Malta part ONE!

Wow, I can't beleive its been so long since I've blogged. To be honest I kinda missed it. I didnt even do my Malta trip or my return home, or my birthday or my adventures at the cottage and in Waterloo. So much to catch up on. So I think I will start with my Malta trip which occured about two weeks after my Berlin trip. In between I would say I mostly did school work and movie nights. One day we even got to go outside and just lay in the sun. Unfortunately we were chased away by the bugs. Nasty critters they are. Anywho the group on the Malta mission were me (obviously), Kari, Katie, Cameron, Amanda, Heather, Amy and Kurtis.

Hee, silly me just went to check the properties on my photos to see when they were taken so I could remember what times we did things and it said we were in the airport at 6am! When I know we arrived in Malta at night. It took me a good few minutes to realise that my camera's time was forwarded to England time so it is what time it was in Canada when we left! Crazy. So add 5 hours and we were in the airport around 11am? That still doesnt feel right but lets just go with it. So we took a taxi to the airport directly from the castle since it ended up costing less anyway. We went to one of the smaller airports of which I cannot remember the name of now. I dont think we had to wait that long. Long enough for me to go crazy with the picture taking. I remember actually that the sign that tells you what gate to go to wasnt announcing ours and it got up to about 10 minutes before the flight was to take off. Needless to say we were kinda worried but obviously it did come up and we even got pretty nice seats. Ryan Air planes are smaller than the ones you take over seas, only three in a row with two rows and one aisle. I think I napped most of the way to Malta. I don't remember how long it took but I do know that we got there when it was dark out.

When we did finally get through customs and checkout we were expecting a taxi from the hotel to be there to bring us to the hotel. Unfortunately he wasnt there. We had to give them a call and it sounded like the man didnt know we needed a taxi, but then the driver turned up anyway and it was all a bit chaotic for a half hour. Now this taxis was I think the biggest adventure (at least for me) of the whole trip. First of all there were no seat belts. second of all I was sitting in the extra seat at the back, I was next to two of my friends but in the aisle (which happend to be on the side instead of in the middle of the van). The chair was metal and moved with every bump turn. I don't know if it was the design of the van or if the chair was loose, but I was sure that I was going to fly forward two rwos ahead and smash into the driver should he stop suddenly and I not have anough grip on the seat. Of course I was a little scared so my defence mechanism kicked in and I started to laugh and giggle hystarically. My friends kept giving me weird looks like "what are you doing, what is the matter?" It didnt help that most of the roads are twisty and very hilly, so lots of bumps and swoops and turns. It also didnt help that the driver seemed to be a little over eager to get back to the hotel if you know what I mean.

We did make it to the hotel safe and sound, but I booted it out of that vehicle. We checked in and a guide had to take us to our room because it was down a few blocks and up another street in a different building. At first we were a little sketched out, until we saw our room! It was amazing. The boys got a different room in a different building that was only for two people. The girls all decided to share a suite since it was cheaper than some hostels. We were up three or four floors so we weren't sure what we would find. We walked into a full kitchen, not huge but big enough to have a round dining table in the middle of it and a full fridge and stove. To the left was the bathroom and a balcony. Go through a little hall and there was one bedroom off the the left with two beds. Straight ahead was the living room with a fouton, a cot and a good sized tv. To the right of that was another bedroom with another balcony. I stole this room with the bed closest to the balcony because the view was absolutely splendid. Up one way was old buildings and such and the other way was the port with boats and beautiful lights and it basically just made me really happy. We stayed pretty calm until the guide left and then we all burst into girly fits of screaming and jumping around. Once the guys came over and found where we were we all went out in search of a store for food and of course booze.

We found a couple small stores. We bought bread, eggs and other provisions to make our own meals and lunches. Kari and I decided on buying captain Morgan spiced rum this trip. Mixed with coke it tastes like vanilla coke! So it took us a while to decide what we all wanted. But we eventually made a decision and meandered back to the hotel. We stopped to get food at this really cheap take out place. I got amazing pizza! We lowered the fouton into a bed and sat on it or on chairs and chatted/watched Maltese TV. They had Gossip Girl in Italian at one point! So exciting! After food we played some drinking games and ... drank and laughed and even did some dancing. Eventually we made it to bed and slept very comfortably.

I will try and do the rest maybe this afternoon or later today. There is only two days to recap so hopefully I can do them in one shot! Then I can start on my adventures here in Kingston.