After class we went to Ahmet’s office and talked about the US and the view of Americans worldwide as well as the war and our upcoming elections. When we left a couple of EMU students were waiting for us outside and offered to buy us Turkish coffee (called Cyprus Coffee in the south); served finely ground, boiled without filtration in small espresso sized cups. The leader of the group was our new friend Sharif (pronounced like “sheriff” as it is of course part of a much longer Turkish name).
After a quick group meeting to go over our tuition payment and some info for the night, Houman took a few of us to a bigger market in “Old Town” Famagusta (Kaleici) essentially a gigantic Venetian castle which formerly defined the city limits. Three sides are lined with an expansive dry moat and the fourth is the harbor.
We are lucky enough to be in town for the Famagusta International Art-Culture Festival so Nadia, Jordan and I decided to take in a concert at the Salamis Ruins amphitheatre. Tonight’s feature was the Nino Rota Ensemble [link]; 5 women who play famous movie scores. Not exactly what I have in my iPod, but pretty amazing when sitting in an ancient Roman amphitheatre. They played all the hits including the themes from Titanic, the Bodyguard, and the grand finale (after 3 encores) New York, New York.
On the advice of our professor, we arrived at 8:30pm for the 9pm show. I think there was a total of 7 people fighting for the good seats. We decided that 2nd row center looked good for us, not knowing that an hour or so later the President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would be sitting one row behind us with his entourage. Our interaction with local diplomats wouldn’t end there. When the show ended we walked to the road to find a taxi (taksi) back. When we had no luck, I went to ask if someone from the amphitheatre could call one for us. Four people later, I found an English speaking woman who turned out to be a lecturer at EMU. She turned to the group of people and explained our dilemma and an older gentleman said he could give us a ride back if we could wait a couple of minutes. Having turned down a ride from a less trustworthy younger man, we were relieved to find someone that was endorsed by a professor at our university. As we turned to walk out she pulled me to the side and put my mind further at ease when she said “You should feel honored…He’s the Mayor”.
So it was that we met both the Mayor of Famagusta and the President of the TRNC in one fateful night in an amphitheatre that has stood for thousands of years.
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