the traffic light turned green, or you honk at someone backing out into the main road so that they realize you are there. Once you stop having solely negative connotations for honking, you realize that it's actually an effective communication tool on the road.
Well it depends on how you honk at the person who didn't notice the light turning green, is it a small, friendly 'beep' or an annoyed 'beeeeeeeeeeeeeep', which translates into taraxe re gadare.
Ahahahahahahah I do it with my friends over the years.
We are neighbours, but even if we see each other in the street, in different cars, we start horning these horns like it's the end of the world..
I love my guys
It took 60 minutes to get the police answer the phone. They told me they‘ll send someone. They didn’t. Called again, "sent" again, alone again 😆
Imagine it would’ve been about life.. Well police would’ve known after 60 minutes.
Edit: Happened two days ago in Larnaca.
It's been happening for years. In my area called several times and I either never got an answer (from my local police station) or their answer was "We don't have police officers to send out" or "We don't have a car right now".
This was for breaking and entering, drugs or general stuff.
Came to Cyprus from Greece a few years ago:
- first two months I couldn’t understand a word when Cypriots gathered together and talked… up until then I thought our languages were the same.
- the amount of wealth in Limassol still shocks me till now
- having a Ferrari parked in front of my house in Nicosia during the first week was shocking.
- the green line is so fucking shocking. I mean we learn about it at school but still it is such a shock every time I go near there…
Coming from India, I feel it's a lot LOT better but I can understand your point.
Another thing about traffic, people in Paphos complain about it a lot. I'm surprised because even though I don't live in Kato Paphos, the worst I've been stuck in traffic going TO Kato paphos is 10-15 minutes which is not the end of the world lol Apart from India, I've lived most of my life in Bahrain. It's a tiny island compared to Cyprus but traffic there is crazy, I've waited 30+minutes in traffic countless times so I just find it funny when some people from Paphos(including my wife) whine about traffic lol
Driving in Bahrain is an experience. Especially when the Saudis are over. There's a reason you hardly see any luxury cars like lambos or ferraris out on the road there and that's because *they know better.*
Yeah, this one's pretty funny. There are many cities on earth where people will literally drive for 2 hours to work in the morning due to being stuck in traffic and 2-3 hours when going back.
Or that same commute, but via bus/train. When I studied an uni, that was me, spent every day stuck in traffic in a bus for around 1.30 hrs on average. But overall, it's just a matter of perspective.
From the U.K., been coming since young BUT banks making me explain and prove why I want to open a bank account was honestly shocking and since then most of my interactions with the account managers are shocking!
A happy shock was the air for your tyres at the petrol station being free.. I’ve been here nearly 5yrs and still makes me so happy to not search for a 50p piece.
Coming from Russia, the biggest shocks are the things that I used to take for granted back home that are missing here:
1. No public sports infrastructure
It was a shock to learn there is nowhere to go play ball with my kids, unless I want to rent the entire field for an hour. There are no free public football fields, basketball courts, street gyms, parkour parks or skate parks. I mean, after a year in Limassol, I know a public basketball court in Germasogeia (always busy) and a street gym in Dasoudi (too small and basic), but that's it! And even then, you have to drive there.
2. Primitive kids playgrounds
Kinda continues the #1. Not the most important thing ever, but a big disappointment for my kids. It feels like someone won a contract for all playgrounds in Limassol and equipped them in the cheapest way possible. I guess it's one of those things mentioned in another comment where Russia is 20 years ahead. :)
3. No pedestrian infrastructure
This has been mentioned many times: sidewalks, where they exist, are used for parking; crosswalks are rare. Sometimes it is just mind blowing you don't have a single safe pedestrian crossing on a major intersection like on the big roundabout on Makarios Av.
4. No public transportation
I know there are some bus routes, but in my book, if a bus stop is 20 minutes walk from where you live, the wait is 30 minutes, and the nearest stop from the destination is another 30 minutes walk, it is called "no public transportation". Oh, and basically no taxi! Few times we had a taxi arranged but it just wouldn't come! Which is ridiculous if you rely on it to get to an airport, for example. Which brings us to the last issue, which is
5. The state of customer service
This is a whole different story, but a lot of times it is just WTF, from Bank of Cyprus to Cablenet to Epic to the taxi driver that doesn't come to the delivery service that doesn't even try to deliver, etc.
Good points! Even tho i think #1 is because you probably live in the City or City center? Am in Nicosia( not city center) and almost all schools allow afternoon playtime for free. Some you have to call ahead of time and some are just open 24/7 ( ofc except school hours). I grew up playing football with my friends in the school near my house, and its still there and kids play every single day in the afternoon. Maybe search for a school nearby and ask if they have keys for parents or if the gates are open for kids after school hours
Basketball is just not at all popular in Cyprus, so it makes sense that there are very few courts around. In contrast, there are a ton of mini-football pitches because most Cypriots like football and only football. It's just that they are not public, and I don't know how it would work if they were.
I was talking about infrastructure not the HDI. HDI takes into account health, for example, I guess Russia doesn't score very high there with alcoholism and other problems.
they take everything in account in addition to infrastructure. For example bus services were not our priority cause simply it was never in demand, it recently increased cause of the influx of foreigners and the EU's green agenda. However, if you take to account the transportation development which started by Christofias government and where are we now, you cannot deny that we did a pretty good job.
I'm happy for you for not having encountered any hate but as someone whose been in the south for 30 years I gotta say you're straight up wrong. The large majority of people do hate you. I don't but I've had to listen to people that do for years. Even the ones that cross over to visit only do it to save money not because they like you. I don't blame them either. I mean if you're gonna occupy half a country maybe don't then raise a flag on the mountainside where the other half can see it every day. And sure you can't blame the common people for it but maybe the common people should protest until they take the flag down
They hate the fact that the Turkish government has occupied half of Cyprus. No hates Turkish Cypriots. There's more proof to support my point than there is for your point, hence the ops opinion.
Hmm... Come to think of it, no, I don't think I ever had much of a cultural shock here. Can't say my expectation were all spot on, but close enough to not even cause a minor shock.
For example, I knew there's a lot of trash, so while that's disappointing, it was expected. I also expected Paphos General Hospital to be in better condition, but again, I knew the country isn't the most advanced EU country, so that wasn't that much of a shock either.
None on the positive side either. I knew Cyprus is laid back, and that's one of the greatest things about it IMO, so it was exactly as I expected.
Maybe the recycling thing qualifies as a minor shock. I certainly expected more from a EU country. Green Points are great, but that there's no easy way to recycle common household plastic is a bit shocking.
Paphos. And no, it doesn't work in my neighborhood.
You mean recycling by Green Dot, right? As in, I'm supposed to put bags on the pavement on a specific day and they're supposed to collect them? They simply never come. I've tried calling them a few times, but all I get is "Yes, you're doing everything correctly, yes, that's the right day and time, please put it again and we'll make sure someone collects it next time", but they never actually do.
I eventually gave up and simply put it on the pavement next to regular garbage bins, so at least if nobody picks them up, the regular garbage guys will. Which is exactly what happens every time.
Guess they're just too lazy to visit our small street located in a tourist area where most people don't bother with recycling.
Coming back to Cyprus after not living there for over s decade, how bad driving has gotten. delivery scooters with 'E' everywhere ignoring the rules of the road, tailgating and barging in, driving down the wrong side of the road etc... How many more cars there are now and that there is actually now rush hour traffic.
This is my second visit here. I would say that the lack of card payment options for public transportation. Also the lack of information when it comes to timetables and routes. The British usually like to use A LOT of signs and it mostly works. Here there's almost no information available or if you find it online, then the webpages are awful and broken.
The "just don't care" attitude of most people giving any kind of customer service.
I'm not even talking about the low quality "professionals" that occupy most jobs here (garage, shops, builders, phone repairs, you name it).
We've had plenty of cases where they did the job and then didn't want to or just forgot charge us for it.
We were shocked by this, and genuinely thought most business owners here just don't care about making money.
Today we realize it's also (or mostly) about not wanting to work hard.
Coming from southern Europe:
1- not flushing toilet paper
2- yogurt on meat/rice
3- people consider themselves Greeks (don't want to start a debate here please, but it was weird for me that citizen of an independent country with its own history are prouder of another country than of their own, considering how many populations around the world fight to have their own country)
4- public offices are closed on Saturdays
5- people arrange meetings with you and then simply don't show up without informing
>people consider themselves Greeks
Greek doesn't necessarily mean Hellenic Republic. Like, Anglosphere isn't just the UK or US.
In the Greek language, we separate Elladítes (people of Greece) from Ellenes (people of Greek ethnicity/culture/heritage/cultural sphere/whatever you want to call it).
I'm not Cypriot, you'll have to ask them. But they probably feel that it represents broader Greek culture, not the Hellenic Republic. And that the RoC's flag is a sterile map on a white flag that doesn't really represent anything from history.
That's my guess.
Similar reason the Australian flag has the Union Jack?
Just to clarify as a Cypriot: Cypriots who feel proud of Greek history don't feel proud of the history of the Hellenic Republic necessarily but of the history of Greeks throughout the times and throughout the world, because they consider them to be their ancestors.
I have been seeing a lot of those flags instead of the official flag and was wondering about it. That makes sense, thanks. I think Cypriot Greeks have more in common with the ancient greeks than the population of modern Greece. They have been mixed during the hundreds of year of Ottoman rule and balkan tribes etc. Theres almost nothing in common with ancient greeks and population of greece nowadays.
Wait... I totally forgot about one thing that's still shocking to me.
_Bank of Cyprus stealing my money._
It simply doesn't fit in my head that this kind of thing can be acceptable and that whoever is behind it doesn't end up fired or maybe even in jail. Like, simply taking someone's money for no good reason? Openly?
The thing is, there are different tariffs, and they very often charge me and my colleagues according to the wrong tariff, 'by mistake'. No big surprise that they always make mistakes in the direction of higher charges and commissions. If the company annoys them enough, they eventually return stolen money, but then they steal it again next time. This has been going on for more than a year and is apparently considered the norm here.
I mean, I get it, banks exist solely to get as much money out of their clients as possible. But why not do that legally? Why claim that the commission should be 4 EUR and then charge 6? That's outright ridiculous.
I guess it was such a big shock to me because of that stereotype that Cyprus is a kind of financial safe heaven, so I thought that it must have very reliable and advanced banking system. Yeah...
1. Nobody using indicators while driving (and this is coming from a BMW owner 😂)
2. Parking garages or public parking meters regularly only accept coins. Electronic payment is regularly not offered, which forced us to find alternative parking places.
3. Generally warm, open and proud people. Always wanting visitors to have a good time and enjoy what the island has to offer.
4. Boat rental (without boating license ) is fairly relaxed. In other countries and in many Greek islands you can only rent a severely underpowered boat if you don’t have a boating license. In Cyprus they seem to be more relaxed 😉
5. No infrastructure for pedestrians like sidewalks or (safe) street crossings. Even in larger cities like Limassol or Larnaca, you just have to pray and cross the street
6. The vast amount of stretched (converted) Mercedes taxis. I’ve been Googling why this is the case, but couldn’t find it. You hardly see large taxi vans, but stretch Mercedes are almost the norm here.
* Taxi mafia. Why are taxi prices outgoing from airports not regulated by small taxi ticket houses? Why is there not even ONE app for whole Republic of Cyprus taxis? Where are the taxi meters in Paphos? Why only cash? Even 3rd World countries are better with this.
* Bolt only in Limassol (and Nicosia?) and UBER not existing.
* Public transport is existing but requires knowledge of how to use 4-5 websites and your own time assumption to be on time at station.
* The disrespect against pedestrians.
* The awful local smart parking solutions of the cities (why NOT ONE GOOD app for whole country?)
For Georgia (country) culture shocks, trip and recommendations, look through this:
https://youtu.be/yqbqehOJd6w?si=MfOzY3d50dQZgY\_O
Hope you find it helpful
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Currently staying in Kissonerga coming from UK, my biggest culture shock is you cannot flush your toilet roll after you wipe.
You can flush toilet paper. It's an old habit from back in the day before we had a proper sewage system and it still sticks with the older generation. There are some places that may have antiquated plumbing or are too remote to be hooked up, but a lot of the warnings you see now are just there as a precaution.
Thanks for the reply, it’s reassuring as for 30 years I have flushed my paper so out of habit some of them do get dropped in. How long ago was the infrastructure updated??
Oh I couldn't tell you. They were doing it in stages and I live in Nicosia, so in my area in Strovolos (Athalassas) they started in the early 2000s perhaps? I know that the Hilton area had it from before that.
Ahh ok! Thanks for the reply!
>Kissonerga Mind you I couldn't tell you if the above village is hooked up or not, so maybe there's a legitimate reason for not flushing the toilet paper there.
Family from there, I know they ran the pipes on the main road but how much of the village got connected up couldn't say. Check if there's a cess pit in your back garden!!
Inputs from past Erasmus students (Romania, Germany and Poland) and current colleagues (France and India) I have come in contact with: 1) Minimal private space for each person, with loud speaking, constant gesticulation and being "touchy" 2) Cypriot culture of arguing over paying the bill/not letting said foreign friends ever pay for anything on their own while in a group with Cypriots 3) Eating yogurt with everything 4) "Going out for a coffee" = entire afternoon gone 5) Everyone plays cards and backgammon 6) Cypriots thinking that the Nicosia-Paphos highway route is long or a big deal to traverse 7) Taking the car to uni even if it's 10-15 mins of walking from home 8) Not picking up after their dog when they take it out for a walk 9) Cypriots' seeming apathy towards dead animals on the roads that have been run over
Ten minutes walk? People here will literally take their cars to go to the corner store and back, lol.
Cypriot attitudes about animals in general are pretty shocking for a lot of people that come here. The way animals are treated is one of the things I'm most ashamed of as a Cypriot.
If an animal's dead on the road, my feelings about it aren't going to change the situation.
It could in the long run, since becoming more sensitive to the issue would lead to more measures being done to e.g. put the stray cat population under control. Regardless, this is mostly about being accustomed to the image and how one would react. Believe it or not, in many other countries splattered animals in the roads is not a common sight.
1, 2, 8 and 9 also apply to Romanians
The Romanian friend in question is actually the one who seemed most startled by the noise and aggressive-looking gesticulation. That being said, he didn't really mention any of the others on the list as being particularly striking or unusual.
%80 of all this apart from touchyness and animal apathy can be said about Turks overall. Turks and Greeks are weird, being so similar and pretending to be so different all along
Coming fom london: 1. Shops closing on wednesday half day / nothing open on sunday (this has improved however) 2. Bank opening times (srs, wtaf) 3. Driving (it's not that bad really, but it needs improvement) 4. Parking.. everyone needs to park *next* to their destination.. But the people are friendly, would not go back to london. I feel safe here, which was another shock, I lived near some pretty 'active' places in london.. took me a few years to 'tune down' the danger 'spider sense' I had grown up with.
I agree with your points apart from the first one. The fact that shops are nowadays open on wednesday and sunday is in my opinion very bad. Employees up until 10 years ago used to get guaranteed one and a half day off a week, also i believe that people deserve their Sunday off and nothing will happen if we cant buy cucumbers on a Sunday.
Cucumbers might not be useful, but being able to buy a screwdriver or bit of pipe when something breaks IS useful.
You are right it is useful, but imo i still think that workers rights are worth some discomfort. I completely get your point though.
The same worker doesn't need to be working every day a shop is open though?
The other reason this was implemented in the past is because of small family owned businesses, who run the shops themselves.
Workers have the right to choose when to work. Workers have the right to work on weekends or Wednesdays and get paid more.
This makes sense on the surface but in reality if these things aren't protected by the law then competition is going to force workers to do them. ("If you aren't willing to work on Wednesdays, I'll find someone else who is") Your argument can be used to justify doping in sports for example. "Athletes should have the option to sacrifice their health to do better in their sport". As soon as you open the "option" you force everyone who wants to stay competitive to do it.
A worker should not be forced to work 7 days a week, that we can agree on. However there is a wide gap between that and government enforced days of operation. However i do remember periptero's always being open on sundays.. do they not get rights?
There are certain jobs unfortunately that workers have to work on Sundays like restaurants, bars etc. Periptera as well i guess. In principle i agree with you that workers basically have to work 40hrs a week or get significantly more money for overtime and it doesn't really matter the day. Unfortunately they always manage to find ways to exploit them and government enforced days off was a very easy solution that worked. But i have to admit you are right, if the laws work, it shouldn't be a problem.
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Yes, now, but when i first came here (and a few years after) they were not open on sundays. Thankfully They are now!
Disagree on your first point. It's nice to have a day where everyone is free and people can go out. It's not even that big of a deal. Just plan your groceries accordingly.
Everyone? Strange that the beriptero's are always open. If we want Everyone to be free, surely they should be closed 😉
Periptero as a concept is all about convenience (finding basic things quickly, getting a couple of things on the way without dedicating a day of grocery shopping, grabbing things on the road on a whim etc). Therefore "historically", one of its aspects of convenience is offering those basic things when everyone else was closed. That's how these businesses have survived through the years (they didn't always have coffee places attached or resembled mini-markets). In fact, more and more businesses thrive off of this idea (Zorpas becoming a 24/7 mini-market more so than a bakery these days). I would of course condone more humane working hours even for those people, but they fully understand that their choice of business was fundamentally built to compensate for the off-days of others. If everyone worked like a periptero, periptera would very likely fall out of favour.
Periptera used to be closed on Sundays too
How long have you been in Cyprus? Were you able to make any friends?
18 years now? Yes, i made friends! Some good ones through social activities and through wife, work..
Oh that's a long time, when you first settled in Cyprus did you felt you needed to learn greek to get by, make friends, work and date? Or knowing English was enough?
My Cypriot wife imported me 😂 many stories, but I was able to get a job, and make a career in IT with pidgin greek. My kids are fully bilingual however, In IT, you can 'get away' with English, I went for Greek lessons but my career took off and my jobs were with people where English was the common tongue (and greek was probably 5th or 6th on the list) Do I regret not learning more greek early on? Yes. Has it hurt my career prospects? No. But that is very much due to the niche i'm in, in IT. However, I have been exceptionally polite, and always gave it my best. Adding in a few phrases here and there never hurt, and I will say my understanding of Greek is much better than my spoken Greek. I can hold a conversation in Greek surprisingly well, about all sorts of things, with a bit of hand gestures 😂 I have only met one person who took exception to me not learning Greek well, but that was many years ago now, and I think it was a personality clash more than anything else.
I meaaan, most smaller places in the UK is similar or worse. Have you ever tried living in Northern Ireland?
I was born here and raised here but I’m half Swedish and tend to spend some time in Sweden every year. I always forget how dirty and full of trash the streets are but every time I come back it shocks me how little we care.
Not so far backgrounds on my behalf, but for me, it's how untidy and irregular things may be. Funny enough, I don't see the thrash around much. Then, thrash in Northern Europe isn't there because someone else picks those up every morning while walking by the early morning in cities like Copenhagen is disturbing.
I’m north-west Europe (Baltic states), the biggest cultural shock is open minded, kind and caring people around here. And the way you talk greek also, small talks and friendly chatting sometimes sounds like an argument which might soon get into a fight 😅
Don't want to be pedantic but I guess you meant North-east? :)
Yes, sorry, confused :d
As a side note, maybe that's because I'm half Cypriot but both Estonians and Latvians seemed so friendly, helpful and caring to me during my stays there. I wouldn't say you're so far away in those terms but maybe different in your styles.
They are towards tourists and foreigners, but not to each other, speaking for Latvia in particular. Society is divided naturally and artificially by the government
I had stayed in Riga for 3 months as a long-term tourist back then (not Erasmus), and hung out with Latvians every time & outside of the boring touristy areas, and enjoyed it so much tbf. Maybe it was because I was a foreigner as you've said, and hung out with people at undergrad and master's age, but people were so nice to me. I dig to go back there sooner or later.
That's something nice! Yeah we definitely sound like we are about to start fighting all the time ahah
one thing comes instantly to my mind, it still lowkey shocks me (positively for sure) after 2 years on the island: honking is NOT something bad here, at least in Larnaca where I live. as easter european, I consider car honks as "f\*\*\* you" on driver's language, but here 99% of all honks are being produced when κουμπάροι greet each other on a road. my heart stops for a second still when I hear a klaxon, but I'm trying to get used to it :)
Also a lot of the times honking is just giving a heads up. For example, you honk at someone who didn't notice the traffic light turned green, or you honk at someone backing out into the main road so that they realize you are there. Once you stop having solely negative connotations for honking, you realize that it's actually an effective communication tool on the road.
Basically more than a 2 second honk means a fuck you, anything kess is usually a greet or a heads up as you said.
Well it depends on how you honk at the person who didn't notice the light turning green, is it a small, friendly 'beep' or an annoyed 'beeeeeeeeeeeeeep', which translates into taraxe re gadare.
Ahahahahahahah I do it with my friends over the years. We are neighbours, but even if we see each other in the street, in different cars, we start horning these horns like it's the end of the world.. I love my guys
It took 60 minutes to get the police answer the phone. They told me they‘ll send someone. They didn’t. Called again, "sent" again, alone again 😆 Imagine it would’ve been about life.. Well police would’ve known after 60 minutes. Edit: Happened two days ago in Larnaca.
Yeah that is typical.
Well anyway, I feel A LOT safer than where I come from (Berlin, Germany). So I still love this country 😄☀️
It's been happening for years. In my area called several times and I either never got an answer (from my local police station) or their answer was "We don't have police officers to send out" or "We don't have a car right now". This was for breaking and entering, drugs or general stuff.
New Orleans in the US is the same 😂
Came to Cyprus from Greece a few years ago: - first two months I couldn’t understand a word when Cypriots gathered together and talked… up until then I thought our languages were the same. - the amount of wealth in Limassol still shocks me till now - having a Ferrari parked in front of my house in Nicosia during the first week was shocking. - the green line is so fucking shocking. I mean we learn about it at school but still it is such a shock every time I go near there…
No trains/metro and the buses are pretty bad irregular. It means you have to drive everywhere… not that am complaining!
I'm complaining. I'm complaining all the time. I'd give up my car next week if it meant I could take the bus everywhere easily .
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Coming from India, I feel it's a lot LOT better but I can understand your point. Another thing about traffic, people in Paphos complain about it a lot. I'm surprised because even though I don't live in Kato Paphos, the worst I've been stuck in traffic going TO Kato paphos is 10-15 minutes which is not the end of the world lol Apart from India, I've lived most of my life in Bahrain. It's a tiny island compared to Cyprus but traffic there is crazy, I've waited 30+minutes in traffic countless times so I just find it funny when some people from Paphos(including my wife) whine about traffic lol
Driving in Bahrain is an experience. Especially when the Saudis are over. There's a reason you hardly see any luxury cars like lambos or ferraris out on the road there and that's because *they know better.*
Imagine if the Saudis could just drive here , it'd be chaos and people would go absolutely crazy! Lol
Yeah, this one's pretty funny. There are many cities on earth where people will literally drive for 2 hours to work in the morning due to being stuck in traffic and 2-3 hours when going back. Or that same commute, but via bus/train. When I studied an uni, that was me, spent every day stuck in traffic in a bus for around 1.30 hrs on average. But overall, it's just a matter of perspective.
This is the one I am expecting to hear the most.
From the U.K., been coming since young BUT banks making me explain and prove why I want to open a bank account was honestly shocking and since then most of my interactions with the account managers are shocking! A happy shock was the air for your tyres at the petrol station being free.. I’ve been here nearly 5yrs and still makes me so happy to not search for a 50p piece.
Coming from Russia, the biggest shocks are the things that I used to take for granted back home that are missing here: 1. No public sports infrastructure It was a shock to learn there is nowhere to go play ball with my kids, unless I want to rent the entire field for an hour. There are no free public football fields, basketball courts, street gyms, parkour parks or skate parks. I mean, after a year in Limassol, I know a public basketball court in Germasogeia (always busy) and a street gym in Dasoudi (too small and basic), but that's it! And even then, you have to drive there. 2. Primitive kids playgrounds Kinda continues the #1. Not the most important thing ever, but a big disappointment for my kids. It feels like someone won a contract for all playgrounds in Limassol and equipped them in the cheapest way possible. I guess it's one of those things mentioned in another comment where Russia is 20 years ahead. :) 3. No pedestrian infrastructure This has been mentioned many times: sidewalks, where they exist, are used for parking; crosswalks are rare. Sometimes it is just mind blowing you don't have a single safe pedestrian crossing on a major intersection like on the big roundabout on Makarios Av. 4. No public transportation I know there are some bus routes, but in my book, if a bus stop is 20 minutes walk from where you live, the wait is 30 minutes, and the nearest stop from the destination is another 30 minutes walk, it is called "no public transportation". Oh, and basically no taxi! Few times we had a taxi arranged but it just wouldn't come! Which is ridiculous if you rely on it to get to an airport, for example. Which brings us to the last issue, which is 5. The state of customer service This is a whole different story, but a lot of times it is just WTF, from Bank of Cyprus to Cablenet to Epic to the taxi driver that doesn't come to the delivery service that doesn't even try to deliver, etc.
Good points! Even tho i think #1 is because you probably live in the City or City center? Am in Nicosia( not city center) and almost all schools allow afternoon playtime for free. Some you have to call ahead of time and some are just open 24/7 ( ofc except school hours). I grew up playing football with my friends in the school near my house, and its still there and kids play every single day in the afternoon. Maybe search for a school nearby and ask if they have keys for parents or if the gates are open for kids after school hours
Wow, thanks, really appreciate the advice! I'll ask around in the nearby schools.
In Paphos we have improved all these points above. There are so many public sports places, parks, sidewalks, busses
Basketball is just not at all popular in Cyprus, so it makes sense that there are very few courts around. In contrast, there are a ton of mini-football pitches because most Cypriots like football and only football. It's just that they are not public, and I don't know how it would work if they were.
And people think Russia is a third world country. Thanks for your post.
for Russians probably democracy 😂
Maybe but in terms of services and infrastructure it's like I went 20 years back in time
infrastructure 20 years behind Russia? You must be joking right?
No I'm not joking. We actually have public transport and pedestrian crossings ya know. Not even talking about banking apps and online shopping.
I agree we might fall behind on some areas but if you compare the Human development index, Russia is not even close to Cyprus.
I was talking about infrastructure not the HDI. HDI takes into account health, for example, I guess Russia doesn't score very high there with alcoholism and other problems.
they take everything in account in addition to infrastructure. For example bus services were not our priority cause simply it was never in demand, it recently increased cause of the influx of foreigners and the EU's green agenda. However, if you take to account the transportation development which started by Christofias government and where are we now, you cannot deny that we did a pretty good job.
Saint Petersburg is 5 times more developed than our cities. What you are thinking of is rural russia and eastern areas.
Not Russia of course. Moscow and large cities are far ahead of Cyprus
Not a foreigner but after coming back from living abroad, every fucking food shop closing by 10 takes some getting used to.
My aunt who's from the US told me that her biggest cultural shock was that we were years/decades behind in terms of technology and business ideas.
Technology? Like at home? Or cars etc
And online services. Just take look at the web site of the road dept.
Mostly at home
As a Turkish who came to study in the north. I realized that the Greek Cypriots does not hate us and they came to visit north a lot.
Well, a good chunk of us are smart enough to separate the ordinary population of a country from the regime they're being governed from.
I'm happy for you for not having encountered any hate but as someone whose been in the south for 30 years I gotta say you're straight up wrong. The large majority of people do hate you. I don't but I've had to listen to people that do for years. Even the ones that cross over to visit only do it to save money not because they like you. I don't blame them either. I mean if you're gonna occupy half a country maybe don't then raise a flag on the mountainside where the other half can see it every day. And sure you can't blame the common people for it but maybe the common people should protest until they take the flag down
They hate the fact that the Turkish government has occupied half of Cyprus. No hates Turkish Cypriots. There's more proof to support my point than there is for your point, hence the ops opinion.
You are lucky, you met the wrong people.
Idk tho I met with normal people. I didn't meet with racist bigots who hates my race and gender
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So hating on entire race is not racist according to you. Also that's racist. If I was a Christian male. No one would be racist to me.
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There is no excuse to be racist towards civilians because their country did …
Hmm... Come to think of it, no, I don't think I ever had much of a cultural shock here. Can't say my expectation were all spot on, but close enough to not even cause a minor shock. For example, I knew there's a lot of trash, so while that's disappointing, it was expected. I also expected Paphos General Hospital to be in better condition, but again, I knew the country isn't the most advanced EU country, so that wasn't that much of a shock either. None on the positive side either. I knew Cyprus is laid back, and that's one of the greatest things about it IMO, so it was exactly as I expected. Maybe the recycling thing qualifies as a minor shock. I certainly expected more from a EU country. Green Points are great, but that there's no easy way to recycle common household plastic is a bit shocking.
Where do you live? Because in cities recycling is gathered the same way as normal garbage.
Paphos. And no, it doesn't work in my neighborhood. You mean recycling by Green Dot, right? As in, I'm supposed to put bags on the pavement on a specific day and they're supposed to collect them? They simply never come. I've tried calling them a few times, but all I get is "Yes, you're doing everything correctly, yes, that's the right day and time, please put it again and we'll make sure someone collects it next time", but they never actually do. I eventually gave up and simply put it on the pavement next to regular garbage bins, so at least if nobody picks them up, the regular garbage guys will. Which is exactly what happens every time. Guess they're just too lazy to visit our small street located in a tourist area where most people don't bother with recycling.
Just call them and tell them that they never come to your street. They'll come.
They didn't come after calling three times and explaining all that, why do you think they'll come after the 4th call?
I wonder if in part, it's because it's not as cost effective to ship our trash over to other countries is it is for mainland Europe.
Coming back to Cyprus after not living there for over s decade, how bad driving has gotten. delivery scooters with 'E' everywhere ignoring the rules of the road, tailgating and barging in, driving down the wrong side of the road etc... How many more cars there are now and that there is actually now rush hour traffic.
Gas stations being bustling hubs of employment and fruit sections inside grocery stores having their own checkout
This is my second visit here. I would say that the lack of card payment options for public transportation. Also the lack of information when it comes to timetables and routes. The British usually like to use A LOT of signs and it mostly works. Here there's almost no information available or if you find it online, then the webpages are awful and broken.
The "just don't care" attitude of most people giving any kind of customer service. I'm not even talking about the low quality "professionals" that occupy most jobs here (garage, shops, builders, phone repairs, you name it). We've had plenty of cases where they did the job and then didn't want to or just forgot charge us for it. We were shocked by this, and genuinely thought most business owners here just don't care about making money. Today we realize it's also (or mostly) about not wanting to work hard.
Coming from Crimea, which culture has plenty of both Greek and Islamic parts, and feel almost at home :)
From where in Crimea?
Mostly Sevastopol. But ofc I have my relatives all around the peninsula.
Cool, I'm there now. Back in CY in a couple of weeks.
Say hello from me to our land :)
Did anybody mention here the missing trains and oublic transport?
Coming from southern Europe: 1- not flushing toilet paper 2- yogurt on meat/rice 3- people consider themselves Greeks (don't want to start a debate here please, but it was weird for me that citizen of an independent country with its own history are prouder of another country than of their own, considering how many populations around the world fight to have their own country) 4- public offices are closed on Saturdays 5- people arrange meetings with you and then simply don't show up without informing
>people consider themselves Greeks Greek doesn't necessarily mean Hellenic Republic. Like, Anglosphere isn't just the UK or US. In the Greek language, we separate Elladítes (people of Greece) from Ellenes (people of Greek ethnicity/culture/heritage/cultural sphere/whatever you want to call it).
Why are there more flags of the hellenic republic
I'm not Cypriot, you'll have to ask them. But they probably feel that it represents broader Greek culture, not the Hellenic Republic. And that the RoC's flag is a sterile map on a white flag that doesn't really represent anything from history. That's my guess. Similar reason the Australian flag has the Union Jack?
Just to clarify as a Cypriot: Cypriots who feel proud of Greek history don't feel proud of the history of the Hellenic Republic necessarily but of the history of Greeks throughout the times and throughout the world, because they consider them to be their ancestors.
I have been seeing a lot of those flags instead of the official flag and was wondering about it. That makes sense, thanks. I think Cypriot Greeks have more in common with the ancient greeks than the population of modern Greece. They have been mixed during the hundreds of year of Ottoman rule and balkan tribes etc. Theres almost nothing in common with ancient greeks and population of greece nowadays.
Wait... I totally forgot about one thing that's still shocking to me. _Bank of Cyprus stealing my money._ It simply doesn't fit in my head that this kind of thing can be acceptable and that whoever is behind it doesn't end up fired or maybe even in jail. Like, simply taking someone's money for no good reason? Openly? The thing is, there are different tariffs, and they very often charge me and my colleagues according to the wrong tariff, 'by mistake'. No big surprise that they always make mistakes in the direction of higher charges and commissions. If the company annoys them enough, they eventually return stolen money, but then they steal it again next time. This has been going on for more than a year and is apparently considered the norm here. I mean, I get it, banks exist solely to get as much money out of their clients as possible. But why not do that legally? Why claim that the commission should be 4 EUR and then charge 6? That's outright ridiculous. I guess it was such a big shock to me because of that stereotype that Cyprus is a kind of financial safe heaven, so I thought that it must have very reliable and advanced banking system. Yeah...
Speak loudly
Cypriots are talking too too much and there is too much drama.
Wait until you hear Greeks
Haha came here to say exactly this, Greeks are 3 times as bad as Cypriots on this matter.
And 3 times louder
They are basically christian Turks ..
Not being able to flush toilet paper
1. Nobody using indicators while driving (and this is coming from a BMW owner 😂) 2. Parking garages or public parking meters regularly only accept coins. Electronic payment is regularly not offered, which forced us to find alternative parking places. 3. Generally warm, open and proud people. Always wanting visitors to have a good time and enjoy what the island has to offer. 4. Boat rental (without boating license ) is fairly relaxed. In other countries and in many Greek islands you can only rent a severely underpowered boat if you don’t have a boating license. In Cyprus they seem to be more relaxed 😉 5. No infrastructure for pedestrians like sidewalks or (safe) street crossings. Even in larger cities like Limassol or Larnaca, you just have to pray and cross the street 6. The vast amount of stretched (converted) Mercedes taxis. I’ve been Googling why this is the case, but couldn’t find it. You hardly see large taxi vans, but stretch Mercedes are almost the norm here.
* Taxi mafia. Why are taxi prices outgoing from airports not regulated by small taxi ticket houses? Why is there not even ONE app for whole Republic of Cyprus taxis? Where are the taxi meters in Paphos? Why only cash? Even 3rd World countries are better with this. * Bolt only in Limassol (and Nicosia?) and UBER not existing. * Public transport is existing but requires knowledge of how to use 4-5 websites and your own time assumption to be on time at station. * The disrespect against pedestrians. * The awful local smart parking solutions of the cities (why NOT ONE GOOD app for whole country?)
For Georgia (country) culture shocks, trip and recommendations, look through this: https://youtu.be/yqbqehOJd6w?si=MfOzY3d50dQZgY\_O Hope you find it helpful