Welcome to Mallttttaaa!

Phew! After such an incredible weekend, I was a little doubtful that any other trips would be able to top Switzerland. Well, this weekend in Malta was definitely a contender. My roommate and I decided to go to Malta on a whim when we heard a big group of CIMBA students were going. I had never heard of Malta before but man it looks good in pictures online! I literally felt like those kids who throw a dart on a map and say, "Hey, let's go there!" After talking with the other kids going they all felt the same way: Malta? Tiny tiny island off the coast of Sicily that barely shows up on maps? Why not, let's go!

My roommate and I shared a taxi with other students who were going to Amsterdam, yet the problem was the taxi was coming at 6:30am! Our flight didn't leave until 11:30 which gave us plenty of time for some quality sleep on the airport floor. While we were waiting, airport employees were trying to move this large, marble statue, and seeing them try to preserve the statue while building wooden guards around it provided some entertainment. On the plane, our whole group of about 23 sat in the back of the plane, so of course the flight attendant made sure to call us out over the intercom for being too loud..oops. Also, apparently our row was turned into the classic "sleeping with your mouth hung open" row. When we landed in Malta, it was so nice to enjoy being outside! The temperature wasn't too cold, but it was extremely windy.

Now for the fun part: we decided to take a bus to our hostel which was in the northern part of the island. We got on the bus and immediately had a flashback to the 80's because of how "old school" the bus looked. Ripped seats, red windows on the roof, and I wouldn't have been surprised if it had a green, fuzzy carpet. The first part of the drive lasted about 20 minutes which took us from the airport to the main bus station in Valletta. I can see why many of the locals choose to take the bus since it is so cheap, I only paid 47 euro for my ticket. However, oddly enough some other student paid 40 and got a ticket so we were all confused as to what the official price was, I think we could have just handed him some coins and hop on. Anyways, when we got to the train station, I'm sure our faces were priceless! The train station was an area packed full of these retro buses with people running, standing around, watching, and waiting. It did not seem like a safe area at all and I honestly felt like we were in Cuba. One student in our group joked as we were trying to find a connecting bus, "We have unknowingly traveled to a third world country..." Wasn't so funny at the time..

Luckily we found the correct bus and enjoyed a 45 min ride to our hostel, plenty of time to "people watch". It was interesting to see the diversity of people and hear the Maltese dialect. We got our hotel in Mellieha and were pleasantly greeted by about 200 steps up to the entrance. An important realization about Malta, or at least the area we stayed: there are no flat roads. We stayed in the northern part which is known to be an area where people retire and the entire area is all hills and steps. I really enjoyed where we stayed as well because it had one main drag of shops, restaurants, and bars, but then also overlooked the bay and the beautiful cliffs.

View from the top

View from the pool area of our hotel

The gang at karaoke!

We checked in to the hotel and explored a little bit, finding both the outdoor and indoor pool. None of us had eaten lunch and everything was closed until dinner time so we ended up stopping at a little take-away store with croissants and small pizzas. Later that night we ventured off to find a karaoke bar which ended up being a little ways off from the main street. We definitely provided the entertainment for the night as our group dominated the karaoke, along with this old lady who could sing quite well! It started off with one of the students singing "Toxic" by Brittany Spears and only got worse from there. We laughed the next day saying we picked probably the corniest group of songs, but hey at least we had fun! My roommate and I treated everyone to a duet of "Brown Eyed Girl" and "All For You", watch out American Idol. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life seeing our group go up and make fools of ourselves. On the way home, we were blessed by coming across a restaurant called Hotdog Heaven, what could be better? It was a small restaurant with bar style seating decorated with American baseball memorabilia. I think the lady working loved us for the amount of food we all bought.

The next morning we treated ourselves to sleeping in till around 11am. Honestly, it felt amazing to be able to wake up and not have to worry about going to class or catching a flight. We tried to go outside and catch some sun, yet it was extremely windy with patches of clouds so we resorted to swimming in the indoor pool. Although I say this on a weekly basis, it was so weird to think that we were in Malta. I had plenty of "wow" moments later that day when we went sightseeing through the city and down to the coast. We walked to the top of the cliff and enjoyed a better view of the island. It was simply amazing! However, it was a little difficult taking pictures because of the wind; at certain times I could barely hold the camera still! I think I could have stayed the entire day up there looking out over the island of Malta. I enjoyed seeing how steep the island was with plenty of cliffs, rock ruins, and small farms with multicolor flowers.

After the view, we ventured down through the church courtyard and stumbled upon a WWII shelter museum. We decided to go through the tunnels, which turned out to be a lot creepier than we all imagined. The tour signs guided us through this huge maze of tunnels, telling us information of how the people lived there while troops raided the island. The tunnels also had small little rooms connected to it and for some reason, the people who built this museum/tour decided to put the creepiest mannequins alive in each of the rooms. Some of them I didn't even bother looking at knowing I would have nightmares..it was so odd.

Next stop for our day was the beach! We started walking down the extremely windy road down to the bottom of the island and came upon another walkway, which we at first thought was a shortcut to the bottom. Instead, it lead us down to this church called "Our Lady of the Grotto", a small underground church. It was a little eerie because the decorations all along the walls were of people's prayers for loved family members. Pages of writings, pictures, and clothing were all tacked to the wall asking for help and for prayers. Some of the stories gave me chill bumps because they were recently added to the wall.

Inside the "Our Lady of Grotto" Church

Winding street down to the beach

When we left the church we continued our walk down to the beach, which took about 15 minutes. We finally made it to the bottom and were soon joined by the rest of the group. Some of the guys we were with were even brave enough to swim out into the water despite the gusting wind and freezing cold water. It was the funniest thing to see them mentally prepare themselves for a good 10 minutes or so. Us girls decided to leave the beach a little to get some shopping done before the night. I successful bought a pair of pants for 5 euro and a dress for 9..not too bad! Oh I almost forgot, beware if you ever go to Malta because there are an endless number of cats! They are literally everywhere you look, just laying around in the weirdest places. In fact, in one of the shoes stores we went to, there was a cat laying inside the glass counter top! That's pretty normal right?

On the Malta beach!

Later that night we took a bus to a nearby town called St. Julian's, where some other CIMBA students were staying. We ate at this grungy place called Chik-king and enjoyed our 4 euro meal of french fries and chicken tenders. After, we walked around the bars and took in the local atmosphere. The people of Malta were celebrating Carnevale this weekend, so everywhere we went was packed including the streets outside!

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast from down the road while some of the guys attempted to cook eggs and bacon in their rooms. Sunday had the best weather out of the days we were there so we tried to soak in some rays while waiting for the bus to come take us to the airport. We ended up having to take a taxi back, but it was so worth the money we paid because our taxi driver took us through the countryside on the way back to the airport. It gave us great views of the island with its farms, greenery, and rolling hills. I think that if I had another free weekend to explore a warm city, I would venture back to Malta, it was gorgeous!

On the plane ride back to Venice, our group kept pointing out how random/awesome it was that we traveled to Malta. We just couldn't get over the fact that we traveled somewhere that none of us knew barely anything about, and had a great time! We kept making jokes about people asking us about the weekend... "So what did you do this weekend? Oh that's cool because I went to MALTA!" or "Yeah I'm not sure if you know, but there is amazing food in MALTA!" Hahah it was hilarious. I am so glad I went on this trip too since I had never traveled with this group of people before. At first I was a little nervous that I wouldn't know anyone, but the entire group was so friendly and welcoming, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard than I did with these people. Oh the memories...

Anyways, we made it back to Paderno safe and sound :) Again, I'm sorry I am so far behind on posting my blogs about my weekends. I always start writing then end up getting distracted by something else haha, but I promise to get better about it. So, this weekend aka today I am going to BRUSSELS!! I am reuniting with a bunch of my best friends from Clemson who are studying abroad there. We are going to a concert called Sensation, which should be a ton of fun! So be looking forward to the next blog, I'm off to do some packing!