Meet 28-year-old Master’s of Business Administration finance major and Cypriot Yiannis Toumazis. Yiannis is a member of the British National Beach Tennis Team and has lived in California for 11 months collectively, after hopping back and forth from London. The beach, easy-breezy lifestyle and friendly Americans have rooted him in SoCal for the past three months. The Daily 49er sat down with him to talk about his nomadic life settling at The Beach.
Where are you from?
Limassol. Cyprus is very small, so there’s like five main cities. I live on the coast. I’ve lived [in Long Beach] for about two months but I used to live in Santa Monica because I used to work in Beverly Hills for about six months. I did my degree in reading, moved to London, worked there for three years as a manager for construction, then worked here for that company, went back to London to work in financial services, worked there for seven months, then came back here.
What do you miss about Cyprus?
I visited three months ago. I miss the food. The food is so tasty over there. There’s so many things like, the Greek restaurants here are not that. It’s the material, the ingredients, the way it’s cooked; it’s everything. I like doing barbeques. We have a special dish like kabaab with big chunks of meat and cooked on a rotating thing and it’s just amazing. In Cyprus on the weekends you might go away with your family, sit in the forest and just cook and sit around. It’s nice.
What do you like about California?
I like the fact that the weather is very similar to back home. Makes me feel like I’m back home even though I’m thousands of miles away. The people are very friendly. The proximity to the beach is amazing; you can go anytime of the day. The whole culture is very chilled and relaxed here, which is very different from London, which is very hectic and the public transport is crazy, [people are] depressed, all that.
What made you choose CSULB?
One of the reasons I chose Cal State Long Beach is that I’m an athlete, I play beach tennis [on the British National Team], so for me being in London was actually hard to train. I wanted to move somewhere where I could actually go to the beach and train. Living here before and having a friend [who lived here] and visiting all of the time, I actually knew what Cal State was like. I liked it and I thought it was a good opportunity because I wanted to do my MBA, so I thought why not do it at Cal State Long Beach? [The school] gives you good value for your money, I’m close to the beach where I can train and I have friends here who I made from when I used to live here.
How is school going?
Right now it’s quite hectic, but I’m learning so much new stuff that it’s quite intriguing and interesting. You learn so much that you can apply in real life. It’s scary. There are some simple things that you didn’t know them all along.
What are the main differences between Cyprus and American culture?
Here you’re more open minded. In Cyprus it’s a small community. Everyone is very conscience of their actions, whereas here everyone is free to do what they want you know? No one really knows you exactly. You can be yourself more, whereas in Cyprus you need to be really careful. We’re very traditional thinking back in Cyprus, so everyone’s learned a specific way of doing things and that’s how they keep doing it. Whereas here you can sort of experiment and learn knew things. It’s more free. There’s no mold. I prefer it here because it’s much more free spirited. You have more freedom to try new things and be yourself. I actually got my tattoo here; it’s a Latin phrase that means “always towards better things.”