By Moana Hofstätter
My name is Moana Hofstätter, and it’s my second time working abroad in the summer. This summer, I worked in Cyprus, in Ayia Napa, in a beach bar. It’s called Lasmari and is directly on the beach. I worked five days per week for nine hours as a drink runner. Lasmari has one restaurant, one bar, a seating area with bean bags, and many sunbeds on the beach. Every Sunday, there was a Cypriot party, and it was very busy and nice at the same time; everyone was dancing and singing, even the staff. Lasmari has around 29 employees, all of whom are between 19 and 35 years old.
My shift always started at 10:20 a.m. and ended at 7:20 p.m. I had a 15-minute break in the morning and a 30-minute break in the afternoon. We always got a sandwich for breakfast and a normal meal like pasta, chicken, or rice in the afternoon. I really liked the team; everyone was really friendly and funny, and we always enjoyed working together. It was a really international team; we had two French people, two Argentinians, one Hungarian man, two Greek guys, one Italian girl, and some Cypriots as well.
It was really interesting to meet people from so many different cultures, and I had the opportunity to learn a lot from each of them. Most of the team members lived in a container right behind the beach bar, so everyone was really close to each other. My friends from Austria and I lived in an apartment in the center of Ayia Napa. We took the bus every day to work; it only took us 12 minutes.
Cyprus, in general, is a very beautiful country with many English-speaking people, so it is actually a very good place to improve your English. Its culture and history is a very interesting. Geographically it consists of two parts: a Greek and a Turkish one with a border. I was living on the Greek side of Cyprus, and one could see that the people still have a big conflict with the Turkish side because of the war in the past.
On my days off I always went to a nice beach or explored the city or tried traditional food. The nightlife in Ayia Napa is also very nice. I would recommend this place to work, especially because of the people and the fact that the bar is right next to the beach; we always went for a swim after work. The only bad part is the heat; it really takes some time to get used to it.
