Days 178 to 180: Three Days in Nicosia

November 02, 2025

Days 178 to 180: Three Days in Nicosia

This post is a day late since I didn’t have time to write a post yesterday.

I spent three days in Nicosia and stayed with a Couchsurfing host named Fraser. Fraser is from Canada and works as a teacher here. He’s also a masters student studying cancer biology. I had a great time hanging out with him and met several other Couchsurfers.

On the day of my arrival, I didn’t do much except walking to Fraser’s apartment on the west side of the city and waited for him to come home.

The next day, I explored most of Nicosia. I went to The Cyprus Museum, Eleftheria Square, Shacolas Tower, Apostle Barnabas Cathedral, and Famagusta Gate on the Greek side. Since Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world right now, I had to show my passport to get across the Green Line, aka the border. I didn’t feel too much different on the Turkish side and visited Büyük Han, which is a market inside a courtyard. Then I went to Selimiye Camii, a mosque in a Catholic cathedral. Lastly, I saw the National Struggle Museum. I didn’t learn anything there because the signs were in Turkish only, but there were a lot of statues of important people involved in the struggle, I’m guessing.

In the mid-afternoon, I met Fraser and his Couchsurfing friend Dale. Dale is from Australia and dislike it there. She’s been traveling for four years now. Her favorite countries are Greece and Cyprus and she’s staying in Cyprus for three months.

That same night, I met Fraser’s roommate Pat and Pandelis. Pandelis is an economics professor so I had a interesting conversation with him about the fundamental assumptions of economics since I think economics assumes too much about people and therefore the field itself is flawed. He enlightened me by saying that economists had to assume some kind of average to determine public policies, which makes sense.

Fraser, Pandelis, Pat, and I then went to a meetup at a bar. I met a woman who told me about the history of Cyprus. Since Cyprus is geographically located in a prime location, between Africa, Asia, and Europe, many countries had influenced Cyprus, including the Turks, the Italians, the Greek, and the British. In recent history, Turkey sold Cyprus to Britain. Shortly after gaining independence from them, Cyprus was asked by the United States to set up a military base. When the Cyprus government refused, the US brokered a deal with Turkey and Britain saying that if Turkey invades Cyprus then Britain can have two military bases in Cyprus and US can have one base. And that’s how Turkey controls half of the Cyprus island and there are British and US military bases here. I’m sure there’s much more information about Cyprus on Wikipedia, but I’m not so much of a history buff.

The next day, I met up with Dale in the morning and we took a walk into the city center. We were chatting at a coffee shop called Coffee Therapy when another Couchsurfer named Belen texted me. I ended up meeting her at the Leventis Municipal Museum. Belen is a teacher from Spain and is taking a vacation in Cyprus. After seeing the museum, Belen and I caught up with Dale and later met Fraser. Since Dale didn’t bring her passport, only Belen, Fraser, and I went to the north side. We saw the market courtyard and the mosque then hung out at a casual restaurant called Hoi Polloi with Fraser’s friend Yaap and his other friends.

Around 7 PM, the three of us came back to the Greek side. Belen and I grabbed some kebab wraps for dinner while Fraser attended a BBQ. I felt tired so I walked back to Fraser’s apartment. Belen and Fraser didn’t come back home until 1:15 AM.

The next morning, Belen and I walked to the bus station. We parted ways since Belen was going to Larnaca and I was headed for Limassol. I had a great time in Nicosia and met so many interesting people. I hope to meet some of them again soon. I might meet Belen again if she’s going to Paphos and I might meet Dale again since she will be going to Amman, Jordan, shortly after I arrive there in a week or so. We’ll have to see.