Late on that fateful November 9th 1989  I remember sitting together with my school buddies pondering to race on the famous Transitstrecke to West Berlin to witness the opening of the Berlin Wall at first hand. I still fondly regret that at the end we did not go and that I thus never set foot on divided Berlin.  So, when I visited two of my closest friends in divided Cyprus in 2004 the beautiful birthplace of Aphrodite felt a bit like a trip back into divided Berlin, albeit with a relaxed Mediterranean touch. It was still a peculiar feeling crossing the UN Green Zone in Nicosia into the so-called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”. This part of Cyprus felt still stuck in a time warp. Until sunset we sat at Kyrenia harbor on the northern coast with the Venetian castle towering above, watching fishing and sailing vessels going in and out, enjoying the breeze, imagining that this harbor had witnessed the passage of numerous civilizations, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottomans, British of course. Delicious hummus and dates were sold in Kyrenia’s Grand Bazaar while in the independent southern part of Cyprus, the government started to sell Schengen passports to Russian Oligarchs.