The (Mis) Adventures Begin!

Monday, Sept. 26 (first full day in Malta)

NOTE: I still have limited internet until Friday, but finally had the brilliant idea to compose this in a Word doc and then just add the photos on when I’m on Blogger. Hey, I’m still jet-lagged, give me a break! J

I headed down to the lobby at around 8:20 or 25, and asked about the shuttle to go to the University, and of course it had come at 8:15 and that was the only one today. I will be up and down there early tomorrow so that I don’t miss it! Apparently the girl yesterday had it wrong and it is 8:15 all week (Fri they come for us at 8 or so for the Orientation) and then next week, when school starts, it is on a more regular schedule and comes every hour or so.

Foiled in my plan to head to the university until tomorrow, I decided to just walk around the neighborhood a little bit. Directly across from the entrance to the Residence is an elementary school, which was just getting all of its pupils in when I headed out so the kids were loud and jumpy – I bet it was the first day of school, since it was Monday. A girl wearing a backpack walked out of the University Residence (henceforth referred to as UR) just ahead of me, so I decided to follow her – lesson learned, don’t just follow people. I didn’t really get that far or that lost, but I should have looked at Google maps or whatever the map is here before I headed out, because I went the opposite way of how I meant to go! Well, I didn’t see too much in that direction after awhile, so I headed back towards the roundabout with the “Wedding Cake” in the middle and then saw the local parish church, St. Saviour (on Misrah it-Trasfigurazzjoni, which translates to Transfiguration Street! Yay for random HP sightings!) The outer façade is pretty, but the guidebook says it is plain in comparison with the interior, which I did not see because I didn’t go open the giant doors. I might get to see it on Sunday if that’s where P (one of my fellow ETAs) wants to go to mass.

The “Wedding Cake” is actually Lija (lee-yuh, not lee-juh) Tower (pictures below) and is now a roundabout that used to be a part of the San Anton Gardens and Palace. The palace was built in the early 1600s by Grand Master Antoine de Paule, and is now the official residence of the President! Therefore, the palace is unsurprisingly closed to the public, but the gardens are open and free during daylight. The locals call the tower the Wedding Cake as it was built for Paule’s wedding, and because it looks like one!

I then stopped in a very small local grocery store on that same street to get water and a few basics. I also got a bottle of Kinnie, the local soft drink. It’s a carbonated bitter orange and herbs drink, and it’s a bit too bitter for me! I did get the diet version though, so perhaps it is sweeter in the full sugar regular kind. I also bought my first small baguette of fresh Maltese bread, and felt good when the owner started speaking to me in rapid Maltese before realizing that I only spoke English. I managed to throw in a “grazzi hafna” (pronounced grat-zee aahf-nah, meaning thanks very much) at the end though, so at least I tried!  After collecting my 10 Euros worth of stuff, I headed back down the street towards the roundabout where the “Wedding Cake” is, thinking that that was the way to get back to the UR street.

Alas, I found myself literally going in circles around the roundabout, probably to the amusement of the older guy sitting at the bus stop with his spaniel. Finally I thought that I must have just forgotten a turn over by the playground, which I remembered seeing on the way out, but remember, on the way out, I had been following backpack girl! Finally, I walked down a street that I knew wasn’t the right one because I had spotted the mail-man, and figured that being the mail delivery guy, he should have both knowledge of the streets and speak English, being that a bunch of the mail is probably in English, right? Umm, no. He did know how to get back to the UR, but we ended up playing the point and gesture game, as his English wasn’t up to direction giving, and my Maltese is basically limited to yes (Iva), no (le), and grazzi hafna! After going around the roundabout one last time, I headed up the street where the grocer I had just been was, only to realize that the street I had been looking for was not directly off the roundabout, but rather off of this street the whole time. So I had basically been about three blocks away from the UR the entire time I was ‘lost’. Whoops!

Anyway, I finally made it back to my room with the food, put it away, and then headed back down to Housekeeping to rent cooking supplies.  How it works is that you choose whatever you think you might need from their selection, and then each item has a price that they total up and then you put down the deposit in cash up at Reception. So now I’m out 70 euro for the time being, but I will get it back when I return all of the supplies upon checking out.

I lugged the cooking things up to the room, and then put them away and organized my food supply a little bit. I have a fridge/freezer, a stove/oven, and a sink (with non-potable water, so one wonders what I can do with the water? Does anyone know if you boil non-potable water if it is then okay to use?) but no microwave, so I will be creative in my cooking methods!

I spent the next few hours getting stuff out and organizing it from my suitcases, waiting for it to get a little later (and hopefully cooler) before heading out again to try to find the larger supermarket, which is where I had thought I was going in the morning. During this unpacking time, I also put my Kindle on ‘text-to-speech’ mode and had it read to me from the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire.  Although it is an automated voice, it is much less annoying when you have already read the book and know what is happening, and it was just nice to have that playing in the background so it wasn’t so quiet in the room. [Also, if you like dystopian-esque Young Adult fiction, the Hunger Games series is well done!]

It got to be 5:30 or so, and I figured I should head to the bigger supermarket because they close at 7. I looked up how to get there on Google maps, but I have to figure out if there’s a local equivalent, because Google would only give me driving directions, not walking directions, but I figured it out.  This, of course, if I had thought about it, was not a great time to go, because although it was cooler, it was also 5:30, which meant that there was lots of traffic with everyone headed home from work.  I managed to get there without being run over, thankfully, and then began the ordeal of trying to figure out where the heck the entrance was. It was not in the front of the store, no, that would be far too sensible. I finally ended up going through the underground car park (aka parking garage) and taking the lift up to level 1 where the store is. I then ‘paid’ my 1 euro coin for a cart (you put in a euro to get the cart out, and when you put it back with the other carts, there’s a latch that you connect and then the slot opens to get your coin back out.  The store was large and crowded, but had what I needed (and a few things besides – they have a lot of things to look at!) so I was happy, besides that I couldn’t find a small fan, though since the store is large, I may have just missed that aisle. After checking out though, that side of the store’s checkouts put me out on the wrong street, so I tried to go back in to go back up through the front, but once you check out, you can’t go back through the store, so I went out the back way and went through a couple of backstreets to make it back over to the main road. From there, I knew how to get back to the UR, but just had to deal with the traffic again, though it was lighter since it was a little after 7 at this point.

On the way back, I noticed that a lot of people were out for what I am guessing is the nightly passagiata, the evening stroll, many with their dogs (none of the dogs have been any bigger than a large spaniel – I wonder if people tend to buy/breed smaller breeds here just because they are more space effective?) and many wandering kitties – I think strays, but perhaps just neighborhood strollers?  I stopped at one of the benches to take a quick photo of the “Wedding Cake” at night, all lit up. I thought about walking the two blocks over to see if the church was lit up as well, but had some cold food, so figured I should just go straight back to the UR.

The rest of my night was nothing to write home about (heehee), so I’ll leave you with some pictures of some of the things I purchased and saw J

 ^ The "Wedding Cake" Lija Tower

 ^ A remnant of the British - red QEII post boxes!

^The parish church in Lija

 ^View of the other balconies at the UR from my balcony

 ^View across the street from my balcony

^Santa Tereza School, across the street from my bedroom - if you're not up by 8:15, the kids will wake you up :)

 ^ The Wedding Cake at night

^ Maltese bread, Italian pasta, Maltese crackers, and italian Kinder brand 'cereal,' which is more like a little dessert than breakfast, as it has wheat cereal covered in a layer of chocolate :)

^ Kinnie, Maltese Diet Coke (which tastes more like Mexico's Coca Light than U.S. Diet Coke), 2.5% milk which tastes creamy to me since I'm used to non-fat, and coldcuts termed 'chicken luncheonmeat' which I have yet to try!

 ^ The reusable (woot!) bag from Smart, the largest supermarket in the area

^British dish soap! Who doesn't want Fairy clean dishes?

^Turkish Chicken Noodle Soup packet - now if I can just find out whether or not I can use tap water...

 ^ the little kitchen in my dorm

^and one last photo for this post - why yes, that is a Harry Potter poster resting on the (obviously not on) heater in my bedroom! Did you really think I went anywhere without HP?! :)

Thanks for reading this far (or thanks for skipping down to look at the pictures :D) and I hope to update again soon!

P.S. I just so happen to LOVE comments...just throwing that out there :)

Lots of love from Malta,
MH

Now actually broadcasting from Malta!

Just a very quick post to let everyone know that I've arrived in Malta! Stories to share already, but I haven't met with my university contact, because it is Sunday, and so I'm on paid internet and therefore very short time frame for this post! Suffice to say that five flights of stairs plus five heavy suitcases does in no alternate universe, even, end up with a happy MH, but hurrah for happy and helpful dorm reception workers and US Embassy contact!  I promise to update again soon, with pictures, once I have my username, etc., for the free university internet :)

Hugs from Malta! Now the blog title is true - I've gone from SAN to PHL to FRA to MLA!

Less than a week...and the emotions are bubbling...

With one final full weekend left, Mom and I went out Saturday to see the sights (aka do errands and buy a few last things). After stopping by the Del Mar Farmer's Market and seeing a friend who runs a pastry stand there with her mom (hi S!), we headed down the 8 to go to various shops and to get a to-go pint of my very favorite potato salad from D.Z. Akin's (SD people, if you've not been, go now!).

That night, we got together with the El Cajon cousins to have one last dinner and outing prior to my departure. We had a tasty Italian dinner at an off-the-beaten-track family place, and then to continue the errands that Mom and I had been up to all day, we headed off to the ever popular, especially at 10 p.m., Wally World (aka Wal-Mart). With four adults, a 3 1/2 year old, 1 1/2 year old, and 1 month old, you can just imagine the number of carts we used and the number of shampoo bottles that were squeezed and sniffed (but not spilled, luckily). I take with me the fun memory of playing with those colorful bouncy balls in the kid's toy aisle with the two boys while their little sister snoozed on.

After we all made it out to the cars, and the boys worked off some energy, we finally strapped the kids into their car seats and it was time for me to say my goodbyes. The two younger kidlets obviously didn't really understand what I was explaining, but the oldest, who just moments before had been naughtily sticking his hands in trash cans and climbing on grocery carts, gave me my first (but probably not last) teary moment about leaving.

MH: Hey J, can I have a goodbye kiss?
J: Nooooo (flails arms)
MH: But J, I'm leaving for a long time. Remember when you went on the plane to go see Grandma? (He nods.) Well, I'm going on a trip too. I'm going to get on a big plane and fly pretty far away. I'm going to another place to teach them about us and to learn about how they do things there. So I won't see you for a long time. So we have to hug goodbye now, okay?
J: But you can't!
MH: Why?
J: Because I'll miss you too much.
MH: (starts crying and hugs him)

Although I don't see the kids everyday, I tend to see them at least every month or so, and it's hard to think that the 1 month old will be almost a year old when I return, and won't remember me.

But I cheer myself up by reminding myself why I'm going. Not only because it's an honor to be chosen, and it will look good on my resume, and I've already bought the ticket haha, not things like that, but rather because my experiences in Malta will affect not only me, but those I interact with as well. When I return, I will be able to share what I have learned with not only my academic colleagues, but my family and friends as well. I'll be able to share it with my little cousins, who have only ever known how we do things in San Diego.

The small but vibrant wild splash of adventure and adrenaline that lies carefully concealed may shock some who think that they have me figured out. It’s the one that occasionally pops out and makes me stand in front of the crowd, though that is certainly not my favorite activity. It allows my overbearing and mollycoddling personality to recede at times and lets me act like a "normal" early-twenties girl. (Though as the sign at Marshalls that I almost got read: "Normal in this house is only a setting on the washing machine!")  I’d really love to be that way all the time, but that’s just not who I am. I'm type-A, a planner, not usually one to just jet off into the unknown. But this fellowship will push my boundaries just enough to help me learn and grow, and while I'm terribly nervous, I am also incredibly excited. Hopefully my lovely exploratory streak will jolt back in just in time for takeoff.  
.  

Culture and History in Malta (a.k.a. Why MH decided to apply here, among her many choices)

First, a general current Malta overview lovingly stolen from the University's site, as they explain it much more succinctly than I would (http://www.um.edu.mt/aboutmalta), [comments in brackets inserted by moi]

"At the crossroads of the Mediterranean, halfway between Europe and North Africa [yes, Malta is right in the path of all of the northern Africa unrest and people fleeing to Europe; no, my mother isn't thrilled about that; yes, I should be safe there- it is still western Europe, after all; no, you can't talk me out of it now - I've already booked my flight!] lies the Maltese archipelago consisting of 3 main islands: Malta (the largest island), Gozo and Comino covering a surface area of 316 km². Of the three islands, Malta can be considered to be the hub of administrative and commercial activities [and the place where I will be living, working, and spending most of my time]. Gozo, the second largest island, is more rural, characterised by fishing, tourism, crafts, and agriculture, while tiny Comino is largely uninhabited [a grand total of about 4 to 10 people live there at any one time, according to my guidebooks].

Because of its strategic geographic location and its excellent harbours, Malta has always been a major attraction to the world’s maritime powers. As a result, Malta was ruled by many foreign powers, starting with the Phoenicians and ending with the British [they gained independence in 1964 but were still part of the British Commonwealth until 1974, when they became a republic. They joined the European Union in 2004, and adopted the Euro in 2008, switching over from the Maltese Lira.] Thus Malta was in continuous contact with diverse cultures, which greatly enriched the islands’ historical, archaeological and cultural heritage. Malta boasts of a 7,000-year history with prehistoric temples older than the pyramids of Egypt and Britain’s Stonehenge. {For such a tiny country, they have 3 UNESCO World Heritage sites! The entire City of Valletta, the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, and the Megalithic Temples of Malta }[See http://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/mt  for more info]

Today, Malta’s relaxed lifestyle, its climate and sea make it a favourite holiday destination. The Maltese Islands also boast of a number of natural attractions, from its unique limestone walls and natural harbours to its clear crystalline waters and beautiful coastline as well as a number of folklore and traditions ingrained deep in the heart of the Maltese culture.

The Maltese economy has experienced a shift over the years - from a manufacturing based economy the islands have moved towards a more service-oriented industry. The growth in the services sector is mainly due to great human resource potential found in Malta and its strategic location in a very important region. In the past few years steady growth has been registered in the provision and development of niche financial, ICT and tourism services. Malta is thus strengthening its position as a major hub for the provision of transhipment, financial services and Information and Communication Technology and pushing to become a leader in the region.

Malta's climate is typical of the Mediterranean; sunny and with hot, dry summers, warm and sporadically wet autumns, and short, cool winters with adequate rainfall [similar to SoCal, so I don't have to pack winter jackets! Huzzah!]. The average hours of sunshine during mid-winter range from five to six hours. Although mild, winters are generally damp and rainy with occasionally short chilly periods.

Malta has two official languages, Maltese and English, a legacy of British rule that lasted over 160 years. Malta became independent in 1964, a republic in 1974 and joined the European Union in May 2004 [Hey, I said this already!]. Although predominantly Catholic [very much so - about 96% of the population], the Constitution of Malta guarantees freedom of worship and association. [One of my favorite factoids is that there are so many churches in Malta that even if I visited a different one every day of my time there, I still wouldn't have seen them all. There are 360+ churches!]

Malta is a truly exceptional island having preserved much of its extraordinary past influenced by the different cultures which have left their mark upon this small state. Malta, Gozo, and Comino are renowned for the hospitality and generosity shown by the people, with the typical warmth and spontaneity of the Mediterranean region."

The Heritage Malta site (http://www.heritagemalta.org/home.html) has lots of great information and pictures about the various historical sites and museums, many if not all of which I plan to visit while I'm there.  A bit more history: Malta has experienced domination after domination. The Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, Ottomans, the Knights of St John, the French, and the British have all ruled in Malta - some more benignly than others.  The apostle Paul was even shipwrecked there , and there is a national Festa day to celebrate that!  Each group has left its mark on the architecture, agriculture, language and culture of the islands.

Now, I did promise pictures, so here's just a few to tantalize your eyeballs:

^Marxaxxlokk Harbor

^ a view of Valletta, the capital

^ luzzi, traditional fishing boats

^Fort Manoel

^the interior of St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta

^ a fun map showing some of the major sites

 

Oh, what's this? You'd like to know more about Malta? All right then...

To continue on the where is Malta & why am I going there theme, here's more information to whet your learning palette:

Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships have many components. I am expected to teach part time, do academic study and research part time, and contribute to the community. I will arrive in Malta in late September (just over two weeks now - yikes!) and get busy getting my footing in all of the above!

To learn more about the Fulbright program, visit: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/about.html

About my ETA in Malta: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/program_country.html?id=163

About Malta and tourism to Malta: http://www.visitmalta.com/main

L-Universita ta' Malta website: http://www.um.edu.mt/


My teaching position, as far as I know right now (I will get more details once I get there and meet with officials, etc.) will span three levels of education — upper elementary, junior college and university.

Malta, which was a British protectorate for about 150 years, currently maintains both Maltese and English as co-official languages. Almost everyone speaks or is learning to speak English, especially in the touristy areas, so that will be helpful in getting around until I learn more Maltese (I've only got the most basic of phrases down now, and even those I am unsure if I am pronouncing correctly!). My planned contribution to the community is two-fold. I hope to either join or form a local cooking club near wherever we end up getting an apartment, and I will also be teaching English at a refugee center, which will, of course, be a totally new and valuable experience.

I really don't have many details beyond that yet. Lots will not be finalized until I and my fellow ETAs arrive and meet with the U.S. Embassy, education officials, professors from the university, etc. When I first arrive, I will be staying in a small apartment at the University Residence complex operated by the University for a few weeks, and the the other girls and I will be able to go apartment hunting after all of our assignments are fixed.

My journey will continue until late June 2012, and hopefully I might get to do a little bit of travelling around Europe before returning to the U.S. and jumping into Grad School!

See the next post for a few more details about Malta's history and culture (with shiny pictures, I promise!)!