Passport to Malta

Friday March 31 - Today at work was crazy because I was trying to get all of my work done and help inventory the back room, but I had to leave for MALTA at 3:30pm this afternoon. I was working with Leslie most of the day, but had to help a lot at the front desk because customers were coming in like crazy. It finally settled down a bit and we got the vans filled with gas and ready for the ride to the Catania airport. Aaron (from Take 5) and Leslie drove the vans so I loaded my stuff into the van, picked up the people from NAS I and then we all headed to NAS II for their pick-up. The trip was created through Liberty, which is a government subsidized program for single or unaccompanied sailors ranked E1 - E5. The trip cost $248 and included airfare, 2 nights hotel, breakfast, and transportation to and from the airport. The let me go as a "single sailor." We got to Take 5 (the Liberty building) and picked up a huge group of people. Altogether, there were 22 of us going to Malta. We got to the airport and all checked in and headed up to the "International gate." If you would see this airport, you would laugh. Its tiny and ghetto and their actually trying to make it into a liggett International Airport. Sitting in the airport was a blast, we were all meeting each other and I was hanging out mainly with the guys from Public Works (Seabees) and Joe. Our flight was ready and we had to walk down to the shuttle bus to ride 100 ft across the tarmack. Goofy huh? We were flying Air Malta. It was a really nice plane and we left at 6:00pm. The plane ride was gorgeous flying over Southern Sicily and watching the ocean. It was only about a 40 minute plane ride and damn....Malta is small! We flew in, grabbed our stuff, went through customs, got my passport stamped (YEAH, i can stay at Sigonella for 3 more months now!!!), and met up with the tour guide lady who was driving us to the airport. We crammed into 2 vans and headed to Bay Street in St. Julians. Malta is a British colony so yes, they drive on the other side of the rode and other side of the car. It was a trip the entire weekend. I almost got ran over a million times for looking the wrong direction. We got to our hotel, which was called Bay Street also and it was nice! Art deco interior and the rooms were really nice for what I had expected for $250 bucks. We all got checkin in and settled and 10 of us went and ate at the Argentinian Steak House that was near our hotel. Looking out my window in my room was a Hard Rock Cafe, huge arcade, millions of cafes and restaurants, clothing stores, etc. It was right in the middle of all the action and all the dance clubs and bars were right around the corner. Before we went and ate came the dreaded part of the trip. The ATM!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhh, scary..... Yeah, so they don't use Euro down here, they use the Maltese Lire which is 3X our money. SOOOOOO basically, $1 was only $.30. I told myself I wasnt going to spend much so I only pulled out 50LM. That was already $150. Everyone else (the guys) was pullin anywhere from 100-200 LM. I told them they were crazy, but oh well. We went up to the steakhouse and had a great time. I ordered steak kabobs, a few people ordered giant steaks, and 3 people ordered kangeroo. Crazy huh. I was definitely trying that though. We figured out it was going to be really expensive to eat in Malta. The meals were all 8.95-16.95, which seems okay in America, but you had to remember to times that by 3! Oh well, it came with a ton of extra food so it was cool. My kabobs were excellent and the kangeroo was really tender and had no fat on it. It was a little chewy at Medium heat, but it was different. I wouldnt be able to eat more than a few bites, but it was cool to say I've eated some. It was getting late quick and Joe hadnt been feeling good all day so we just went and walked around for a bit then went to bed so we could get up early and go walking on the beach and do some cliff diving. I really wasn't in the mood to go get wasted everynight at the clubs so everyone else came here to do.

Sat. April 1 -Joe woke me up around 7:30 and we headed down to breakfast. We made some mimosas before we left the room and he decided to down a bottle of vodka by the time we were ready for the beach. He's crazy. Breakfast was delicious and we headed to the coastline right after. A few people were up and we all started to walk together. The beach was a few hundred feet from our hotel. We all started to walk around, but the group that was walking with us decided to stay at the beach in front of the hotel. Joe and I continued to walk towards the actual rocky coastline because we wanted to find cliffs to jump off. We entered the beach from a hotel and started our trek. We walked a few miles and then decided to jump into Med. It was so freakin cold, but it felt very refreshing. At that water hole, we started to hunt for sea urchins. They were everywhere. I had to wear my tennis shoes in the water cuz those things are sharp and they cover the rock surfaces underwater. We were pullin em off the rock and playin with em. I think we ended up catching like 25 of them. We threw em back in and headed further down the coast. We walked a few more miles. The rocks were giant and really sharp. I accidentally fell on one and now have a huge gash in my shin. We finally walked about 7 miles until we finally found some cliffs to jump off. The ones we found were about 30-35 feet high. Joe jumped first and I got some cool time-lapse photos. I got up there but chickened out. We jumped together. It was really fun, but wooooo, that water was FREEZING! After I jumped once with him I was brave enough to do it on my own. It was really fun. After a few jumps, we laid down on the lower rocks to sunbathe. Here is the problem. We both fell asleep for like an hour without ever turning over. Needless to say, the back of my body and legs FRIED!! It was one of those sunburns that just ruins your weekend. I could not walk later that night or the next few days. Anyways, back to the story. So after chillin out on the rocks like the Little Mermaid, we were starting to get really thirsty and hungry. We had no idea we were gonna be gone so long and walk like 10 miles, so we didnt bring anything. We walked another mile or so and came up to a little town. We immediately spotted a kiosk and they had the best ice cream ever. We each bought a 2-litre of water and a big ole ice cream. There was fresh cut fruit available and you could pick from vanilla, chocolate, or swirl ice cream. I got big slices of bananas, kiwi, strawberries, cherries, and chocolate syrup. We both agreed we were done hiking for the day and asked how to get back to the town of St. Julians where our hotel was. The guy told us to catch the public bus that runs every 30 min. We found the bus and totally missed an exit anywhere near our hotel. Oh well. It was definitely an adventure. The buses were great, cheap, and on time. We found out we got off the bus in Sliema. We decided to go ahead and walk around the town and find the hotel. We stopped and ate lunch, went into some shops, got a drink at the bar, asked a million people for directions how to find the Bay Street Hotel. We ended up getting back to the hotel in the evening and we all went and ate dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant (yeah, go figure...italian food). We met up with the original gang to eat. We were originally looking for a Mexican Restaurant (theres only one on the island and its in Sliema) but they werent all willing to hop on the public bus to find it. Oh well. They were startin to piss me off, but I think i was just hungry. The restaurant was really good, but yet expensive. After dinner, we all headed down to a pub and had some Maltese beer. It was really good. It was called 1565 and then there was another beer called Cisk. A little later, they all started takin shots of Sambuca and I was ready to leave. The back of my legs were so burnt that they were really stiff and rubbing on the back of my pants. I could barely walk and I knew it would be even worse tomorrow when I woke up. Joe and I headed back towards the hotel and walked around for a little bit. He wasnt feelin very good so we went back up to our rooms and chilled out all night. I wanted to get some good sleep and rest because we were gonna do the "tourist" thing all-day tomorrow.

Sun April 2 - We both woke up early and everyone from last night was just gettin to bed around 6am. We got up and went to breakfast around 7:30 so we could get an early start and head to the capital town of Valletta. Breakfast was good and this time we planned ahead for our long day out. We bought drinks and snacks for the day. The bus wasn't leaving for the airport until 7:30 tonight so we had plenty of time to tour the island and get ourselves lost. We walked around St. Julians for alittle but and found ourselves in the Hilton Malta. It was beautiful, you could totally tell this is where all the rich people and celebrities stay when they come to Malta. It had their own private Marina for all the customer's yachts and sailboats. We walked all around their marina and followed it out to the sea where we hung out walking on the rocks. I had flip flops on so it was pretty tricky and on top of that my legs would barely bend because they were burnt so bad on the back crease of my knees. We could feel ourselves frying in the sun so we were on a mission to find sunscreen. We took our Hilton adventures inside the hotel and bought some sunscreen. It was like 15 euro! Crazy huh. We got some souveniers and used their fancy bathrooms. After the Hilton, we were ready to explore the main cities. We hopped on the public bus and headed for Valletta. We thought we got off at Valletta, but we soon found out that we accidentally got off early and stopped in the Sliema Harbor. Thats the harbor where all the day cruises leave from. We could see the city of Valletta on the other side of the harbor, but there was no way we could walk to there. We jumped back on the bus and headed up the hill. Good thing we didnt try walking, it was almost 4 miles straight up hill. The buses end in Valletta Square. We got out and walked down towards the flea market to do some shopping. The flea market was crazy, they were selling everything imaginable and even birds in little cages too. I bought some Maltese souveniers and after we left the market, we walked towards the Grand Harbour. Before we got to the harbor, we saw signs for the Lascaris War Rooms from WWII. There was a beautiful courtyard that we went to the edge and looked down at the harbor. From the Harbor, you can see the town of Three Cities and the port. The USS Arley Burke (Destroyer) was docked there that week and some large cruise boats. After taking a bunch of pictures, we headed towards the War Rooms. It was really cool to walk through underground tunnels and into these underground rooms. The museum was 6 Euro to get in. It was all about the attack on Malta and Sicily during WWII. They had little headphones to wear that explained the tour in English. It was pretty hoaky and old, but it was alright. The story was wayyy too long, so we ended up just walking through and took a bunch of silly pictures with the mannequins. We left there and headed towards the town square of Valletta. The town was beautiful and the streets are all enclosed by giant limestone walls. We walked through the streets, stopped and watched a street vendor painting, ate lunch at a cute little ristorante, enjoyed some gelato, and walked towards the edge of town. At the end of the town was the old jail, which is now a police training center, Queen Elizabeth's Bell, and the pier where Troy and Gladiator were filmed. An old man with a horse and carriage asked us if we would like a tour around Valletta. It was a little expensive, but we both had some money left over and figured we might as well use it before we left the country. It was really cool. The old man was a native of Malta and was really informative. He brought us all over the city and way more than what we could have ever covered by foot. Also, it was nice to learn the details of the history of the buildings, stores, Grand Harbour, Sliema Harbor, etc. We left Valletta and took the bus down to Sliema. We walked around a little, but the sun was really strong still and we decided to head back towards St. Julians. We rode the bus for a few miles and got off early to walk around and say goodbye to the beach and Med Sea. We walked around and got back on the bus towards the hotel. We were startin to learn the bus routes and directions around Bay Street. We stopped into a little pub that had Murphy's. That's Joes last name, so we had to get one before we left the island. I had the Irish Red, I am starting to love that beer. After that, we stopped into the hotel to see if anyone had arrived yet for the bus back to the airport. A few people were there already and they were all going to grab dinner and hang out on the beach a little longer. Joe and I decided to go to that Mexican restaurant that no one attempted to find. We knew we didnt have much time, but we risked it anways. We ran to the bus and got off at Tex Mex. The food was alright, but it definitely wasn't anything authentic. We walked down the street to the coastline to see the sunset over my favorite little bay with all the colorful boats and played around on the beach and rocks before we headed back. We realized we were running out of time and frantically had to catch the bus back to the hotel to catch the van at 7:30pm. We got back with a few minutes to spare and everyone was ready to leave. We grabbed out bags and loaded the vans. The ride to the airport was freakin hilarious and everyone was so tired that they were slap-happy. We got to the airport, waited in the lines and went through Customs. The flight back only took like 25 minutes in the air. We landed in Catania and the 2 MWR vans were there ready to bring us home. I got back to NAS I right around midnight. The trip was a lot of fun and I knew I'd be sleepin well tonight. Next week will be another week of leaving the island. Destination: Aeolian Islands for my special project for school!