Visitors!

Weeee…I might get another visitor in January. At the end of January, my sister Ann will be visiting me for the first time in Dublin (3 weeks to go weeeee). Today I got talking to another friend Christabelle, who has been planning to come visit some time. She decided that she would join my sister on her weekend visit and so will probably join her. She still needs to buy her ticket etc…but hopefully she will make it.

Therefore in 3 week’s time I should have a minimum of 1, but hopefully 2 (anyone else??) visitors. I have something to look forward to, which is great, especially in these dark nights. It seems that since I moved back after Christmas I am waking up in the dark (sunrise is around 8:30am) and getting home in the dark (the sun sets at around 4:30pm). I cannot wait for the longer days to come. Here in Dublin, winter days are much shorter to those in Malta, but then summer days are much longer. From what I can see, the days grow longer by around 10 mins a week…come on longer days come here come here. And most of the time where the ‘sun’ is out, I am inside :(…so come on sun…come come 🙂

Tired but Happy! Comino!

I already have other posts with a similar name, but nothing else is fitting…knackered and tired but happy…it seems being tired makes me happy…oh well!…

Why, might you ask am I tired? Well this weekend was our planned camping trip to Gozo: Bernard, Sarah, Luke, Chris, Carina, Clayton and myself had met at the beach last Sunday, and a 1 day trip to Comino turned into a 2-day camping trip there. Friday evening Bernard and Sarah went to buy the supplies…and they made sure that we had enough…will tell you more about it later on! Bernard brought the pasta and pesto to my house…and I cooked 1kg of pasta, which I chilled to take up with me to Comino for all of us to eat for Saturday lunch. After this I packed and was ready to be picked up by Bernard on Saturday at 7:45am.

We made our way to Cirkewwa with (between 7 people) 4 big picnic coolers with food and drinks, 3 tents, and numerous bags and rucksacks. We caught the ferry, and we started making our way from Blue Lagoon to find somewhere to camp. Mid-way up the Blue Lagoon hill, a guy in a battered Fiat passed by and he (thankfully) gave a lift to some of our HEAVY picnic coolers (just to put you in the picture…one of the picnic coolers might have 6 bottles of 2Ltr water and 3 bottles of 1.5Ltr Diet Coke i.e. around 17kgs of drinks. The others kept walking until we met up with Chris who had gone with the picnic coolers in the car. He told us where the guy suggested to camp and off we went. There we found a public camp site. We found some space and pitched our tents. At this point we were ravenous…so we had the pesto pasta I had taken up with me. After washing the plates (in sea water…the sea was a mere 20 metres or so away from our tents) some of us slept, whilst the others went for a swim.

After swimming we dried up and rested (the others slept, whilst me and Bernard played cards). Me and Bernard then went for a short walk to explore the surroundings. We found some clean (very clean) public toilets, to which I am grateful, and then walked to a small chapel in the vicinity to check whether mass is celebrated. We were surprised…there were two masses on Saturday evening (6pm and 7:15pm) and one on Sunday morning (5:45am). We then swam a bit, has a snack (i.e. a whole meal for most people…of galletti, pate, crisps, tortillas etc), dried up and half of us went to the 6pm mass. I doubt whether I understood 10% of the mass…it was in Maltese…but the priest was old, spoke very fast in a thick accent and did not even breathe it seems between sentences. This does not augur well when you are tired, but oh well.

After mass…the remainder went to the 7:15pm mass, whilst we prepared the cooking area for the night’s meal. Once they arrived from mass, we started cooking. This was the menu for the night (per person mind you):

                1 Maltese Sausage

                1 Frankfurter sausage (as a hot dog)

                1 chicken kebab

                1 burger (inside a burger roll)

                1 wudy cheese sausage

                2 other sausages

You must also keep in mind that we were 7 people…however e.g. the burger packs were 10 each…therefore we had extra of everything aaaaaa…We certainly did not go hungry.

 After this we talked a bit, and my first problems of the night surfaced. My intestines were certainly unhappy…and I rushed to the clean toilets for the first time of the night. The others kept drinking and talking for some time, but I decided to turn in (although I did not sleep). After about 30mins (about 11pm), Bernard and Carina, who were my tent mates joined me in the camp and we proceeded to try to sleep. The guys from the next group who were camping in the next area decided they wanted to watch a movie (on a laptop I presume) at quite a high volume…but anyways…I still tried to sleep. At 12pm, I woke up in a panic…woke up Bernard and he gave me his torch, I searched for toilet paper and I rushed to the toilets nearby aaaaaaa. Then back to the tent, but this story repeated itself twice more till 3am L

 However I finally managed to sleep a bit weeeee…the next morning we woke up and had breakfast…3 sausages, baked beans, eggs, bread, bacon, nutella aaaaaaa…I did not have much due to the night’s experience aaaaaaa. Whilst setting up and waiting for the last people to wake up (Carina and Luke :D), we also noticed we had visitors in the night…we could notice small paws all around our tents…We had all heard that mice are a common occurrence on Comino…in fact we made sure to wash everything we ate in. Any food was either within the tents themselves or in closed picnic coolers…however it seems the mice came to check anyways…haha…nothing for you 😀

 Carina and Sarah then left to go to the Blue Lagoon to check whether we could go swim there (the day before jellyfish could be seen there, however the wind had died down, and they happily reported back that no jellyfish were there…Wippie…during this time we put down our tents and started packing…when they arrived back, we continued with our packing and then started to make our way to the Blue Lagoon (about 30mins away on foot). We found some space to put down our things at the Blue lagoon, and off swimming we went :D…

The Blue Lagoon

 The seas were crystal clear Although relatively cold…although that did not dampen our joy). We swam around, went to Cominotto and crossed over from under it (there is a cave :D) to the other side, and generally had a good time 😀 We then had something to eat (ftira with rio mare tuna insalatissime for the others, ftira with Nutella for me, and some crisps). Then back swimming we went. At about 3pm we went up to dry and proceeded to make our way to the boat boarding queue. We learned that the next boat was at 4pm…so we waited…the queue (not so much of a queue as a bunch of people) waited until our boat arrived…the thing is that a lot of different operators make use of the same quay…so people have to make their way through millions of others to reach their boat…we were way up front haha but we waited until our boat arrived…wee a boat from United Comino ferries which accepts red tickets (there were others with Blue tickets…I believe they go to another place, not Cirkewwa), and off we went.

 Our fantastic trip to Comino was over L…I did not even capture how much fun we had in this blog…however I would not change it for the world. We reached Malta, and did not want the joy to end. So we all went home, had a shower, slept for around 1hour, and back out we went. Chris collected me and Bernard…the others went with Carina, and we went to Tigne where we had something to eat and chatted some more 😀

 Next up: BBQ at my house next Saturday, to look at the fireworks at Qrendi and Mqabba, and have a good time WEEEEEE!!

Weekend nearly over!

Sunday evening, and another weekend is over! Not much happened. Saturday evening, however I went to an International Evening organised as part of the FIMCAP, Eurocamp 2010 (AMASS), held in Malta, and hosted by ZAK Malta. I was very active in ZAK a couple of years back, and I have fond memories of my time there. Bernard is still active, and hence he was invited (with me in tow) to the International Evening. This evening basically consists of people from the different countries sharing typical foods of their countries, followed by a presentation (play or song) typical of the country. It was a great evening overall. I met a couple of my ZAK friends, many of which are Bernard and my friends away from ZAK too and rekindled nostalgia for my ZAK years. ZAK brings great memories to me…live ins, exchanges, camps etc etc.

Today I went to eat at my aunts’ house for lunch. This week, Zurrieq (my home town) celebrates one of its 2 local feasts, known as Tal-Karmnu (Our Lady of Mount Carmel). I enjoy feasts, but never really go to any. I know is sounds contradictory but it is true. Especially since the number of close friends in Zurrieq is quite low, I tend to skip the Zurrieq feasts. After lunch, I went to Bernard’s house, and after some rest, we went swimming together with his parents, 2 of his aunts, a cousin and PIXY THE PIXX. We went to Fra Ben at Qawra. Reason being that this weekend very strong winds are blowing over Malta (Force 7). This bay is sheltered from these Northwesterly winds and therefore we could enjoy a swim.

Now I am back home, I started packing for my trip to Dublin tomorrow, and soon will be off to sleep. Cannot wait to go! I will be visiting the University I should hopefully start my PhD in next year, meet my supervisor etc etc. I hope everything turns out fine. quite a bit stressed at the moment (Not too stressed. More excited I think).

Good night

Cec

Pixy goes SWIMMING!

Today, after work I rushed back home changed into my swim suit, went to Bernard’s and off we left to Marsascala. It was Pixy d Pixx’s first time swimming in Malta (yesterday I also went swimming at Ghar Lapsi, whilst Bernard and my cousin were diving, however we did not take Pixy with us). Here is a photo of me and Pixy in the sea.

Pixy and Me at Marsascala

I am finding it to be a great thing to be able to go swimming for an hour or so after work. The weather is such that you do not feel like doing anything. So like this you get to cool off, and then arrive home when the sun has gone down and it is not so hot after all 😀 This is the first time in ever I think that I have gone swimming after work since I finished my degree course. The first summer, Bernard was away for 6 weeks on an internship, last year at this time I was going to Uni nearly every day to work on my master’s analysis. So this year it feels great to be able to relax after work :D. Although I believe that once the PhD starts (or even after next week when I visit Dublin), the work starts again 😀

The Heat is ON!

…Definitely on!…Lately, temperatures in Malta have gone up considerably, reaching levels which make it uncomfortable for anyone…air temperatures are reaching 35 Degrees C, with night temperatures at 24 deg C minimum…This makes me feel absolutely lethargic. After work all I feel like doing is a whole lot of NOTHING! I am only glad that I managed to submit my master’s thesis in time, because I would not have felt like working in this heat. At the moment I have been planning to research some articles related to my upcoming PhD…however I cannot seem to concentrate aaaaaaaaaaa…

I know that most of you in Europe are feeling the heat too…but I guess in Malta it is certainly much more unbearable 😦 In 2 weeks’ time I will be in Dublin , and I hope that it will be slightly cooler there 😀