The new big bold European Union is one of expanded frontiers - from the northern tip of Finland to Malta, and from Portugal's Atlantic shore to Maria Emmanuel's back fence.
From her first floor window in Nicosia the mother-of-two can look across the river Pedios to a row of oil drums and bunkers on the other side of the UN-patrolled buffer zone known as the Green Line.
This is the current de facto border of the EU, after a UN plan to end the division of Cyprus in time for the expansion of the bloc on May 1 collapsed, rejected by 75 percent of Greek Cypriots who said it was unfair and failed to protect them against a new Turkish invasion.
Greek Cypriots ditched the plan in an April 24 referendum in the hope of something better once they entered the EU.
Instead, they risk Turkish troops who invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in 1974 remaining there indefinitely.
The Turkish Cypriots on the other side of the line backed the unity plan by two to one, and though this did not win them admission to the EU, they are now looking to reap the consolation prizes, perhaps even as far as international recognition of their statelet that is so far only accorded by Ankara.
The Republic of Cyprus government, whose Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos was heavily criticised in Europe and the United States over his call for a "no" vote in the referendum, is alarmed at the prospect.
Brussels has already obliged it to accept goods made in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) for export through Greek Cypriot ports and the free movement of EU passport holders across the Green Line.
Washington and London are believed to favour allowing freight and passengers to enter and leave the north directly through its own ports and airports.
The result could eventually be a so-called "Taiwan solution", whereby the breakaway TRNC is given everything short of full diplomatic recognition.
Greek Cypriot government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides this week stormed that such a prospect was against international law.
"Direct flights and exports from occupied Cyprus are not measures that would contribute to the reunification of the country and it is not an issue that depends on anyone other than the Republic of Cyprus," he said.
"It is our sovereign right to determine the legal ports of entry for persons, capital and goods."
The Papadopoulos government has threatened to levy fines on EU citizens who try to cross the Green Line after arriving in the TRNC, or who settled in the north since 1974.
But the European Commission representative in Nicosia, Adriaan van der Meer, has warned that Brussels would "not welcome" such actions.
Regional policy analyst Tim Potier predicts a series of small steps, none in itself sufficient to cause a major crisis, until finally the Greek Cypriots are confronted with a fait accompli.
"I think it might take place over quite a few months or even longer," he told AFP. "It would happen inch by inch, almost imperceptibly."
The expansion of business with other countries through the north's Ercan airport, which at present only handles flights from Turkey, could start with charter flights, opening the way to more sensitive regular scheduled services later.
Shipping lines would come later still, Potier said.
With each development the Greek Cypriot government would "put a brave face on it," he added, though much depended on how far foreign capitals were prepared to go in ending the north's semi-seclusion, notably by encouraging expansion of the tourist trade.
This prospect also alarms the Greek Cypriots, who see the north as a rival to their own tourist industry rather than a means to attract more people who want to visit the island as a whole.
Under pressure from foreign clients, Greek Cypriot tour operators are beginning to organise excursions to the north.
Such developments are welcome to Maria, a 43-year-old Maronite Christian who lived in a mixed village in the north before 1974. She voted in favour of the plan for a new federal set-up, and rages at those who voted it down.
"Joining the EU should have been an occasion for festivities and happiness," she says. "But my friends say they find themselves crying for no reason."
Since the Turkish Cypriots opened crossing points between the two sides in April last year, Maria and her Greek Cypriot husband Yiannis frequently visit the TRNC, though her former home is in the middle of a Turkish army camp and inaccessible.
"Borders are in the mind," she says.
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