We're Goin' to Malta!

Ana, Dharyll, Justin and I went to the country of Malta for the weekend (Thursday afternoon-Saturday afternoon). We caught a train to Pisa on Thursday morning, caught another train from the Pisa train station to the Pisa airport and took a RyanAir plane from Pisa to Malta (about an hour and forty minute ride). We got to Malta just as it was starting to get dusky. Long story short, we decided to walk from the airport to Valletta. The island isn't very big, and it didn't look too far on the map, plus we would be able to see parts of Malta on the way. Plus we had a sense of adventure that riding a bus or taking a taxi just wouldn't satisfy. So off we went with the map in the back of the guide book and our backpacks. About 2 hours and 7 miles (9.2 Kilometers) later we drag ourselves into Valletta. It was a... healthy, walk and we did get to see some neat things at night, however our little trek involved walking through an industrial area, along highways, across highways and generally wandering around looking like silly Americans with their silly backpacks.
We found a hotel called the Grand Harbour Hotel, right on the water and as we signed receipts etc. we told the man at the desk that we'd walked from the airport. His eyebrows shot up and we got a look that told us we were absolutely MAD. I'm pretty satisfied with that reaction.

A little boy at the airport in Pisa. Looks like he's good to go!
That sense of adventure I was telling you about.
A sculpture thing at the airport in Malta.

He hehe..... enough said.
One of the rooms. Yes, that IS the shower in the room (the potty is in the hall). I finally figured out how to unlock the room door on the way to check out on the second day. Better late than never.
The view out the window.

The tree totally had a face (two eyes, two nostrils and a little mouth). I was pretty excited about that.
A church. Exactly WHICH church it is will remain a mystery until I can get my hands on the map we had.... and even then we'll see...
Moi. Specifically my shadow. But who wants to get all specific an' everything?

A cool tree in the Botanical Gardens we stumbled on. I've got to agree with Justin that the air in these gardens was the best I've smelled since we've gotten here. Between the cars, sewers and (depending which city you're in) the smell of fishy-sea, the air can get pretty funky.
The Botanical Gardens.

Voguing.
Cacti and succulents in the garden.
This one looks like Justin and Dharyll are in the mob. They've just killed me and put me in an unmarked grave... and now they're looking like "Oh, that was a shame, but it had to be done." Awesome.
Flowers! I found them by the silly Lascaris War Rooms the boys got super excited about. I can understand being excited by pocket knives, guns, the things you do with both tools-of-destruction, and punching people, but these war rooms were silly. I can't look past the bad sixties mannequins bent over the WWII desks, looking at maps. Not cool, just silly.

My favorite picture of all time.


I just like this stone in the wall. It was neat.
One of the buses we took around the island.

One of our bus drivers. Many of the drivers felt the need to have either a picture of the bloody Jesus or the Madonna on their visor. With the way the haul ass around town on those tiny streets, they NEED these pictures.
Blue Grotto.
We took a bus from Valletta 40 minutes to the Blue Grotto. It was supposed to be at least swimmable, if not beachy, but it turned out to be super choppy and full of pretty sharp rocks.

Huzzah!


Ma hand.
Ana and Justin. It was windy, uncomfortable and not really meant to be basked on, but they decided to take advantage of the little rocky path down to the water to catch some sun. Silly beans...

Shadows!
I'm a tumor!
So pretty.... Weeds are just the thing for someone trying to develop dreadlocks (and for someone trying to keep that other someone from dreading their hair).

It's a win/win situation. Our mark on the bus stop.

We's Was Here!
Horsies!
A street.

Ana coming down one of many flights of stairs. The Maltese are sure fond of their awkward stairs (they're neither wide enough or tall enough to make walking on them comfortable for anyone... you have to walk on your tippy toes in little mincing steps. It's a bit ridiculous).
A rather blurry shot of our hotel.
The street across from our hotel.
Across the water from our hotel.

Sunrise!
This poor pidgeon outside our hotel. I think someone smashed him with a rock. It made me sad enough to try to think of a name for him so I can say "Oh poor ______, he was so tiny and had a short, pigeon-ie life!" before I fall asleep at night.
A statue, looking out for my little dead pigeon friend.

I think this might have been the home of the Knights of Malta. These knights are, in general, badasses. Holding off invasions of all sorts and building these enormous walls around Valletta.

Goldfishies in the open-air market in Valletta. I was excited enough to think about getting one, but it would probably havev died if I carried it around for two days. Especially if I'd carried it around all those sharp rocks and sun I was crawling around on and under. Sigh... I still thought about it though.
A fountain with Mer-men. You don't see Mer-men very often.
Here they are again. Being all crazy with their double tails.
A clock in Valletta counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Malta adopts the Euro as their official currency (they're still using the Lira with a rediculously high exchange rate... something like 2.30 euro = 1 lira).
I seriously thought about taking a ride on this little elephant.. but we had to catch a bus. Like so many things, my temptation was interrupted by schedules and other such nonsense.

These buses had really short ceilings. I bumped my head as I was reading this sign. Nice. Where was that sign ten seconds earlier?


Countryside. Malta is covered in short, stone walls that look like they've been there for centuries. They very well could have been, everything looked very very old.
On the second day we found a real beach in Mellieha complete with sand, shells and pale, hairy British men.
Uncomforably naked British Man.

There were more... but the whole situation was too scary to take more pictures of.

Sand! Glorious, stinging sand! It was pretty windy (an understatement, fo sho) and the sand was a pretty uncomfortable place to be.
Shells!
Dharyll... afraid of the cold. The water was pretty warm, warmer than standing on the beach so everything turned out pretty well!
Waiting for the bus. Ana and I kept our shirts on but the guys had to have theirs off.
St. Paul's Bay in Bugibba.

We had lunch and then caught the bus back towards the Airport and from there to Florence.

We made (what was supposed to be) a quick pit stop in Mosta to look at the dome. But there was some sort of accident and the bus took a small lifetime to get there.

The Mosta Dome.

In WWII a bomb broke through the dome during mass in 1942 and landed on the church floor without exploding. 300 people were in the church at the time and the incident is considered a miracle.
The church has statues sprinkled around the front entrance. Mary, I believe.

Bartholomew the Apostle... apparently he was flayed alive and now caries his skin around. You can see his foot-skin in his crotch area there. The more I wander around Europe and surrounding countries, the more deep-seated psychological issues I think the people of the Middle Ages and Renaissance were trying to work out.

We made it to the airport just fine, three hours early (with much freaking out about getting there in time for no reason).
VICTORY FLUSH!

I found this in the ladies room at the Malta Airport. It was by accident, I paniced when I couldn't get the stall door open right away (I immediately thought that I was going to die and it would be millions of years until someone found me, curled up on the floor trying to escape the fumes of the bathroom) but then I looked closer at the flusher thing, and all was good. It turned out that you had to push an obscure button on the door handle... crisis averted.
Stop, drop and roll... RyanAir style! I think that if you click on the above picture you can enlarge it so that you can see some of the crazy illustrations. Apparently women in red/pink dresses have claw hands and when you pull the emergency exit handle (bottom right) you turn into a black person.
Florence is full of pigeons, Italy is full of pigeons, PISA is full of pigeons. But apparently the people at the Pisa airport don't think it's quite full enough so they've errected a GIANT pigeon statue. It's pretty much a gift from the heavens for all of pigeon-dom... now they have a god to pray to and rally around. Soon there will be a pigeon insurrection in the form of a terrifying pigeon-army. They will eat trash and poop on people in massive flocks because of this. Horrifying... I know.

We got home at 10 all in our own, seperate, whole pieces.