The Malta Story - part I.

Once upon a time Evangeline decided to leave her home. The girl with lot of problems and full of her stressed lifestyle chose to visit a little island in a middle of the Mediterranean Sea: Malta. Don’t ask why this place. Just Malta and that’s it. 

Malta is one of the world's smallest states, only 316 km². So small, easy to hide. Oh but actually it's not true. :) It's the most densely populated country worldwide, full of people from other countries. In recent years the island is a popular tourist destination, with 1.2 milion tourist/year. I was one of them for two months.

Malta is located between Sicily and North Africa, consists of its 3 largest islands: Malta, Gozo and Comino. The climate is subtropical-mediterranean, very hot and dry, especially the summer-time. Rain occurs only in winter. The capital is on the main island, called Valletta. It's an increadibly religious republic, with Roman Catholic religion, which means no topless girls in public places (what a pity :D ), or you'll be penalized. There are more than 360 churches, the women are wearing non-sexual clothes covering and hiding their body, so don't have to be surprised when the men are watching pretty tourist girls in sexy bikinis.

There are two official languages in use: the Maltese and English. So if you decided to visit the island, don't have to worry about misunderstanding with the locals, because almost everyone speaks the universal English language. The friends I met there had English as mother language instead of Maltese, which was very surprising fact for me. They studied at English private schools, so they prefer this language. The only one word I learnt in Maltese and everybody knows is the universal "mela". What is funny noone knows the exact meaning of it. It is like "hey" and usually they start every second sentence with that. :)

Their frequent habit is to party. Yes, they always find a reason to celebrate lot of times in a week. But it's because of the foreign people who are coming to drink, dance and feel free there. Their very annoying habit is the firework. And nooo, not only at the evening and not only for 5 seconds. Fireworks at the morning, the afternoon and even at night. Yes, fireworks are beautiful. At the beginning I was watching and adoring them too. But if it wakes you up at the morning after whole night working, or when you can't fall asleep because of the loud sound, is not so funny. I lived directly next to a place where they used to play fireworks, so trust me, it wasn't a pleasure. And what is more annoying noone knows the reason. I didn't find out until today. But let's go back to the celebration. Yes, the people know how to celebrate there. The religious atmosphere gives a lot of possibilities to several days of reverly. I remember the party of Saint Julian's Day (the place I was living). It was awesome. It began at the morning and finished the next day. Loud music from early morning, streets full of people, everybody dancing, sellers everywhere. It was kinda funny day/night. We also bought some stupid funny toys like policeman stuff or bubble blower. They also celebrate every single public holiday when they don't have to work. Even the Carnival in Malta has a very important place in the calendar. What is very famous the MTV music festival, which is organised every year since 2007. Last summer I unfortunately missed that (arrived one week later), but hope this year can attend.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm considering to go back to place, where I lived through the best two months of my life, with the best experiences, adventures and the best people I could meet there. Thank you for the pleasure, I miss my Malta friends so much.

So it was finally time (after 8 months) to write few sentences about my last summer. This was the introductory article of staying in Malta, unfortunately I can't summarize so many experiences, events in one. So if you liked it, continue reading. Part II. coming soon and I promise it will be more excited than this one :)

Here are some pictures connected to the topic: 

Religious Malta: Huge flag in a parking place

Celebrating tourists (British)

Some kinda religious ceremony

Firework the afternoon

If you are interested and want to see more pictures, you can find it between my Picasa albums:  https://picasaweb.google.com/112639484533233184158/MyMalta#