The next day was Christmas!

Since Agios Vasilios comes on New Years, Christmas morning there are no presents under the tree - everyone waits another week.

Christmas is a day for Church and to spend with your family having a special Christmas Dinner.

We went to Church in the morning. It was a really big Church, but still, there were a lot of people standing because there weren't enough chairs for everyone. Everyone shares their chairs, letting other people sit when they're tired.

In Cyprus, the Churches have chairs instead of long benches or pews like in America. The chairs are all connected to each other, and they have wooden seats that fold down, so that they aren't in the way when you stand up.

Church was four hours long, but most families with kids my age came when it was part way over, so they were only there about an hour or an hour and a half.

This is the Church we went to:

After Church, we all went out to a nice restaurant for Christmas Dinner. At the restaurant, they had "Christmas Crackers" - these are from the British Culture - it's little wrapped tube, where each person pulls on one end of the tube, and it makes a loud popping sound when it breaks. The person who gets the biggest half wins. There are little toys inside, and a little paper crown. Here I am with Anna and a Christmas Cracker.

The next day, we went to the Troodos Mountains. In most of Cyprus it never snows, but in the mountains, there was snow:

We went to visit a Church of St. Mavra. She lived during the early centuries, and she had to hide from the Romans who were trying to kill Christians like her because they were Christians.

Here is the little tunnel that she hid in  - it is very small. No one knows how far it goes into the side of the mountain. People burn candles outside of it. The things inside are things people leave when they request her prayers. One person left a picture of someone.

The next day, we went to see the dam that Tasos helped to build when he was a graduate student in Engineering.

Here is the water that is being held back by the dam

Here are the Orange trees down below - where there used to be water, but now there's not because the dam stops it.

I thought that this looked like a water slide for giants (of course, it is hard to slide on rough concrete) - but Tasos told me what it is really for. If the water gets too high, and some of it needs to escape, this helps it escape gently, instead of causing a lot of damage down below.

Well, it's time to go. Hope to see you again soon!

Your flat friend, -Stanley