Malta Time!

Jenny and I ventured off to a tiny 19x9 mile island country between Italy and Tunisia for a few days, and it was bright and sunny and warm and lovely!

When we arrived at the airport Monday night Frankie's son Matthew was super nice and picked us up to drive us to our hotel. It was really nice to catch up with him! And then he stopped by a Maltese pastry shop on the way and picked up a ton of delicious typical Maltese things like these cheese-cakes that are pastries filled with ricotta cheese, ones filed with peas, pizzas, and all kinds of yummy stuff. Then before dropping us off at the hotel, he drove us over to his sister Jessica's house where Frankie was staying. It was so nice to finally meet Jessica and Alec, her baby who is the cutest kid on EARTH. So we mad a fun time visiting with everyone before Frankie drove us to our hotel and once we settled in we walked around the area, went into a very bizarre club/bar place, and then left and wandered around some fancy hotels on the seafront.


The next morning we headed over to Valletta, the capital of Malta. Taking the bus was really fun because the busses are super old fashioned and are bright yellow and orange and covered with religious imagery inside like huge pictures of Jesus and all these religious saying and then there will be like weird airbrushed mall like typography... it's pretty sweet! Anyway once we got to Valletta we had no idea what we were doing so we just wandered around in the astonishingly hot sun (I'm talking middle of summer in Chicago it's so hot let's go swimming heat). Stray cats everywhere, beautiful old colorful houses everywhere you look, and no matter where you walked you would look down a side street and see the ocean. Incredible! We went in St. Paul Shipwreck church and saw some craaaaaazy relics, and then we also went in St. John's Cathedeal and it was gorgeous inside. There was also a museum with cool illuminated manuscripts and an enormous Caravaggio painting. After that we explored more and more, ate some yummy food, and then as we were looking at the sea some old man started talking to us and struck up a conversation about how he lived in Buckingham Palace for 7 years and stuff.... anyway, he told us we should go see "The Malta Experience" so we did, it was a little movie about the history of Malta and it was actually really cool to see just beacuse the history of the island is sooooo old and intense and crazy! I had no idea!



The next day Me, Jenny, Frankie, Jessica, and Alec went on a day-long ship ride around Malta, that stopped on Comino (Malta is made of 3 islands: Malta, Gozo, and Comino). It was nice and relaxing in the morning, nice to see all around the island and hear about certain villages from Frankie and Jessica. Once we got to Comino..... I was in heaven. I've always wanted to go somewhere with perfect clear water, AND I GOT IT! It was just unbelievably gorgeous.... I think it's the 2nd most beautiful sight I've seen behind the starry sky in Ireland which is pretty much unbeatable. Jenny and I went on a little mini tour thing on this funny boat where they took us in these little caves around the island which was nice. Once that quick thing was over we went straight to the sandy beach part where everyone was splashing and swimming and enjoying the sun and the water. It was just perfecttttttttttttttttttttt I could have spent ages and ages just sitting there, I wish I had my swimsuit but alas I only got to wade in with my pants rolled up hahaha. Bt it was still so worth it. After Comino we headed back to the boat, finished the tour and got back into Sliema harbor where Jenny and I walked back to our hotel and had some gelato on the way. It's a really nice walk along the sea! About 2 hours later Jessica picked us up and brought us back to her house where Matthew had cooked us all an absolutely incredible traditional Maltese fish dinner! Jessica's husband Manuel was there and it was nice to meet him too! We had pasta with clams and shrimp, and then a fish dish with tomatoes and potatoes, and usually I am not a big fish eater but it was just SO TASTY! Thank you Matthew! We spent the rest of the night visiting and talking about cameras and watching the scores come in for the Chelsea-Liverpool match (....let's not get into that...... Liverpool had better come back with a vengance on Wednesday!) and playing with Alec and relaxing. It was such a wonderful day, I am so lucky to have such amazing family friends!


The next day Jenny and I went to Gozo. It was quite a journey getting there but it was really fun! When we finally got there we had to take more transportation and eventually we got to this little craft-village with tiny little stores of lace makers and pottery and stuff. It was fun! After that we just walked all the way back from that town to the main city, Victoria. It was a long walk but the scenery was just so gorgeous that it was no trouble at all! We had lunch in this cool place that overlooked a man square. After a long day we headed back to the hotel to rest and then later that night said goodbye to Frankie.

On our last day we went to the ancient town in the middle of the island called Mdina. It was soooo cool! The whole city is designed that so every street/corridor/road is only as long as an arrow's flight! It was absolutely gorgeous and completely unique from anywhere else I've ever been. And since it was Good Friday all the churches had crazy exhibits going on because Malta is ridiculously religious. They were really cool to see! We walked around the city looking at stray cats and old doors and people watching for a nice long tim before taking the really long bus followed by bus ride back to Paceville where we walked around and had smoothies and sat at the beach before going to the airport and saying goodbye to the amazing island of Malta! More pictures here.

I'm off to Munich in a quarter of an hour.... all on my own! Terrified? Yes. Excited? Yes! Wish me luck!