Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days

The middle of the week passed at an understandably slower pace as we slowly geared up for another weekend excursion (this time to Agia Napa by way of Larnaka).

Tuesday morning, Emma and Kim needed to pick up some souvenirs from the Old City, so I tagged along for the adventure.

 You know the morning is going to start of great when you find a Starbucks unexpectedly, shortly after getting to the Old City!  This time, rather than go through the hassle of trying to explain my iced starbucks doubleshot, I simply asked for a venti iced Americano with skim milk instead of water and sweetener. Yum!

Emma was craving a chicken biscuit from McDonald's and there happened to be one right next door to Starbucks, so she ran in.  Can you believe that McDonald's restaurants here don't sell breakfast??  They are open in the mornings t so serve coffee, but that is all.  I'm in shock.

From there, the three musketeers decided to bravely and boldly cross the Green Line on our own, vowing that we would only stay in the tourist part of Turkish-occupied Nicosia.  So, without giving ourselves a moment to talk ourselves out of it, we crossed over.  

We encountered a man working at a clothing store who spoke decent English, so I asked him where we might find the souvenirs Emma and Kim were looking for.  He proceeded to tell us about a guy who lives outside of the city who might have what we were there for and that it would only be a short taxi ride.  

Um..... this did not seem like a good idea at all to the three of us.

So we stuck with the area we'd already visited with Dr. Legg.  Fortunately, Kim and Emma found the perfect souvenirs that they had been looking for and we headed back to the part of the Old City we were comfortable in.  Since we didn't have any specific plans at this point, we took our time to enjoy wandering through various shops.

When we finally got back to Engomi (the area we are staying in), it was an afternoon of editing footage from the confectionery and not much else.  

Wednesday morning, the group woke up bright and early to attend a tour of Dias Media, which is a multimedia company here in Cyprus and, if I recall correctly, the largest.  I mean, they really cover every type of media you can think of.

We visited the sets where they film television news shows and talk shows, the radio area where live broadcasts are made, the print journalism area (which doesn't specifically handle magazine writing.  The magazine writing takes place in a separate building, but Dias Media has several magazine publications), and the offices where web journalism takes place.

I suppose Dias Media could be viewed as having a monopoly, to an extent, on the media in Cyprus since they cover all aspects.  But on some levels, I think it would be really nice to work in a place like this.  It really made me think of Scripps Networks in Knoxville, actually.

Participating in the WICT/Atlanta - UT Mentorship program this past year enabled me to get more familiar with the operation of Scripps Networks, particularly because my mentor works there.  While Scripps is far more focused in the content they create and send out, they too cover all the aspects of media that Dias Media does.  

In case you don't know, Scripps owns Food Network, HGTV, DIY, etc.  For each individual network, there are magazines, websites, and television series that have to be produced regularly.  While some elements may not be considered as journalistic as others, I think that having journalistic skills would only serve to help if one were to get a job in a company like Scripps.  

I just felt very grateful that I had seized the opportunity to participate in the WICT mentorship program because it made me see Dias Media in a far different (and somewhat more familiar) light than I would have viewed it if I had not been familiar with such an operational system prior.

Wednesday afternoon and evening was again spent editing so that my team could present the confectioner's segment of our documentary at our group dinner Thursday night.