The first time I saw the island was when we were landing in the middle of the night during the first days of September. The lights and the dark sea made my heart beat so fast as when a new adventure is beginning. Expectations, fears, excitement were the mixed feelings that I had. In my mind I had a statement Steve Jobs said, which I always remember in moments such as this: “Stay hungry, stay foolish” and on that night I had it in mind like a song that is stuck in your brain.
I didn’t know many things and I couldn’t imagine what this island would have given to me, to my personality, to my ways of seeing things around me. I just knew what I was bringing with me. A big luggage in which I had put all my life in so to go live elsewhere for a year. When I arrived it was too dark to see the island.
I didn’t choose Cyprus. I really believe that Cyprus chose me to be part of all of this. To be able to see the colors of the landscape when the sun is going down. The colors of the mountains, the colors of the sky. To feel the wind at night and the few cars in the streets. And yet again see the morning, when the same streets, which were once empty, are now crowded making it impossible to cross. 
In the main streets someone can smell the multicultural dishes, see cats everywhere, hear people chatting at the cafè in front of a typical freddo espresso and people shouting at the market Saturday morning. In addition to all these, some who lives in Cyprus, also had the opportunity to see the mountains – the Turkish flag. The sea. The sun. The green line that divides one side of the island from the other. The past, the present and the hope of a better future with no borders.
The architecture of the city is not the same. One can immediately feel the difference moving from one place to another in the same area. Even when crossing the check point once can feel the change in the atmosphere. The market, the smell of species and the Buju Khan seem to remind you of that different world which is the North. It’s fascinating and sad at the same time. Every place in Nicosia, both sides ask for peace.
The separation between North and South is what makes Cyprus so peculiar so miserable and empty and is when crossing the borders that one realizes what it is hidden behind that. You are not even sure about what you feel about it while you are living that history and you are seeing those places. Also the landscape tells this story of war and untold truths. 
What impresses the most is the ghost city in Famagusta where the beach and the city reveal an oriental beauty that is very difficult to describe. Empty and destroyed buildings, the echo of the voices on the beach and the sound of the birds that enter those old hotels leave everyone speechless. One of the first places that I visited and one of those places that are stuck in my heart.
I remember clearly also the woods of the South, the sound of the wind and the sun hidden behind the trees. The idea and the feeling of freedom and peace that I got from those places in the middle of nature.
The North is wild and harsh. The South is sunny and crazy. Two sides of the moon. Cyprus is definitely the open window to the East.
When I saw this island for the first time it was late. This island chose me. And I chose to leave something behind me and put it in corner for a while. And try to live a new life. New adventures. New dreams. Like Wendy in the novel of Peter Barrie. Giving to myself a new opportunity to discover, to learn and, different from Wendy, to grow. Mixed feelings like a wave in the sea are within and it is hard to control them. This island entered the deepest part of me, places of me that I hadn’t discovered yet. Places that match with the places I visited, with the people I met, with the experiences I lived. This crazy journey in this crazy island. After all, “the journey is the thing” (Homer).