Pafos #2

When I first moved to Cambridge in 2008, two events made an impression.

First was a welcome from a colleague at IFM (the department at the University where I was based). He said “welcome to Cambridge. There are only 3 types of people here. Tourists, students and people who act like they own the damn place.”

In Pafos, i feel it’s the same. There are only 3 types of people here. Tourists, New locals, and true locals. New locals are those like me who moved here for various reasons. True locals have been here for a few generations.

Why am I interested? Because I’m cheap. I want to pay prices paid by true locals. Whether it’s goods or services. So, being the socio-market-economist that I am, I go hunting for signals on which supermarket I should frequent. Since most tourists are self catering ones, they need to buy certain goods that locals would also buy. It can’t be toilet paper because most self catering places do have toilet paper. It must be something that really separate the markets. Something that depletes really quickly that both tourists and locals would buy. I’m starting with washing detergent. I’ll let you know how I get on.

What’s the second event? Well, in Cambridge, I rocked up to the local pub and when the barkeep asked me where I was from I said Devon (where I spent 5 years). If you know how I look (definitely not white, West Country), I was given “that look” which I spared him more questions and said “originally Malaysian” (I like to think I am being kind ;p).

In Pafos, rocking up to a taverna gets me the same look when I say I’m from England. ;)