So this week has been a bit different.  Thursday started off fine until the atm swallowed my debit card.  This led to a 4 1/2 journey with Abu and Ash into Famagusta (not all just walking, we also ate lunch, stopped at Abu's apartment (twice), looked at the birds in a pet shop, and got ice cream) to the bank to be told the atms in Famagusta are handled by the branch in a different city and that I would have to come back next week to get it.  This led to me missing my economics class (and a quiz).  That night had dinner at a different cafe that I accidentally stumbled upon.

Friday I was invited by the Egyptian President (my roommate Ash) and the Nigerian President to the African Students Award Ceremony.  This was an interesting event and I met several new people including two Zimbabweans who spoke perfect English and one of which had given the opening inspirational speech which was quite impressive.  Later that night I also saw my professor for my economics class who asked why I had missed class and then informed me that it most likely would not matter and that he would probably be throwing out the quiz due to a large number of students caught cheating.

Saturday I was invited by Firdavs to join in on a picnic.  So I got to wake up at 7 am (quite sure a first or maybe second on this island) to meet up with him and take a bus out into the countryside to a place called Konuk.  It was an area with a bunch of picnic tables and little chimney like structures at each for cooking and I spent the day relaxing and chatting with Firdavs and his friends.  At one point I managed to almost get the majority of the Turks to cry by acting like I did not know what the football jersey (for their favorite Turkish team) and calling it pajamas.  Sadly, I forgot my camera.

So midterms went well.  I was the second highest in my Physics class with 22/25 and the average was 11 (our class had the highest average).  Economics my teacher told me I could have done better - I got a 100.  Psychology was a 32/35.

The school has had a football tournament going on for a couple weeks now where each country could have a team.  Today was the semi-finals: Nigeria vs Azerbaijan and Cyprus vs Iran.  Nigeria and Iran came out victors (I had hoped for Cyprus after their last couple matches I watched) but Nigeria is my favorite seeing as my friend is the goal keeper.

And I am starting to know to many people on this campus.  What was a 15 minute walk when I arrived has become a 30-45 minute walk due to stopping and talking.  My friends on Facebook are slowly growing as people manage to find me or force me to add them (sorry if random Arabic posts pop up).

I also recently broke down and bought this chocolate like spread that people like putting on their bread here.  I must say, that even as odd as it seemed at first, its delicious.

Monday was a holiday (not sure why, not really complaining) so naturally I decided to not sleep and walked to the beach at 5 am instead to watch the sun rise.  Sadly clouds blocked the bottom but only for a bit and then I got to watch the rest.  I then ventured out into the water a bit (surprisingly warm unlike American beaches) only to find that after it got waste deep it started rising again.  Oh ya, and the pool at the beach club has been filled so hopefully will be putting that to use also soon.

My "two-week spring break" is going well, I am done with two midterms and only have psychology left which should not be very difficult.  As requested (by Uncle John) I have included several pictures of the closest part of the city as well as a few more food.  Ash and I walked to the restaurant that I order doners from because he claimed they were much better eaten fresh, and they were.

Palm trees are everywhere on campus.

This is the city right outside of campus (to the right of this picture)

Part way into the city (not even close to main part though).  One of the smaller grocery stores is on the left

This is Ash my roommate and the back of the main road (the buildings you see in the second photo). We took the back roads back to investigate a lake we had not noticed before.

New filling for the croissant like things

Doner - plate style.  The plate consisted of salad, fries, rice, meat, chicken, yogurt, and the special bread (not sure what kind) with another special type of bread in a basket on the side. Delicious!

This is how the meat and chicken are prepared.  The meat is then sliced thinly to be served (as seen above) by the man with the butter knife (who is camera shy and quit working when he realized his picture was being taken)

Our toothless delivery man also showed up halfway through our meal and recognized me (prolly not a good sign).