Advertisement
Published: January 15th 2013
Anchor Bay
To me, here is the most beautiful place in MaltaAfter choosing from a huge range of internships of AIESEC and getting rejected by some of them, I finally made up my mind and chose Malta.
I took a late flight from London to Malta with Air Malta airline. On that night at the Heathrow airport, the staff didn't let me check in because the name I put in the booking form is different from the one in my passport (I booked the ticket the night I finished final exam. I was exhausted then I put Perry on it -_-)''😉 I did panic. Fortunately, after arguing for half an hour and I managed to prove I am Perry. They finally let me get on the flight.
I got on the flight with relief and great excitement as I didn't have any idea about how Malta looks like, what the culture is.....Lots of questions were crossing in my mind. After 3 hours of flight, I finally arrived Malta. It was 1am. The first thing i saw is a tiny airport. Then I met the first Maltese in my life - Omar, my AIESEC buddy. He picked me up at the airport and took me to where I lived, the seminary.
He is a very nice guy. Omar drives very fast. When he was running through the streets, I found the whole country is very quiet at night. When we arrived the seminary, Jimmy, a priest, opened the gate for us and led me to my room. The whole seminary is extremely tranquil and dim.
In these 3 months, I lived in a seminary which is a priest training school. At the same time, I worked in Dar il-Kaptan, a rehab centre for disabled people (physically disable, intellectual disable and even those with mental prolems), where they provide care services for them and my job is to talk to or play with them. After 2 weeks, I have to move to a big house which has 2 floors and lots of rooms. The house was empty and I lived there alone. There were mirrors and decorations of Blessed Virgin Mary everywhere and some of the rooms were locked with a small window on top the door. I was thinking something scary must have happened there before. What immediately came up in my mind was the ghost movie 'The Nun'. It just looked like a haunted house! I literally freaked out!
Valletta
Capital city of Malta I switched on all the light and kept playing music loudly LOLL.
Malta is the smallest country with an airport in the world (316km
2), even smaller than Hong Kong. The country comprises 3 different islands-MALTA, COMINO and GOZO. You can travel from each other by ferry or boat. Most of the buildings there are made of limestone. If you view the country at a high elevation level, yellow is the only colour you can see in your eyes. Especially in the late afternoon, all the limestone buildings are richly luminous in waning light and the whole Malta become golden yellow. It is an unforgettable sight for anyone.
Malta is a beach-holiday destination therefore it attracts loads of sun-worshipper (I am one of them..). There are both sandy beaches and bare-rock-beaches. And the bays in Malta offers some of the best scuba diving and snorkelling sites in Europe because of the pleasant climate, warm and clear water. I tried snorkelling for my first time in Malta and WOW! It was fun! What I saw underwater were lots of pretty coral, prawn, crab and fish...the flock of fish sometimes stays still in the sea. When I tried to touch them,
Blue Lagoon
a very popular place for tourists they all moved in a millisecond. The sky is always clear and the sun is always bright as well. When the birght light hit on their shinny body, there is silver light flashing in a huge flock of fish when they are swimming. How amazing it is!
About what I have eaten in Malta, I ate lots of rabbit. It is a traditional Maltese cuisine. It is a very good dish and tastes like chicken, but a little more chewy. The Maltese food is greatly influenced by Sicilian. There are lots of restaurants serving very cheap pasta and pizza and the food is not bad. Also, seafood is everywhere in Malta coz loads of harbours are surrounding the island. Seafood is so fresh and tastes really good, it is not cheap though...At where I worked, the 50-year-old cook served me lots of traditional Maltese food like Alijotta, Maltese bread, etc. She is a very kind old lady and often gave me food when I was off from work.
The only thing that I am not gonna miss is the bus in Malta, I mean the new bus (The little yellow old buses were replaced by made-in-china buses last
AIESEC Malta
had a very inspiring and fun time there year). I have no idea about the old ones, but trust me, the new bus system is CRAPP. It is completely normal when you wait for your bus for half an hour to 1 hour and it has still even not come! The worst case was when I was in Paceville, I started to leave for home after dinner at 8. I kept waiting and waiting. Even I saw the right bus coming it just passed the stop and it happened twice in 1 night...I was like...Dafaq!? I reached home at 12 finally. It took me 4 hours for a 45 mins travel....I got mad that night....
Malta is a very relaxing country. The people live life in a slow pace and they have no stress. The bus drivers there are very good examples. I travelled around with bus every day and when the bus driver see his friends on the street, he will stop the bus and chat with them. When they pass a food shop, they will stop and buy food if they feel hungry. And even once I saw a driver stop the bus and bought a lottery -_-)'' It happened and NO ONE complained. I
saw people arguing twice only in these 3 months stay. Comparing to my own country, almost once a day...
I have to say Malta is a country of love. It has the nicest people I have ever seen. The first time I arrived the capital city, Valletta, I looked a little bit confused looking for the right bus home. A man of 40 to 50 came to me and grabbed my hand suddenly and brought me to the right stop. My reflex action was taking my hand off and he said 'No worries, I do this to my son.' He said he seldom sees such a young guy travelling alone so he wanted to help me out. This is so sweet 😊 Also, I stayed in Malta for only 3 months, when I was about to leave, everyone including my friends, colleagues and boss gave me a warm hug and they seemed to cry. i can never forget this sweet and warm picture. The people at the work place treated me a farewell dinenr. I gave a speech in the garden and they said goodbye with a present which is a Mdina glass.
I joined an AIESEC conference
2 weeks before I left and had a very inspiring and fun time there. Love AIESEC Malta people! Probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to me was getting rejected from other internships.
Something very exciting happened in my last week...(I did three 'first time in my life' things in one night!)
This trip to Malta is indeed a life-changing experience. In these 3 months, I realized how beautiful the world is, and I met loads of people who inspired me a lot. I forgot to mention the French girl I met in the rehab centre. She is one of those who changed me as well. Love my life..
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 11; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0433s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Sam
non-member comment
Nice pic!