New Year in Malta

Well, I arrived yesterday, on solstice day, from freezing weather to nice 17-18 degrees. My room is spacious and cheap, although with backyard window with a view to 13 (!) cats, and a junkyard.

Yesterday I took a bus tour to Valletta (I used the same ticket from the bus who drove me from the airport to my hotel), to see Maltesian president from 2 meter distance with a single one body guard walking to the stage where he held a short speech in order to support some catholic action. Guard bleach orchestra played some awesome jazz.

Afer Valletta I took long walk from Gzira via Sliema to St Julians and back.
I dropped into few churches - they were singing gospells all day long and during the evening also. n between I took a beer in a bar.
A beer - a piece of gospel in cathedral St. John - a beer - another piece of gospel in Curch of Mother of God...

I got it: a catholic is a Donad Rumsfeld of faith. an Orthodox believer is a Stalin, Lutheran is a socialist, Anglicaner is a... hm, red-haired weirdo on the bike.

Originally posted by vandervelde
Well, I arrived yesterday, on solstice day, from freezing weather to nice 17-18 degrees. My room is spacious and cheap, although with backyard window with a view to 13 (!) cats, and a junkyard.

Yesterday I took a bus tour to Valletta (I used the same ticket from the bus who drove me from the airport to my hotel), to see Maltesian president from 2 me ...[text shortened]... ever is a Stalin, Lutheran is a socialist, Anglicaner is a... hm, red-haired weirdo on the bike.

I got it: a catholic is a Donad Rumsfeld of faith. an Orthodox believer is a Stalin, Lutheran is a socialist, Anglicaner is a... hm, red-haired weirdo on the bike.

YouTube
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edited by Municipality of La Valletta---

New Year hasn't happened yet in Malta, that seems to be all Christmas hangovers ...

firework
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/grcka_i_ostalo/media/DSCI5626_zps1f65a6c0.mp4.html

walking in the New Year's Eve I
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walking in the New Year's Eve
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/grcka_i_ostalo/media/DSCI5622_zps301477fd.mp4.html

Night vawes in Sliema
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/grcka_i_ostalo/media/DSCI5624_zps459c0d03.mp4.html

Noah's ferryboat to Etna.
I took a whole-day trip by boat to Etna. Pick up time was for vampires, and minibus was late 25 minutes. I sent an sms to the driver and got answer „On d way“. Before my hotel i saw an old man who looked like a dying turtle. He was chain smoker, with typical face of a Russian bureucrat from KGB. He managed to smoke half a pack before minibus came. It turned out that he was also waiting for the same minibus. He was accompanied by a wife, old women with a hair resembling red thin cotton glued to her cranium.

We drove to Valletta and got on board. Huge ferryboat it was, all right. During the trip, after instructions how to put life jacket, they showed a feature film. „Evan Almighty“ about American „Noah“. I guess that was symbolic: they picked up two x of every minority species on this island... Ameerican religious urge to find God. Because the God is for most of us only ET from Dossier X. We don't really expect to find him and see him, Bibles is „only“ a piece of literature, and no one believes, everyone hopes. God is like a mysterious event in an Dossier X episode: first we doubt, then we get evidences and we are believers, then we see it was false, and – in an anticlimax – we find another „forgotten evidence“: maybe He exists... This film wants to shake us, to touch our wish for miracles...

We were welcomed by 2 buses. No 1: guide Anna for Izraelis, Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs... and bus No 2 for Scandinavian nations, Germans, Brits.. Noah had a plan, all right.

We drove first to Nicoloso village to taste limoncello and pistacchio liquer. I found a confectionery and bought 2 cakes to take away, two eclairs... I was hoping to eat them near volcano and make a film of it. It surprised me at the cashier that the cakes were more expensive than I saw on the price list on the refrigerator cabinet. Okay, never mind.

We drove to Etna. We were surrounded by snow. I should have taken that in mind before I left. Etna is mountain, of course.

Sun hardly penetrated Etna's breath (ha ha), and I felt like Gordon Pym as I climbed with my slippery shoes up to volcanic crater, the cheaper one without cable service. I saw only fog. I saw dog's cr...p. Someone took a German shepperd over there. I slipped. I continued on my four. I was cursing: bl...dy volcano I am gonna see you, you bas...rd! And I saw it. Fog. I heard that some British crazy scientist took a trip into volcano's belly to find Empedocles' sandal. And he foundr something „Mad in Yugoslavia“, from Jugoplastika company. Okay, let's go to eat something if i survive climbing down. Or better to say sliding down.

I see a lonely Snowman near the road. He is mocking me. I send him to hell. Then I see a souvenir shop. They have very nice postcards, little yellowish from age, very nice with sexy Scandinavian tourist in front a restaurant. But they don't sell stamps. I give up postcards on that place. I find out later that stamps can be bought only at „tabacchi“. I buy other postcards and stamps and am regretting for I did not buy those nicer postcards, antiquities almost, for other ocassion.. But it's too late.

I enter Rifugio and Sapienzi hotel, restaurant and resort. After Anna's recommendation, I am looking for homemade lasagna. I am writing postcards et the table whilst eating. I don't have my netbook, and cannot remember my aunt's address. I send sms to my cousin Jacqueline „Here am I from Etna volcano...“ and I get the address from her.

In the bus I want to eat those eclairs, and open the package only to discover that they gae me wrong cakes. F....k! M...de! Okay.

We drove then to Modica, the home of Sicilian chocolate for tasting and buying homemade chocolate and chocolate liquers. And we had time for another refreshment.

I wasn't hungry again so I went into 2 bars, one of them being neighbour with Teatro Garbaldi. I saw what was on the schedule: „Enigmatic Variationas“ by Eric Emmanuel Schmit, for example. The same play I saw in National Theatre in Belgrade it is still going on.

I found another confectionery here i Modica. I bought finally real eclairs. Time to get back to ferryboat.

They showed another film „Rebound“, a teen comedy of clumsy basketball team who – of course – wins competition, coached by A league coach who ended there because he was punished.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1RF4Opndl6Y

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