Our Flight(s) to Nicosia, Cypress

You may be wondering why I would bother writing about our flight(s) to Nicosia, well . . . it was an adventure, that's why!

Flying to Nicosia from Salt Lake City, UT (SLC)is an experience never to be forgotten. We boarded American Airlines for our first flight in SLC at 6:00 AM, which took us to Dallas/Fort Worth, TX Airport, we then deplaned and RAN to our next connection there, which was to Miami, FL, we deplaned and RAN to make our connection at British Airways for our flight to London, England. [I have capitalized the word RAN to help you understand we RAN!!]

Things calmed down a bit as we settled in for our 9 hour flight across the Pond (the Atlantic Ocean), eventually landing at London's Heathrow Airport. We were fed a delicious steak dinner and then read or watched the telly (TV) or slept for the next 9 hours. The sound of the jet engines does NOT lull you to sleep - it lets you doze and wake up, doze and wake up. Consequently by the time we landed we were dog-tired, having gotten up the morning before at 2:30 AM to catch our flight out of SLC.

We landed thinking we had an hour and a half before our flight to Nicosia, Cypress, but that was not to be. We RAN to find terminal 3 at Heathrow only to find out we had to take a bus to terminal 3. 27, yes 27 miles later we arrived at terminal 3, again only to find out we had to catch another bus out to the tarmac to board the plane. Fortunately this bus ride was only about 15 minutes. We then were seated and prepared for the 4 1/2 hour flight to Cypress.

We were served a lovely HOT English breakfast consisting of: sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, a roll, juice and water, which was in a sealed plastic container the size of a pudding cup (interesting).

When we arrived in Larnaka, Cypress we deplaned to find a welcoming committee of three other senior missionary couples, Elder and Sister Christiansen (of the Larnaka Branch), Elder and Sister Smith (of the Paphos Branch) and Elder and Sister Niebuhr (whom we are replacing in the Nicosia Branch). They took our luggage for us and rushed us to their van and took us to the car rental office for our mission car where Elder Vargas (Tony) had his name put on the insurance contract so we could drive on Cypress. They couldn't add me on without charging us a daily fee until our insurance contract is up in the Fall, so I declined and will have my name on the new contract in September.

We then drove to the Christiansen's flat where we had refreshments and got to know one another a bit more. Then we got into what would be our car (a Ford Fiesta) with Elder and Sister Niebuhr and drove from Larnaka to Nicosia, which is about a 45 minute drive. They dropped us off at our flat, settled us in and then went to their hotel, which is just across the street from our building.