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Published: August 21st 2022
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We see our apartment in the daylight for the first time. It’s very big. It didn’t seem so big last night when we were wandering around in the pitch black backstreets trying to find it. It’s on the top floor, and it’s got a massive terrace right above the seafront with excellent views out over Marsaskala Bay.
We’re a bit tired after a long day of travelling yesterday, but we eventually manage to rouse ourselves and head off in search of lunch. We haven’t had breakfast, so I’m hanging out for a large helping of hobz bil zeit, that delicious Maltese delicacy of crunchy fresh bread filled with olive oil, tomato paste and whatever else you decide you want to pack in there - olives, onions, capers, tuna, etc. I’ve been hanging out for this since 2017, so I’m starting to get a bit twitchy and desperate after the first half dozen or so cafes and restaurants we pass don’t seem to have it on the menu. I begin to wonder whether we’re really in Malta; Issy’s relatives that we spent last night with looked real enough, but we hadn’t seen them for a few years so I guess we
mightn’t have noticed if they’d really just been well disguised ring-ins. It’s hot, stinking hot, but we plough on undaunted. We hit gold at restaurant number seven. I think we might really be in Malta after all.
I head out for a pre-sunset session of happy snapping. The streets were near deserted in the heat of midday, but the locals are more than making up for this now. If you want to know what’s really going on here, I suspect you could do worse than to pull up a pew anywhere along the foreshore and just tune in to the conversations going on all around you. Issy wonders whether we shouldn’t just plonk ourselves down somewhere and wait for someone to start talking to us. I’m sensing we mightn’t have to wait very long. We mightn’t understand much of what we’re being told, well none in my case, and Issy perhaps only slightly more, but at least we’d feel like we were embracing the local scene.
The bay’s packed with boats, some of them fishing boats, but the majority pleasure craft. Our bathtub at home back in Melbourne looks like it’d be bigger than at least half of
them. I’ve never seen such small boats. I wonder where they go in these things; one small ripple and they’d capsize, and everyone on board would end up in the drink, although in this case ”everyone on board“ couldn’t be more than one person. I can’t see too many life savers in evidence anywhere here which is a bit worrying. Then again we’ve been hearing lots of yelling this afternoon from an enthusiastic water polo game in progress at the club a few hundred metres away along the waterfront, so maybe that’s where the rescue crews hang out.
We head out for dinner. Most restaurants we try to get into are full. The sheep theory of restaurants does however seem to be doing it’s thing yet again; one massive bistro is nearly empty, but we’re running out of options, so we pull up a pew there anyway. The food’s excellent. I‘m not sure why but I think they’re a bit desperate for customers; the owner gives us a voucher and tells us that if we ever come back he’ll give us fifteen percent off, with a strong emphasis on the word “ever”. They also seem just a tad disorganised.
They‘ve run out of half the things on the menu, one dish we order never turns up, and they then can’t tell us what’s available for dessert. No problem with the latter however, they say they’ll just concoct something sweet and serve it up. They then can’t produce a coherent bill, but the food was good, and the asking price doesn’t seem totally unreasonable, so I guess everyone can go away happy. I pity the poor sod who has to reconcile their books.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Malta
We enjoyed our recent visit to Malta. Looks like you are having fun. Keep the blogs coming.