Festa!

We live in the village of Attard, but really we're practically in Balzan. In fact, I think our area could legitimately be called Baltard. Or even the two whole villages together.

One thing that clearly separates the two, though, is the festa. In the summer every village has a festa to a saint, some villages have multiple festas over the summer season. We somehow had gotten the idea that this past weekend was Attard's festa, but in fact it was Balzan's. Fireworks began on Thursday, during the day, of course. It seems loud noises are even more appealing here than pretty lights, because an awful lot of fireworks go off during the day in this country. We are uniquely situated, because Attard is smack in the center of the country, and most high buildings are located on the coast. This means we have amazing views from the roof of our house. In fact, we have left a couple of chairs up on the top floor (which is really just a storage area) so we can bring the chairs out to watch fireworks in the distance on the weekend.

This weekend we were at the Ambassador's Residence on Friday night (when festa celebrations really start to heat up), because it was the official celebration of our Independence Day. The night was actually cool enough that Terry was comfortable in a long sleeved shirt and I really considered going home for a wrap - we live a convenient walking distance from the Ambassador - except that I had nothing that would match my dress so I just endured.

Saturday we had planned to check out the festa. After our experience with my father at Qormi's festa, we had resolved onto to attend ones we could walk to, and this certainly qualified. Again, we mistakenly thought the festa was in Attard, so our plan was to eat dinner in Balzan, and then head over to Attard. We were lucky that there were restaurants open in Balzan, and decided to try Fra Giuseppe, which is just off the square where the church is located. Terry had a fantastic salad and acceptable ftira (a panini-like grilled sandwich), while I had a mediocre soup and salad with the same yummy dressing, but a quite awful piece of not-grilled chicken.
Stuffed, we did not partake in any of the festa food, which is largely similar to fair-food back in the USA - soft serve ice cream, cotton candy, etc. No fried dough or funnel cake, though, but there are several stands selling Maltese nougat.

The decorations at a festa are ornate, with banners, lights, and statuary. The church is completely lit up with multicolored lights. The main street was lined with statues of the major Old Testament figures. We had not thought to bring our camera, but will not make that mistake when we go to other local festas, because it really is amazing the detail, and the work, that goes into preparing for these things. The other amazing event is the music - every little village has a band club, some - like Balzan - have two. There was one band set up in the square, and one that looked like a marching band except that they didn't march anywhere, just stood there, that we listened to for a while on our way home. The quality of the music was impressive, again you have to remember that the only pool of talent they have to draw from is from the folks who live in the area, as a good musician living in, say, Hamrun will be in Hamrun's band club. According to wikipedia, Balzan's population is a whopping 3,400.

We debated sticking around for the fireworks, but decided it would be better to watch them from our roof. Wouldn't you know, Balzan is in the direction of the few tall trees in our neighborhood, so we could only see the high ones! We ended up watching the fireworks from some other village's festa off in the distance ... to be honest, the other village had more consistent delivery, and slightly more impressive fireworks anyway. Terry tried to take photos of the fireworks but they just didn't come out.

Sunday is usually the main event of a festa, when the statue of the saint being honored is carried around, but we did not get going early enough in the morning to see that part. More fireworks Sunday evening, and on Monday the street cleaners were already hard at work.

Lemons, lemons everywhere

The lemon tree is in full fruit production. We have been picking them this week, and as you can see we have a major motherlode of lemons. The one tree that produces all the fruit is not too big, and we have no ladder to get the stuff way at the top, so you can only imagine the production potential we have here. Terry had some really good intentions of ways we could use the lemons in cleaning products, but after some research we learned that lemon scent, and lemon oil, are common ingredients in household cleaners. However, lemon juice itself has limited application, one major use is cleaning copper. Well, we don't exactly have a large copper pot collection, so that information is largely useless to us.

We froze quite a bit of juice, and Terry has the idea of essentially canning a batch of lemon juice to avoid taking up so much freezer space - also, because of power outages, large amounts of freezer storage is a risky proposition. We'll report back on how that goes. In the meantime, there will be lemonade flowing from our home for quite a long time to come, and I think we'll try lemon curd, lemon pie, etc.

4th of July

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I brought back steaks from my trip to England. It is permitted to bring meats within/among EU countries so it was perfectly legal. Between our weekend outing and Terry's work-til-2am night at work, we have been a little slower than planned at finishing them (we had 3 meals' worth). The night of July 3rd, the temperature cooled off, Terry was able to leave work when it was still light out, and we grilled and feasted on good red meat. Then he put together our new TV stand and we tested a DVD - worked wonderfully. It was a lovely way to begin the holiday.

On the 4th we had to get up earlier than normal for a day off because we both had plans. Terry - the guy who can't handle heat - decided playing softball on the 4th of July was a must. I was going with some folks to Buggiba to an "Underwater Safari" - essentially a boat with underwater viewing section. This woman's daughter had gone with her school and really enjoyed it, so we decided we'd go too.

We gave ourselves about 45 minutes to travel about 10km. Silly us. It took at least 15-20 minutes just to go about 1km through Sliema and St. Julian. By the time we got to Buggiba it was already 10:30am - boat launch time - and we hadn't found parking or the boat site. So, we ended up settling in to the noon boat ride and we had about an hour to kill in Buggiba, where none of us had been previously. Buggiba is a coastal town on the northern portion of Malta. It is very cute, lots of shops and little places to stop for snacks and a cold drink. In some ways it is a lot like Sliema, clearly tourist-focused - but with less traffic and fewer people crowding the promenade. Here is a bit of information about it.

The boat was much smaller than we had expected, and from the top we could see down into the viewing area. We could see a surprising number of fish just right off the dock, and they were surprisingly large. We had only seen little guppy sized fish everywhere else along the coast, and these were at least a foot long. No, not big, but you see our comparison. The boat took us out toward an island with a statue of St. Paul and we went down to the viewing area.

Those who are prone to seasickness may not have enjoyed this part, as it got a bit warm and stuffy down there and occasionally another boat would pass nearby and the wake would rock us a bit. The viewing area was basically a row of fold down benches, for 2 people each, and rows of windows on both sides. From what we could gather when we re-emerged upstairs, the boat took us around the island. It was probably 20-30 minutes in the viewing area. We did see a LOT of fish. One minor complaint I had is that there was a great poster of the fish one finds in Malta, with their pictures and names so you could match what you see with its name. However, the poster can't be seen from anywhere other than a few certain benches in the middle, and once you were seated you couldn't get up. There were a few we saw often enough that we remembered their markings and were able to match them up when we walked past when viewing time was over, but I would have preferred to have access to the poster while we were watching. Although there was a decent variety of fish, they weren't particularly colorful or with interesting markings, for the most part. Yes, I learned to dive in Australia so I have probably been completely spoiled and jaded regarding the aquatic life found in most parts of the world.

All in all, I thought the tour was worth it, and would go again with visitors who want to take the trip. We had tentatively planning to go with Terry's dad, we thought it was something he would really enjoy, but as he and Terry get horribly seasick, we may give it a skip.

The ride home was of course only 25 minutes, as we had expected the ride there to be, and Terry and I met up and headed out to a barbecue hosted by an embassy family. Our contribution was my apple pie, which was not as good as it can be - I have to tinker with the timing of things in this climate. Also using fresh lemon juice has a different effect from using the concentrated stuff we have at home.

It was a little strange having a 4th of July without fireworks, not even on TV, but it turns out our village is having its festa this weekend so the fireworks are a-comin'.

Beaches

July 1, 2007
Today was full of excitement. We decided to head down to Marsaxlokk (pronounced Marsa-schlock), which is a little fishing village to the south and where the traditional fishing boats are still used by fishermen who still go out and get the day's catch. There are also several beaches nearby and we figured we'd finally get ourselves wet in the Med. Like most beaches in Malta, the ones we visited (went in at 2, only walked a bit around a third) were rocky, craggy, had some sharp dropoffs and were generally not like the nice soft sandy gently sloping beaches at home.

Within our first ten minutes in the water I got stung by a jellyfish on my arm, painful but not dangerous, and Terry's water shoes - never before worn - got a huge tear in them. Later, I cut my knee on a rock and Terry got a couple big scrapes on his arm. I should mention that we are not really beach people, in fact we have never been to a beach together in our 7 years together. Days like today remind us why, and make us really happy to have our pool.

The coolest thing, though, was witnessed at the beach. A power boat came towards the shore and it had advertising of a local ice cream company. We kept saying "Do you think...?" and "Is it..?". Then we saw the swimmers all coming to shore and grabbing their wallets. Yup, we got our first sighting of the Ice-Cream Boat. The folks lined up, got their treats, then the boat motored off to another shore. What a great idea!

After the excitement at the first two beaches, it was getting cooler when we hit the third and we just walked it a bit. The interesting part was that it had clearly been a salt pan at one point. Some parts still had crusted salt dried along the relatively smooth and even ground. We'll probably go back there with the camera. There were a bunch of people fishing in that area, we didn't see any swimmers.

We finished the night with dinner outside at a restaurant in the town of Marsaxlokk itself. We each got the fresh catch - sea bass and breem - the breem was better than the bass, and that seems to be a trend around here. They were both tasty, though, and quite fresh. It was cool enough that Terry was comfortable and I needed my sweater. All in all the evening was lovely, and I don't see us going back to a beach any time soon.

Visitors, finale

Saturday was a busy day. They finally came to see the house - rather than chance them getting so horribly lost trying to find our town, I went to the hotel and they followed me home. Dad could be a bit better about sticking with the car in the lead, but we did manage to make it all in one piece. After touring our complete mess of a house (we are in the process of unpacking, everything arrived on Tuesday and they arrived on Wednesday so understandably much of the unpacking has been delayed) we wandered over to the San Anton Gardens. It is easy to see that things are going to much less pretty come deep summer, many of the flowers and plants are already wilting and dying off. The Gardens will always have the trees and some of the shrubbery, though, and it is largely shaded so the walk was pleasant.

We were hungry and in need of cold water after the stroll, so we headed to the Corinthian across the street. I had heard good things about the restaurant Rickshaw - pan-Asian - and it was the only thing open so we ended up there by default. I can honestly say it was the best Asian food we have had yet in Malta, with the exception of Emperor of India. My dish was the weakest but everyone else's was quite tasty. Even better, the prices were much more reasonable than I had expected and they deliver to Attard and Balzan so when baby comes, we may have Rickshaw dinner more often than anything else!

Comfortable and sated, we piled into dad's air conditioned car and set out for Qormi, as the nearest of the weekend's festas. We had heard fireworks generally begin around 10pm at the festas and at 9:45 they had already started. We could see them from the highway as we drove in. Finding the center of town was easy enough, finding parking was much more difficult. We were pretty sure we would never find the car once we'd left it, and Terry and I worked hard to remember routes and landmarks so that we would in fact find the car before flights out the next evening. Dad had thought that by remembering the name of the street where the car was parked we would be assured of finding our way back. You'd think that after 3 days in the country he would know better :-)

Fireworks continued nearly continuously as we wandered into the center of town, where there was not much going on other than all the food and "stuff" stands. We all got sweet treats and walked the length of the festa area. There had been bands playing earlier but they were long gone now. We watched the fireworks for a while - it was essentially what everyone was doing - and noted a whole series of firework displays set up in the center of town. They looked like they would be quite a finale, and were told they would go off around 11:30pm. Dad and Yvonne had to pack, and we still needed to find the car and find our way out of Qormi, so we regretfully decided not to wait. Around 11pm we set out back home. Miraculously, we did find the car without getting lost. However, it took us 3 tries and a very roundabout route to get out of Qormi ("...you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave..."). At 11:30pm, when we were finally back on the main road, we could still see the fireworks. Two hours of nearly consistent fireworks, and they weren't even at the finale yet - we were incredibly impressed. Terry and I promised ourselves to attend all the festas we could - as long as they were walkable. No more driving to a festa.

On dad's last day in Malta, we didn't do much other than pack and get ourselves to the airport. Terry dropped me off at the hotel - we ended up having dessert with them before he headed home - and we set out to get to the airport our full 2 hours before takeoff.

As we thought may happen, there were no ticketing booths open for our flight more than 2 hours before the flight was meant to take off, so we settled ourselves in the cafe. Some time less than 2 hours before the flight I decided to take a walk to check out the airport and discovered the British Jet desk. There were people ahead of me in line, and it turns out they were being told our flight would not leave until 12:30am. Our flight was scheduled for 6:45pm. The lady claimed mechanical problems - which is always a good thing if an overnight stay at the airport is looking likely - but a huge frustration for us. With such a late departure, we had to notify the car rental and the hotel in the UK. I tried to convince them to return to my house where we could be comfortable and make all the necessary phone calls - one more reason to love Vonage, calls to 5 European countries are also free now - but they preferred to stay at the airport. Dad's calling card and even the credit card charge calls were not working properly, so I ended up relaying phone numbers and contacts to Terry back home, who would make calls and report the information back to us. Dad started calling Terry our private operator. I was glad to see that the news stand carried Go Mobile top up cards because I was pretty sure I was going to run out - luckily everything got sorted before that happened.

Dad bought a deck of cards and we discovered we didn't really remember how to play any card games. We ended up playing gin rummy but I am pretty sure we did it wrong because someone won a hand within 2-3 rounds, and I remember the game going on much longer than that. We also headed up to the more comprehensive restaurant for a change of pace and hot food for dinner, and being Malta even an airport meal took over an hour.

Amazingly, the plane did actually take off at 12:30am, as we were first told.

Visitors, Part II

Friday we decided to take things easy, and met up for a night of dining and casino. We met up with them at their hotel and proceeded to get more lost than we should have for going from the Le Meridien to the Westin Dragonera. Ended up late for our dinner reservations at Quadro. Dinner was quite good, although none of the dishes were perfect. The fish was excellent and fresh, but the creme brulee was eggier and less smooth than a creme brulee should be. Although my dad has spent extensive time in Europe, and his wife is European-born, they were both surprised that dinner lasted more than 3 hours. Welcome to the Med.

Next up was the casino - they are open 24/7 so there were no concerns about getting there by a certain time. Unfortunately, the casino requires everyone who enters to have ID and get registered, and in Yvonne's tiny evening bag no ID had been placed. Terry and I got our registration cards, so for the next visitors who are dying to gamble we can just walk on in. By this time it was past midnight - way past my bedtime - so we called it a night and went home.

Visitors

My dad is our first visitor. He and his wife arrived Wednesday afternoon, and as they had rented a car and were staying in a hotel I didn't meet them at the airport. Although Terry and I agree my assistance wouldn't have been much assistance, if I had been with them the chances are good we would have been lost somewhat less than the 2.5 hours that they were lost. Yes, folks, you heard correctly. It is not possible to drive 2.5 hours in Malta without going in some serious circles, as well as hitting some major traffic, and I am sure they did just that!

Understandably, they were hot, tired and frazzled by the time they reached their hotel, so we kept it low key and ate dinner together at their hotel (Le Meridien St. Julian. centrally located, but has some housekeeping issues)

Thursday we met up for the "Knights of Malta - 1565" performance. It was held at the Powerhouse Theatre, which was formerly a powerhouse (electricity) when the Brits were here. Located at the Valletta Waterfront, it is of course in Floriana, not Valletta. I can't really recommend the show - there were many of what I would call non sequiteur scenes to showcase the various performer talents (i.e., belly dancing, ballet, baton twirling, dressage - yes, the cast included 8 horses) and they were pretty good. However, you leave the performance knowing no more about the Siege of 1565 than you did when you arrived, and the love story was simply annoying and distracting. I can certainly think of worse ways to spend 2 hours, but I also admit I don't think we'll go again. One interesting issue we ran against was that we were to be at the theatre at 8:30pm, yes could not find a restaurant that opened before 7pm. When I called that one, I was told we'd only make the 8:30 show if we took their recommendations on what to order, i.e. pasta rather than steak, one course rather than two, etc.

What I Did Today

I honestly didn't believe it would really happen. In fact, when Terry called me at 8:30am to tell me the movers would be at the house around 9am, I still didn't believe.

Well, by noon I was busy ..... Unpacking. My. Stuff.

WOO-HOOOOO. Tons of things we had forgotten we had even packed. Things we had been pining away for. It is amazing the things you realize you love. Butter dish. Cheese grater. Mixing bowls.

Pregnancy

June 13, 2007
I am so obviously pregnant that 2 ladies offered me their seats on the bus! Also, I feel baby kicks every day now. Baby really likes 5-6am to do gymnastics. Without fail, every day, I have been awakened at that time. Oh goodie.

We finally heard the heartbeat - on all previous visits we just saw it beating on the ultrasound but this time my doctor has the thing that plays the heartbeat. Baby's got a good strong, slow beat - it never went above 150. Baby is measuring perfectly for its age, and overall doctor is pretty happy with our health. On the ultrasound we saw it scratch its head, then it waved to us.
This stuff is pretty cool.

Oh, and I finally have weight gain. I seem to be starting on the recommended 1lb/week gain and, again, doctor is happy with the progress. Mom is less happy, because it is still a net negative from when I became pregnant. Will I become a Jewish mother when I become a Jewish mother?

June 15, 2007
I don't think I mentioned that the pregnant lady who's been in the hospital for the last 3 months finally delivered her well-over-5lb-perfectly-healthy baby this week! This means she finally left the hospital and went home this week! I went to see them yesterday and her little boy is so, so cute, and so tiny, and he slept the whole time I was there (guiltily overstaying the "guidelines" for visiting new parents, but she had so much to tell me about the delivery and what they do and don't do here with a newborn, etc). She let me hold him and it was the first time I have held a baby so young (for both of my nephews' births I was in a different state and couldn't get back quite so quickly). One good thing to know - the preemie clothes were swimming on him. I have no real idea what to expect for size for my baby, but neither of us are particularly big so I am assuming something under 7lb - which means the newborn size may be big! I never thought that would happen. I guess we'll just figure it out in approx. 16 weeks. Or less, or more, depending on how baby feels.

June in Malta part 1

June 8, 2007
I am once again being tempted by rumors, and hope that my heart will not again be broken. I have been told that the documents that have been in Maltese government hands for more than 3 weeks (instead of the usual 1 day) have been released and we can schedule delivery of our ship freight. The date set right now is next Thursday, June 14, which gives me about 4 days to unpack everything before book club at our house and then my dad showing up 2 days later. Think I can do it?!?!

This week will really be like Christmas in July, between all the stuff Terry is bringing back from his trip home and now having access to my stuff again. Who knows, maybe I'll even be more parsimonious with my blog entries :-)

June 9, 2007
Today the hospital where I plan to have my baby had an open house for mothers-to-be so I went, having no idea at all what it would be about. Turns out it was lots of vendors of baby products and some seminars on topics like banking cord blood, postpartum depression, natural childbirth, etc. The schedule of seminars was totally wrong, so I didn't know when the ones I wanted to attend were, so after accidentally getting sucked into the cord blood one (we're not planning to pay to bank cord blood and certainly wouldn't be doing it at a facility in the UK if we did want to) I stayed away from the lecture room.

The very interesting thing is that they had a lovely assortment of warm hors d'oeuvres, mini sandwiches, etc. The sandwiches had either (1) gbejniet - Maltese goat's milk cheese, it MAY have been pasteurized but that is doubtful; (2) shrimp and smoked salmon, or (3) prosciutto. In the USA, every one of these sandwiches would have been verboten for pregnant women, and this was at an event specifically for pregnant women.

I walked away with bags of reading material and goodies such as samples of formula, diapers, baby massage creme ... mmmmm.... One thing I found very interesting is that for many of the vendors, they didn't have any real offices. Everyone gave me a card and said I could call or SMS for more information or to place orders. One vendor of formula said they deliver for free and will even deliver diapers. Now that is service! I did find it interesting that in a country where breast feeding is completely assumed - every hospital that has labor wards has lactation specialists, 24-hour hotlines, etc. - that there were so many formula vendors. And even the vendors acknowledged they assume we will all breast feed, but that when people return to work or want to have a break there is formula to fill the gap. I wonder if they don't pump and store breast milk - the way most breastfeeding women I know in the USA would do - because of the apparently frequent power outages that would spoil any milk in the freezer. Something to think about.

I was also amazed this morning when I was walking Kirby in the Gardens (aka San Anton Gardens) and got yelled at by a lady in Maltese for allegedly not picking up my dog's poop. First, of course I picked it up. Second, it had happened long before she walked in so the person she thought she saw could not have been us. Third, and most importantly - NOBODY cleans up after their dogs here. At first I was greatly put out by her, then I decided I should appreciate that there is actually someone else here who wants the sidewalks and pathways to be clean.

June 11, 2007
When will I learn?!?!?!?!? Our ship freight can't be delivered in Thursday because ... are you ready for this ... IT IS NOT IN MALTA. We just pissed away 4 weeks of our lives waiting for MFA to finally give our docs back, and when we contact the shipping company to arrange the delivery, they realize they can't find our container. Oh wait, they left it in Italy.

I had been joking that they pushed the container overseas and are now stalling to avoid paying the insurance, but now I am not so sure that isn't what happened here. We'll hope to find out more today. Poor Terry, first day back after 3 weeks away and he has to run around dealing with admin crap that should have been dealt with weeks ago!

June 12, 2007
OK, our container is still in Italy (allegedly) and who knows when it will be put on a boat? Im'shalla, we will receive our container some time before March 2009, when we leave this post.

On to good news ... I am getting off the island! Although I have not felt the island fever everyone talks about, I have been desperately missing good red meat. Baby needs extra iron, so I think I am taking it harder than I would have otherwise - I didn't have these cravings when I was in India for the summer. When my dad comes to visit a week from tomorrow, he will be heading off to England before back to the USA, and through the good work of a good travel agent, I will be heading to England with him. As an extra bonus the flight home includes an 8 hour layover in London so I get to get out into the city a little, at least hit a museum and a restaurant. My wonderful husband then gets to pick me up at the airport at 1am. He's very good to me.

Other good news - baby kicked for Terry tonight. He got to feel a few good ones - it was the first time he'd felt it (the other night when I think baby had the hiccups at 5:15am I didn't think he wanted to be awakened, so I let him sleep through that one) I have heard the baby's sleep and wake schedule in utero is the same one they will have once they come out, so I have been trying to keep general track of when baby's active.