My Trip to Malta Part 3

About two weeks ago, one of my new friends, called and asked if I would go to Malta with her.  She was supposed to take the trip with her husband, but he no longer wanted to go.  They’d already paid for the hotel room and she still wanted to go, so I went. Part 1 of our adventure is here and Part 2 is here.

The second full day of our trip was my birthday…Happy Birthday to me! We planned to go to Mdina and Rabat and possibly head back to Valletta to see the Co-Cathedral. We stopped at the concierge desk to ask about a dinner show we were interested in (it was on Thursday nights only, so we didn’t get to go), so we also asked him what we needed to see and to verify what time the buses stopped running. He was adamant we wouldn’t need to worry about that because there was no way we could spend all that time in Mdina and Rabat (he obviously didn’t know us! We managed to fill the day just fine…and didn’t even make it back to Valletta).

Now for a little trivia about Mdina: the city is completely walled in. In addition to the numerous businesses inside the city walls, there are about 300 private citizens (out of curiosity, I searched for property for sale in Mdina…I found 2: one for 750,000 Euro and one for over 1 million Euro. I don’t even want to think what that is in US dollars!). The only cars allowed inside the city are those belonging to residents. It’s nickname is “The Silent City” and it is indeed very quiet inside the city walls.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by one of these:

Since it was my birthday, Yvette bought us a ride.

We were supposed to get a 30 minute ride around Mdina and Rabat, however it was 15-20 minutes, at best. We did get a good overview of both cities so we’d know where we wanted to go back to. This is a shot from inside the city and shows what the streets look like. You can see no further than an arrow can fly (at least a medieval arrow) on any of the streets in Mdina.

After our horse-drawn carriage ride, we walked the streets of Mdina. This is the main gate in and out of the city:

Our first stop was a tour of the dungeons of Mdina. The tour was…interesting and reminded me again why I’m glad I was born in the 20^th century! The ways they tortured people back then make waterboarding look like child’s play! This is the one and only picture I took in the dungeons (it was full of scenes like this). It depicts the torture of St. Agatha. According to local legend, Agatha was a resident of Sicily, however she often came to Malta to pray. Eventually, she fled Sicily during the persecution of Christians by the Romans. When she returned to Sicily she was imprisoned, tortured and eventually killed. One of the tortures she underwent, was the removal of her breasts.

Our next stop was the Metropolitan Cathedral in the town center of Mdina (you can also see St. Paul’s Square in this picture…yes that’s the ENTIRE square!). The original cathedral was destroyed during an earthquake. This is the rebuilt cathedral and is “only” 400 years old.

I won’t bore you with all the pictures I took inside the cathedral. Following are a few of my favorites.

Part of the ceiling:

The main altar:

Another altar:

The original door to the catherdral:

After touring the cathedral, we decided to have lunch. This time, we’d asked the concierge before we left the hotel for a lunch recommendation. He suggested Fontanella Tea Garden: “You can see half of Malta from there!” And boy was he right!

We had another visitor for this lunch (the food was much better too!):

After lunch, we left Mdina and went to Rabat (which simply means, we walked out the gates of Mdina and were in Rabat!). Our first stop in Rabat was St. Paul’s Church and Grotto. Again, I won’t bore you with all the pictures I took, just a few of my favorites.

Under the church are two chapels. The floor is lined with tombstones (I wish I could remember who’s!).

Also under the church is the grotto where the Apostle Paul is said to have stayed during his time on Malta.

Our next stop was St. Paul’s Catacombs, which were a few blocks away and NOT affiliated with the church. The catacombs are said to house thousands of grave sites and nobody knows for sure how far-reaching they are. The first picture was the first thing you see when you entered the main catacomb. This is where the funeral feast would have been held (elevated cutout to the left).

This is one of the tombs. The head would go in the hole to the right of the picture.

And then the tomb would be covered with a sealing slap similar to the one below. The entire thing would then be covered in mortar to seal it well.

Some of the tombs were seals with slabs similar to the ones below. The pictures are said to depict what the person did in life (in this case, a doctor).

Time has not been kind to these catacombs. Originally, the walls were decorated with paintings, however the walls are completely bare now.

Our next stop was St. Agatha’s Historical Complex (remember St. Agatha above? The one who had her breasts cut off? See I knew you remembered!). The complex consists of a church, museum, and catacombs. The church was closed, but I was able to sneak a picture from the window.

Unfortunately, they did not allow pictures inside the museum or catacombs. They did have some for purchase in the gift shop, so I bought them and scanned them in. These catacombs are remarkably well preserved and you can imagine what St. Paul’s must have looked like in its day (according to our tour guide, St. Agatha’s has always been in private hands, so they were better able to preserve its contents).

This painting depicts St. Agatha. If you look closely, you can see two breasts in the chalice in her right hand. She was often depicted this way in paintings.

The skeleton in this grave was recovered from inside the catacombs.

After we left St. Agatha’s it was time for us to make our way back to the bus. Along the way, I snapped this picture of a row of balconies. Most of the buildings in Malta are the same shade of tan, the only color is in the doors, shutters and balconies (as you can see in this picture).

This building was near the bus stop. I have no idea what it was/is other than the “Casino Notabile” that was carved in the stone around the top of the building. I couldn’t find anything during a quick Google search, either. The building is gorgeous though!

That was day 2 of our trip! Stay tuned for Part 4!

My Trip to Malta, Part 2

About two weeks ago, one of my new friends, called and asked if I would go to Malta with her.  She was supposed to take the trip with her husband, but he no longer wanted to go.  They’d already paid for the hotel room and she still wanted to go, so I went. Part 1 of our adventure is here.

To get a better understanding of the sites in Malta, it’s helpful to know some of their history. This is what I remember: Its earliest residents created an ancient city that pre-dates Stonehenge by at 1,000 years (the structures of this city are far more complex than Stonehenge). During his travels, the apostle Paul shipwrecked on Malta and stayed for 3 months, spreading the Gospel. As a result, the island has a strong Catholic history (it’s said the island has 365 churches and I believe it! Malta is located almost dead center in the Mediterranean Sea and therefore has been an important strategic location throughout history. Many different powers have ruled the islands, including Arabs (the Maltese language borrows heavily from Arabic), Romans, French, and British. During The Crusades, the Knights of St. John ruled the island and Malta served as a resting point and hospital for the Crusaders. During World War II, the tiny nation fought hard against the Italians and suffered greatly with daily bombing raids, forcing many residents to take refuge in caves and bombing shelters.

We spent our first day in Malta in the city of Valletta. We entrusted our lives, once again, to a Maltese driver. This time on this:

Here’s a better shot of another bus:

All the buses are painted in this color scheme. Some buses are newer than others. Some can comfortably fit two people per seat, others the person sitting on the aisle finds themselves hanging on for dear life to avoid being spilled into the aisle as the bus rounds a curve. But for 47 cent Euro (about 75 cents US), we couldn’t complain too much!

This is the Triton Fountain, located right outside the gates of Valletta:

And here is the front gate of Valletta. All traffic entering/leaving the city goes through this gate from what I understand.

We’d already decided that our first stop was going to be The Malta Experience. To get there, we had to walk from the front gate, to the end of the city. So, of course we stopped and took pictures along the way! This is the view from the east side of the city, overlooking the Grand Harbour.

This was the street we had to walk down. All the north-south streets look like this.

And here’s a view from the bottom of the steepest part of the street:

About mid-way down, we came to the Memorial of the Great Seige of World War II. This bell is HUGE and rings once a day at noon in memory of those who lost their lives during World War II.

These are just a couple of cool pictures I snapped along the way (I think they’re cool anyway! Look how blue that water is!):

After viewing The Malta Experience (for those that didn’t click the link above, The Malta Experience is a movie showing the history of Malta on a huge screen and translated into 20 different languages), we went on a guided tour of the hospital. Our first stop was one of the wards of the hospital. This ward was used only for the rich and in its day held over 100 beds with beautiful canopies and bedding of every color. Patient care was free, though the knights “asked” for a donation (one could choose not to donate, however they’d be kicked out after three days…this was not actually instituted by the knights, however). The knights had a problem with patients using their beds as “hotels” and sneaking out at night, so they started to confiscate clothes as patients were checked in and issued them a long white shirt and socks to wear…the birth of the hospital gown!* The arches you see in the side of the wall were used as toilets. About ¾ of this hall was destroyed during the bombings of World War II. The building was rebuilt after World War II and is now used as a convention center.

This ward was for those not rich enough to use the upstairs ward. It fit a few more beds than the one upstairs. The day we visited, they were setting up for an event to be held that night. They can serve up to 500 people in this hall.

This is across the street from the hospital. It was wear those who died while at the hospital were taken. It was completely destroyed during World War II.

After we left the hospital, we started to make our way back up the hill. This time we went up the west side of Valletta. This is a view Manoel Island across the Marsamxett Harbour.

Our next stop was lunch. We ate at a little outdoor café right across from St. John’s Co-Cathedral. We had the bright idea of trying some of the local cuisine, so we dined on Fenek and Bragjoli. Fenek is rabbit and would have been OK had it not come out looking like, well, a rabbit. Bragjoli is a “beef olive” (not sure why they call it a beef olive as there is no olive in the dish)…sliced beef rolled and stuffed with mince meat, ham, and a hard boiled egg. Let’s just say we were glad we had French fries to fill up on! We did get a visit from a few of these little guys though:

We’d planned to go to St. John’s Co-Cathedral after we ate, but it closed while we were eating. So, we just walked around town a bit more before we left. Here are a few more shots:

Yes, that really is a garage! See:

(Of course, I HAD to get pictures of the fast food joints!)

*I have no idea if this was really the birth of the hospital gown, but that was the first thought when our tour guide described the clothes they gave the patients.

Stayed tuned for part 3!

My Trip to Malta Part 1

About two weeks ago, one of my new friends, called and asked if I would go to Malta with her.  She was supposed to take the trip with her husband, but he no longer wanted to go.  They’d already paid for the hotel room and she still wanted to go.  My first thought was “Where the heck is Malta?”  Since I’m guessing at least one of you is asking the same question, here it is:

The tiny dot the big yellow arrow is pointing to is Malta.  When I was researching things to do in Malta, I quickly learned that it’s one of those countries you never really think about, but has had an influence nonetheless (Maltese Cross anyone?)

We were there for three days.  I couldn’t possibly fit everything into one post, so I’m going to split it up over the next few days (I took almost 300 pictures while we were there!).  I’ll start with our trip there, since that was a bit of an adventure in itself!

We left on Sunday.  We flew on Ryan Air since they had the cheapest price around.  Part of how they keep their prices low is the rarely fly into major airports.  In our case, they fly out of Treviso, which is just south of Venice.  We arrived at the airport with no issues.  We get checked in with no problems (though we had to wait a bit to check in since we were so early).  Everything seemed to be going normally until they start boarding the plane.  At the Treviso airport, Ryan Air checks you in at the gate.  Then you go downstairs and wait in a hallway-type area for them to open the door so you can walk out to the plane.  Once they get everyone into this waiting area, they drop the bomb on us: the plane is in Venice.  Apparently, the weather at Treviso was too bad for the flight to land their, so it was diverted to Venice.  Their plan was to bus us to Venice and we’d board the plane there.

The bus ride to Venice took us about 30 minutes.  Once we arrived, they drove the bus onto the tarmac and there we sat.  For an hour.  No updates about when we’d get on the plane or anything.  Finally, the buses move and get us to the plane.  We make the mad dash for the plane and find our seats.  So we could sit.  For another hour, almost.  Turns out, since Ryan Air doesn’t normally fly to Venice, they have no ground crew there and they had to rely on other airlines to provide them support.  Which, of course, means Ryan Air was the last to get serviced.  Approximately an hour after our plane was supposed to have LANDED in Malta, we FINALLY take off.

The rest of the flight was uneventful (I’m just glad we ate in the airport so I didn’t have to resort to eating a 4.50 Euro (that’s about $7 US) cheeseburger on the plane!).  We got our bags and made our way to the taxi.

Let me take a brief detour here: we had toyed with the idea of renting a car while we were there.  I’m glad we didn’t!  For starters, they drive on the wrong side of the road.  And the drivers are crazy.  Worse than the craziest Italian driver I’ve seen yet!

The taxi ride was a bit like riding on a roller coaster, except we didn’t go upside down.  I’m fairly certain the car may have left the ground once or twice though (OK, so I’m exaggerating a bit…it’s my story I can tell it however I want!).  The way the driver was zipping around cars, I was grateful there weren’t many for him to navigate around!  Thankfully, we made it to the hotel in one piece!

We made it to the room and settled in for the night.  And that’s my post for today!  I’m hoping to have part 2 up tomorrow, but with it being Thanksgiving you may have to wait another day.

Down on the Farm

Yesterday, I accompanied Angelina’s kindergarten class on a field study trip to a farm in Pasiano (interesting fact: the farm is only about 15 minutes from our house, however it was a 45 minute bus ride from the school). We spent the day learning about apples and making apple jam. Here are some pictures from our trip:

Picking apples:

Learning about apple blossoms:

Washing apples:

Little hands at work peeling apples:

Now we have to weigh the apples so we know how much sugar to add (those are Angelina’s arms adding apples to the scale):

Adding sugar:

Stirring the pot:

Feeding the ducks:

Making art with apples:

Happy Halloween and other stuff

I know it’s been awhile since I last updated. My only excuse for that is we’ve been busy! I wish I could say we’ve been busy travelling, but sadly we have not.

Our household good arrived on the 14^th of October. Tony and I both took that week off so we could unpack. For the most part, we finished everything that week. We still have a few boxes that need to be unpacked. Hopefully we’ll get to those sooner, rather than later! It was nice to finally be able to sleep in our beds again!

Tony has started working swings, which means it’s just me and the girls at night. He spends a little bit of time with Angelina and Alyssa every morning because he gets them up, gives them breakfast and puts them on the bus. We’ve also had a couple of exercises in the last few weeks and Tony goes to 12 hour shifts and we never see him.

On the October 25^th, the base had “Trunk or Treat” (they didn’t do it on the 31^st because some numbskull scheduled a bazaar for that weekend and they didn’t want anything to conflict with it). Here are the girls in their costumes:

Angelina was a princess angel, Alyssa was a vampire princess (or something like that) and Amber was JoJo the Clown. We arrived at Trunk or Treat around 30 minutes before they started, so we decided to go to the haunted house first. BIG mistake! By the time we got back, the line had doubled! So, we spent about an hour waiting:

And waiting…

And waiting…

Finally! Candy!!

They had some wonderfully decorated trunks, but his one was by far my favorite:

What you can’t see in the truck is Emerald City and The Yellow Brick Road. I thought it was great! The girls really liked this one:

The dental squadron put that one together. The first few kids that came through got toothbrushes and toothpaste for “feeding” Stitch candy. I thought it was a good idea, but got a good laugh the next weekend when the same squadron was selling candy apples at the bazaar.

And finally, here are the little ones showing off their haul:

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I mentioned yesterday that I’m TDY to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, for a few days. What some of you may not know is my parents were stationed here in the 80s. We were here for 3 years and lived in a town about 20 km from here called Gerhardsbrunn. Over the years, I’ve wanted to go back just to see how/if things had changed any in the 25ish years since we lived there. I mentioned it yesterday to my co-worker, but we nixed the idea because it was getting too late. Today, I had a few hours to kill, so I decided to see if I could find the town again (armed with my trusty GPS, of course (what in the world did we ever do without GPS? We’d be lost without it right now!)).

As I drove the winding road up the mountain (well, I don’t think it’s really a mountain, but it IS a really, really, really big hill!) a flood of memories came back. The road was exactly as I remembered it. I even remembered the dream I’d forgotten I used to have (I used to dream that our car went flying off one of the curves into the trees, then we’d be falling down a cliff and I’d wake up right before we slammed into the ground). This is the turn we took to get to the town. I think the turn itself has changed a little, but I’m pretty sure the sign is the same (if not the same, very similar!):

 

This is the road leading up to the town. This is EXACTLY as I remember it (as you can see, the Germans are much like the Italians and don’t believe in wide roads!):

This is the sign marking the beginning of town. On the right (behind the trees), is the town’s church and on the left is where one of the other American families lived when we lived there:

This is the sign for the main street in town. That tree branch is actually holding the sign up right now, so I couldn’t get a better picture. The street is named for Gerhardsbrunn’s most famous resident:

This is a view of the other side of the church:

This is the house we lived in. I think the only thing that’s changed is the satellite dish on the side of the house.

I can’t tell you how tempted I was to knock on the door to ask if I could look around! I did sneak a picture of the backyard though!

This is the farm right next to the house we lived in. The family that lived there were dairy farmers and they used to invite us over all the time. It was here that I learned how to milk a cow (by hand AND by machine!), saw a calf being born (which is completely disgusting!), and spent much time learning about our German neighbors. They kept us supplied in milk too! The barn is on the left and the house is on the right.

This is the house across the street from the one we lived in. If I remember quickly, three generations of the family lived here. One of the daughters had a son roughly the age of my brother and I. He spoke no English and we spoke no German, but that didn’t stop us from playing together for hours on end.

This is the town’s cemetery. It’s right at the entrance to the town, kitty-corner from the church. My brother, stepbrother and I used to play in this cemetery for hours, making up stories about the people buried there:

This is a view of the town from the road leading up to it (I found a safe place to stop on my way back to the base). The water tower is close to the church. If you look closely, you can see the church steeple hidden amongst the trees to the left of the water tower.

And this is the valley we used to play in all the time. There was a road not too far from town that lead down into the valley. My brother, stepbrother, and I would ride our bikes down the road and play in the woods.

This last picture I took mainly to ask my mom if this house was there when we lived there. It is directly to the left of our old house. I remember a house being there, but I think this is brand new (or at least was built in the last 25ish years). If it is, I’m pretty sure this is the only thing that’s changed about the town. Everything else is just as I remember it being 25ish years ago. (So, Mom, is this different??? There’s an American family living there now and I know there wasn’t one back then.)

An Interesting Flight

I’m TDY in Germany right now (for those not in the know TDY = business trip in military speak).  I’m only here for a couple days, mainly to do a meet and greet with the headquarters people we’ll be working with while I’m here (one of the other “newbies” from my office came, as well).

As we were planning this trip, the captain printed out a schedule for RyanAir for us.  Since the flights were cheap, we went ahead and booked the flights.  RyanAir is kind of like the Southwest Airlines of Europe…except they take “no frills” to a whole new level.  When they say no frills, they mean just that: No. Frills.

The tickets started out at 69.98 Euro.  We were then charged 10 Euro for booking our tickets online (wouldn’t have saved any money had we booked them over the phone as they charge a larger fee for that.  And then they charge you another fee at the airport to print your boarding passes).  They also charge a baggage fee of 10 Euro (I know, nothing new there!).  BUT they only allow ONE carry on bag…and your purse counts as a carry on.  Your carry on can’t weigh more than 22 pounds…and don’t think about trying to get around it, they weigh and measure all carry ons before they even let you get to security

The flight itself was interesting.  Much like Southwest, there is no assigned seating.  We didn’t hear the original boarding call, so were close to the last people board. We were lucky enough to find aisle seats (thank goodness because the guy next to me didn’t smell the best or maybe it was someone else…there was a peculiar odor throughout the plane).  After settling into my seat, I noticed the advertising.  It was plastered all over the luggage compartments, much like the advertising on the subway or city bus (I’m surprised US airlines haven’t picked up on this particular gem of an income source).

Next came the hour long sales pitch.  We were forwarned that they don’t give out refreshments or snacks on the plane.  Anything you want, you have to purchase (I have no idea how much any of it cost…I didn’t ask for a menu).  What we weren’t expecting was what came next: cheap gifts.  Yep, you could buy some gifts for your loved ones from the comfort of your airline seat!  I briefly glanced at the cart when they walked by and saw mainly perfumes/colognes, but I’m sure there was more.  Then came the “lottery” tickets.  For a mere 2 Euro, you could buy a scratch off ticket for the chance to win a new car!  And finally came the smokeless cigarettes (just in case you can’t survive the flight without your cigarette fix!).  Our flight was only 1 1/2 hours.  I can only imagine the others wares that would have been sold had we been on a longer flight!

When we landed, they played a trumpet sound (dun-da-daaaaaa) to signal we’d landed safely and half the passengers applauded (the rest of us were looking around in disbelief, trying to contain our giggles).

The entire flight I found myself wishing I had a camera!  Maybe I can sneak some pictures on the way back!

Quick side note: we got the house I talked about in this post.  We moved in over the weekend and are slowly getting settled in.  Hopefully, our stuff will arrive very shortly (it’s supposed arrive no later than 5 Oct, I’m hoping it’ll arrive sooner), so we can really get settled.  Unfortunately, we do not have internet at the house yet.  Since it’s a brand new house, the phone comany needs to run a wire up to the house and we have no clue when that will happen.  It could be next week; it could be next month.

First Day of School, Part 2

I know I’m a little late getting this post up. This has been a busy week for us! Tuesday, 8 Sep, was the first day of school for Angelina (well, her second first day…she started school in Georgia before we left). It was a relief for all of us as she’s been begging to go back to school since we got here (which is such an amazing difference from Alyssa). She’s loving being back in school and really likes her new teacher.

One of the best things (to me anyway!) about the school here is Angelina will be taking Spanish classes. They start them in kindergarten and continue them through 2d or 3d grade. Hopefully she’ll get a good foundation at school that we’ll be able to reinforce at home.

Here are a few pictures from Angelina’s first day:

Tour of Italy Part 2

Our first Friday here, we took a tour of Italy. Well, our little corner of Italy, anyway. You can see the first part of our tour here.

The next stop took us to Pordenone (pronounced por-de-no-nay), the “big city” in this area (the population is around 40,000). The bus dropped us off at a coffee bar. This was, perhaps, the most interesting thing we saw there:

After a quick bathroom break, we walked down the Corso:

To St. Mark’s Cathedral:

The old churches in Europe always amaze me. You can see great works of art in most of them and the Europeans work hard to preserve them. This one was no exception:

Next, we walked to a chocolate shop, where we were given free samples of the chocolate. They also had several other types of dessert. One of the other girls and I decided we were going to find that place again and try one of everything they had! Starting with this:

After the chocolate shop, we practically ran to the train station:

So, we could sit and wait on the train:

After a short train ride, we had a real Italian dinner at a 400 year old hotel:

I wish I could have figured out a way to sneak pictures of all the food, but it just wasn’t possible. Instead, I’ll just tell you everything was really, really scrumptious!

Our last stop was to a winery for some wine tasting:

We had a great time, despite the long, hot day. Eventually, we plan to make our way back to some of the stops (mainly that chocolate store!).

Tour of Italy Part 1

Our first Friday here, we took a tour of Italy. Well, our little corner of Italy, anyway. Our tour guides took us to a few of the sites around the area, introduced us to Italian dining, and taught us how to take a train (sounds easy, but there is one very important step that you’d probably miss if you didn’t know better!).

Our first stop was the Gorgazzo Spring. The spring originates from somewhere within the mountains that are to our north.

The water here is at least 4 feet deep. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such crystal clear water in my life (this picture doesn’t do it justice).

Next to the spring is a honey store. The owner harvests her own honey and sells it, fairly cheap. The girls are checking out a real hive:

Our next stop was the market. Each of the towns around here does a market one day a week. It’s kinda like a roving flea market (I’m pretty sure it’s the same vendors at each market, they just pack up and move towns). We went to one in the town of Porcia (pronounced por-CHE-ah).

This town also has parts of one of the original castles in the area. The family lives here now, is the family who originally built the castle. At one point, they owned the entire town. Now they just own this part of the castle and an adjacent winery (which was also part of the original castle. The rest of it is gone.).

That’s it for today! Come back tomorrow for part 2 and the rest of our tour!