You can use the internet in many places in Malta, for only One Maltese Lira for seventy-five minutes!

Plus right now I am doing this in a bar where “Purple Rain” is playing. Sweet.

Before I got here someone said to me, “a whole week in Malta, isn’t that too much?” I basically answered that no, that is just the way I do things. Now, after only two days I know that a month may not be enough. And this is an island only seventeen by nine miles around. I’d figure the math out on that one if I could, but you probably get the idea.

The island of Malta is beige and smoke and hazy light. Pea green on the inside of the pastry shell, turquoise where the ocean meets the beige city wall. Pink where the sun sets. Malta is third-world, Arabic, from another planet. Malta is bombed out and filled with life. I am totally enraptured with it, and can’t figure it out.

We have a really nice three-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a building with only one apartment per floor. But when you walk around to the bay, and look up at our building from the back side, the two floors below are shells. There is no back wall, just empty space. And alot of Malta is like this – buildings with varying degrees of misuse, inhabitance, and repair. Laundry racks on balconies with unbelievable views.

The housing prices are high here though – I have already checked it out.

Today we went to Valletta. Went to the pub where Oliver Reed died after drinking eight beers, 12 shots of Rum, and half a bottle of Whiskey. Valletta is full of skeletons, not ghosts. Skeletons on the church floors. There were crazy wars fought here with heads chopped off and shot out of cannonballs. I’ve never been anyplace like this before, never.

I never want to stop traveling. I want to keep going, forever. There is so much to see!

We’ve got quite a few more days here, and internet just steps away from the apartment, so I’ll be posting often.

Ciao,
XXannon

This entry was posted on Monday, March 21st, 2005 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Tales from a Strange Land. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.