Dancing at King Aphrodites in Paphos

My folks and I decided to make an evening of it and have dinner at a restaurant that offered 'music and dancing' too. We picked one of the good ol' faithfuls, King Aphrodites, on Tomb of the Kings Road.

Living in Doha, in the Middle East, my parents are starved of pork and so, unanimously, we opted for the set dinner - pita bread and dips, Greek salad, suckling pig, and fruit (like the fruit was even going to get a look in!). Dinner was absolutely gorgeous and we scoffed way more than our tummies needed, leaving us feeling positively ill. "Never fear", we thought, as we could just sit back and watch the music and Greek/Cypriot dancing. Oh how wrong I was.

The 2 Cypriot men did a couple of traditional dances, culminating with one of them balancing about 6 glasses on his head then putting some flaming paper in the top glass. Very impressive. I was just wondering what their next trick would be when they started wandering around the restaurant. They were asking various women to come to the stage area with them. Everyone turned them down, so the men kept looking.

Unfortunately, by the time they got to me, there wasn't much choice left. My mum kindly declined the offer, leaving me, ever protesting, being dragged to the front of the restaurant. Sheer terror and adrenaline kept me going while I had to dance with these trained dancers whilst...wait for it...I balanced glasses of water on my head!

I kid you not!

As the glassess contained water I rapidly became a master balancer, but this had its down side too. If I managed to keep the glasses balanced, they added another one! All the while I had to keep dancing with one of them, then they brought up a poor guy from the restaurant. He was put through the same ordeal - but couldn't balance more than 3 glasses...or so he claimed. Once they all came crashing down he was sent back to his chair.

Ahhhaaa - well a bit of a drenching seemed worth it, just to end the humiliation. Before I could complete my master plan another glass was put on my head, proving to much for me - the glasses toppled to the floor and to my relief I was sent back to my table.

My parents obviously thought this was hilarious. My mum was soon punished for laughing at me, and was dragged out of her chair by the train that was sweeping the restaurant. Unfortunately, so was I. It was all very calm and this was nothing compared to my solo run - at least others were suffering too!

An elderly (80 in the shade!) Greek gentleman decided that this was all way too tame for him, so whipped me out of the train and proceded to whisk me round the stage in some kind of traditional dance whirlwind.

Bloody hell! He was like a dervish in grandad's clothing. By the end of our little dance I could barely breath while he, spritely as ever, was eager for the next dance. Luckily our 2 dancing hosts, thanked us all and sent us back to our seats.

My mum and I were absolutely finished and decided we'd had enough dancing for one night - we certainly hadn't missed our calling in life. We gathered our things and headed towards the door to leave, but not before half the restaurant offered us congratulations on our entertainment etc. 'Cause we really needed that!

And for future reference, if you are in any danger of dancing after dinner, don't eat half a pig, pita bread and dips, Greek salad, and fruit!