Life in Cyprus

There are a lot of things going on in Cyprus nowadays that not only worry me but also make me very sad. One should be proud of their country but the more I see, the more I find myself skeptical about that. Following are some of the things going on that bother me:

1. Robbing the body of ex-President Tassos Papadopoulos from its grave
How could I not start from that? Macabre. I am not going to get into the discussion of who might have done such a thing and which are the reasons? I am going to talk however about the consequences of this. During a vital point in the discussions for the solution in the Cyprus Problem, this event has somehow brought a political unrest with some politicians taking the opportunity to link the stealing of the body with the political views of the ex-President. There is also unrest among the public with people from different political sides blaming each other. I am not taking this any further. I do have my own views about what possibly happened but I am keeping them to myself.

2. The public sector in Cyprus
It would be unfair to include all public sector services in this category but at least the ones that I had the bad luck to be involved with, I have had a really bad experience. I could start from the non-smiley faces, the very slow service, the rudeness, the people who do not want to work, the tardiness and I could go on forever. The last of this however that has really bothered me is the moving of the Migration department from one location to the other. In any European country (excluding Greece probably) this would have been a smooth transition. In Cyprus, they decided to close down for 1 month!! Any private organization would have gone bankrupt if they had stopped operations for 1 month. The Migration department who is 6 months behind in taking care of all the applications, has no problem.

3. Parking in Cyprus
I am going to steal a phrase of a friend to start this one. “We have a lot of disabled people in Cyprus lately”.
You guessed wrong, we do not have a lot of people with disabilities in Cyprus. We have a lot of assholes in Cyprus that think it is a good idea to parking in spots who are designated for people with disabilities. For the people who do that, I wish that one day you will be able to feel first-hand how these people feel, when they try to park and their designated spot is occupied by an insensitive person like you.
Let’s go to the regular parking. The streets in Cyprus with two lanes are obviously used for parking in the left lane and driving on the right. And if you are unlucky enough to be behind a person who wants to turn right, and there is a parked car on the left, hey who cares? Ohh, and the other thing, some drivers think that it is OK to park anywhere once they turn on their parking light. And for those who park on the sidewalks/ pavements these are for the pedestrians you assholes.
How hard is it in 21st century Cyprus to have 10 policemen each day giving tickets to these people. And give them commission for it. If they only get 1% of the ticket they will be rich in no time. And maybe the public will get more money, and maybe the people will learn to park in the parking spaces!

4. Prices
Many things are outrageously expensive in Cyprus. Prices are comparable to London and Tokyo. Starting from real estate, to apartments, to consumer goods, to services. It makes you think twice and three times before buying something. Nevertheless this is the only one point for which I am optimistic. The economic crisis, the increasing competition will probably lead to a price war which will benefit the giants and the consumers. Hopefully this will happen without the deterioration of quality but that remains to be seen.