Wanderlust

Barcelona Spain, Palermo Sicily, Amalfi Coast Italy, these places act as my excuse for a lack of blog posts recently! Hopefully I will be able to write more consistently for a while now that I have returned to malta!

The first stop on my European adventure was the beautiful city of Barcelona. This is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. The people are wonderful, the buildings enchanting, and it feels as if the life blood of the city is its spanish heritage. I spent 3 very busy days wandering the narrow streets, eating tapas, watching traditional dances, viewing the works of Pablo Picasso and Antonio Gaudi, getting lost on the metro, and being entertained on the always exciting Las Ramblas.

It is impossible to sum up everything that we did in these three days so I will sum up a couple of my favorites. The Sagrada Familia, a huge cathedral designed by the architect Antonio Gaudi is astounding, without a doubt the most beautiful church I have ever seen. The Sagrada Familia is currently incomplete, though the date constantly changes, it is set to be finished in the year 2025. Fun Fact: Trains are no longer allowed in the center of Barcelona because in 1926 Gaudi, the architect of the Sagrada Familia, was hit by a train resulting in his death.

Another favorite from Barcelona was the La Boqueria (spelling?) an open air market right off the Las Ramblas. Entering this market creates sensory overload. The market is a riot of smells, colors, sounds all fighting for your attention. We ate at the market at every opportunity. Barcelona is a city I will never forget and one which I recommend everyone visits.

I returned to Malta from Barcelona and picked up my family (Mom, Dad, Marty and Tim) from the airport three days later. To say the least I was ecstatic to see them. I really haven't been too terribly homesick, but knowing that my family would soon arrive made the homesickness hit full force.

We toured around Malta together for four days. I took them to all my favorite sites, Mdina (the medieval city), Valletta (the Capital), the bakery, Marsaxlokk (the fish market), and Melita's (my favorite restaurant). It was a good introduction to the small winding streets and chaos we would find in Italy. It was great to finally be able to show someone what I have been talking about for the past several months!

The next stop on our Easter Vacation was Sicily. Sicily is an interesting mixture of chaotic cities and beautiful calm countryside with little towns perched on the top of extremely steep cliffs. We picked up a rental car in Catania and drove across the country to Palermo. Suggestion: DON'T DRIVE IN SICILY. DRIVING = ALMOST CERTAIN DEATH. The cities are full of cars going every direction, there are no road signs, there are no marked traffic lanes, and it seems as though the main rule is to be pushy, close your eyes and hope you make it. Driving in the countryside however was no problem, very beautiful and the Autostrata is great.

We stayed in Sicily for five days and saw amazing things, again i don't have time to write them all up so I will summarize my favorites. The Valley of the Temples is considered to be full of the best Greek temples aside from the Parthenon and Delphi. They truly are amazing, very well preserved and perched on beautiful Sicilian hill tops. My favorite was a temple dedicated to Hera (in a photo below) which was perhaps not the best preserved, but I felt had a certain majesty as we walked up the hill towards it. Truly an amazing place.

The next big wow was the hill top town of Enna. The village is one of the highest points in Sicily, other than Mount Etna. The town was inhabited by the Normans during their conquest because from the castle tower a guar could see all three coasts at one time. Towns such as these led us to believe that the Sicilians must have been scared of something, they all wanted to be high on hill tops so that they could see enemies coming a long ways off. One of the photo's below shows the town across from Enna, another cliff town, which we visited and loved.

Finally, one of the most amazing places i saw in Sicily was the Chapel in the Norman Castle in Palermo. The church was decorated by Byzantine Mosaic work and was beautiful. I truly can't find the words to describe it, so of course i attached a few photos below. If you are ever in Sicily the castle is worth seeing just for this one room.

After Sicily we drove to the ferry in Messina and crossed to mainland Italy. We drove half way to our destination that day, which was Easter Sunday, and stayed in a small town that I refer to as podunk Italy. It was a tiny little town with no noticeable tourist attraction, but we actually had an excellent Easter dinner there that evening. The next morning we woke up early and drove the rest of the way to Sorrento (near Naples).

Sorrento is a beautiful town perched on cliffs overlooking the ocean. It is the beginning of the Amalfi coast and we really loved it. I particularly enjoyed the spectacular view of Mt. Vesuvius across the bay towards Naples. Being this close to Naples our biggest adventure while in Sorrento was to go to Pompeii. Pompeii is amazing because if its size. I have seen ruins all over the American Southwest however I have never seen such a huge and well preserved ruin. I found it both fascinating and disturbing. Truly Amazing.

We left Sorrento after two nights and traveled onwards to the village of Minori on the Amafi coast. This trip included another notable drive on a narrow twisting road perched on steep cliffs. The little towns that exist on these cliffs are crazy. The people here will build on anything. I suspect all the people of the Amalfi region must have incredible thigh muscles, everywhere you walk it is up or down.

Minori, the town we stayed in, was beautiful relaxing and probably my favorite place in Italy. I enjoyed it because it was the least touristy place we stayed. The town felt lived in and we met great personalities like the man who ran the restaurant on the corner and the man who used pack mules to deliver goods up the steep hills where there were no roads. I also loved the Minori beach. It was little, rocky, and covered with tiny pieces of sea glass which I collected for some unknown artistic project to come. It was a really great ending to our adventure.

I am now back in Malta, missing the family, but looking forward to trips to come. Next on the list is Scotland in the end of May. Time is passing so quickly I will be home in the blink of an eye. I will try to write more often and hope everyone is doing well back home!

The Adventure truly begins!

Officially 2 and 1/2 weeks into the experience I am still in love with Malta. It is an insanely beautiful chaotic little country bursting with surprises at every corner. The Maltese are a people who seem to be in love with the old and the new at the same time combining it into one big party.

As my mother reminded me, I am in Malta to go to school, and I'm glad to say that I finally have a permanent class schedule at the university. This proved to be a two week ordeal of bureaucracy at its best; endless stacks of paper work, miles of walking to find the signatures of someones secretary, and hours of waiting in line outside the international office. However, though exhausted I have succeeded in choosing the most eccentric and interesting classes in my college career.

They Include:

Women in the Bible

An Introduction to Islam

The Personification of Evil (taught by a real catholic Exorcist)

Slave Narratives

Medieval Malta

Shakespeare: Comedies

Romantic Poets

Sociology of Gender

Anthropology of Gender

You may notice that several of my classes have a fairly religious theme. This is largely because you can't walk ten feet in Malta without tripping over a church. On Gozo (the smaller sister island) the people take pride in the fact that from each and every church on the island you can see at least one other church. There are three very nice churches within five blocks of my residence. Since arriving in Malta I have actually only been inside one church, which has a maltese name I can not pronounce, but it is the big dome in Valletta. It was simply awe inspiring. I have never seen a place so lavishly decorated. The great domed room had the power to create absolute silence.

I have been enjoying the chance to immerse myself in Maltese culture. So far their have been two festivals which I have attended. The first was the feast of Saint Paul's Shipwreck. This was held in Valletta (the capital) and involved colorful banners hung in the streets and people throwing confetti and candy from their balconies to the children (The first few photos are from this) The second festival was Carnival on Gozo. Unfortunately there are no photos of this because it was explained to me that my camera would either be stolen or crushed in the chaos. They were right, Carnival is halloween for grownups. People crush into the streets where live music is being played and dance around large floats. The problem with the floats is that if you get to close to them someone will grab you, pull you onto the float and hand cuff you to another person until you dance for a while. Very fun!

Last weekend I visited Marsaxlokk (pronounce Marsha-slock) which is a fishing village. The village is particularly well known for its colorful boats called Luzzu which are the traditional fishing boats of the area. You will notice int he picture that the boats have eyes painted on them. These are supposed to be the "eyes of osirus" and are painted on the boats for luck.

Malta is an amazing place, I'm having an excellent time and will post more soon!

Lija, Malta

I have now spent four days in Malta and am in complete sensory overload. Malta, to say the least, is not what I expected. The best description i have is that it is like Italy combined with Costa Rica. Beautiful cathedrals, light colored stone buildings, flowering plants, terraced fields, winding narrow streets are all part of Malta. There is also a chaotic mass of humanity covering every bit of it.

My first bit of advice for anyone who may be wanting to visit malta is DO NOT DRIVE and also look EVERY direction before crossing the street. The driving is insane and compounded by the narrow twisting streets. Though the Maltese are charming when met on the street behind the wheel they seem to be more interested in how many points they would get for hitting you with their car. I love the chaos of it. It makes each trip to the market a daring journey, each voyage to the bakery filled with danger.

I have been lost in Malta a total of 5 times in 4 days. These moments of being lost have created some of the best experiences so far. My favorite lost expirience includes the discovery of a 24 hour bakery on a street near the residence. A loaf of bread is about 40 cents and tastes wonderful, better than any bread we have at home. The food has actually been a wonderful surprise. Meat pies with rabbit are very popular. There is also a lot of pasta and sandwiches. This will be much better than my previous west african diet.

Yesterday I visited Sliema with a group of friends. This is one of the most beautiful places I have been so far. It is located on the opposite side of the bay from Valletta and has a spectacular view of the boats and cathedrals. The included pictures are all from Sliema.

Tomorrow I begin class and the adventure really starts! I am still in shock that I am actually living here for the next five months and not just a few weeks. I will write again soon.