Thursday 25 October 2012

Jolly Hollies

This was the morning... Cold, dark, wet... The usual Northern England really, BUT WAIT! What's that? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's... Well yeah actually it is a plane. It's taken me to my favorite place on the planet; Malta.


This is the view as a write this post:


Glorious no?

Yup I've finally gone on holiday this year. Or more like I've gone to my home away from home. I've been coming to Malta for 23 years (yeah, I'm 22, bonus points if you can figure that riddle out) and love the place. It's a tiny island, 16 miles by 8 miles, full of truly amazing people and places. I stay in the north of the island in an area called Qawra, Buggiba (I'm northern to the core) here I will spend most my time drinking the local brew 'Cisk' and eating as much Bigila (google it) as I can manage.
I decided to make this a sort of holiday diary rather than regular posts (solely to preserve my data allowance abroad)

Day 1: Land around 11, it's glorious, 28degrees not a cloud in sight, the only time you see weather like this in England is when you are watching T.V programmes on places like Malta! I go to sleep and wake up around 7pm, the rest of the evening is spent getting totally rat arsed in the Queens Head (aka Queen's) this place is awesome, big tv n sky sports, good beer and ale, friendly service and patrons, and best of all FREE FOOD! and I ain't talkin peanuts, check this out...

 
Bigila, it makes me happy...
 
For every drink you buy you get a free bowl of deliciousness; butter beans, sauteed potatoes, bruschetta, pasta, salsa and crackers, escargot (if that's ur thing) olives, and best of all BIGILA! Being that the owner is a family friend he made damn sure I got my bigila bowl topped up :D


'Queen's'

Day 2: lounge about in the sun, eat at Chaplin's bar (also run by family friend, Reno) then I went to the closest Red Lion (guaranteed to be showing UK sports, and serving John Smith's) to watch Warrington Wolves play in the super league cup. I was the only person in there, everyone else was outside watching the football. I'm glad, no one saw my money face as Warrington got their arses tanned by Leeds Rhinos. Then went back to the hotel room to cry into my enormous 20" pizza.


The Pizza I cried into


Chaplin's


 I left this momento to add to the memrobilia decorating Chaplin's walls

Day 3: swimming in the sea and working on my tan. *For once my tan did not wash of in the shower to reveal a crimson burn*

Day 4 through 7: more swimming, afew trips to the city * Malta has a DUZ its where the towns overlap to make one huge dense urban zone.* we went by bus. Here's some fun facts; Malta only installed traffic lights within the last decade, inot many people care. It's roads have mainly been dirt or gravel until it entered the EU and got abit of a needed overhaul. Malta is the scariest place in the world to drive. The people are lovely, but they are fucking maniacs behind a wheel! Several people I know who have been over there have agreed and shared their stories: sights such as people driving in the shade, regardless what side of the road the shade might be; cars drop gear and accelerate when approaching round abouts and junctions. Horse and carts over taking and cutting up vehicles. One of my coworkers even saw a bus driver having a fist fight with a motorcyclist whilst in motion!<br>
The bus rides are... Interesting; standard size buses hold roughly 100people seated and stood. Maltese buses cram people in to the point you don't need to hold on, your packed in so tight there's no need; add to that the crazy fucking style in which they drive this becomes a very intensely scary/fun experience. I was next to the driver for a while and saw him clocking 60 going round a blind bend on a coastal road in which the sea was only 2 metres away.

We also went on a cruise on a big sailing boat to the northern islands of Gozo and Comino. This was fun; all u can drink, fresh food n fruit, Sun bathing space on deck, you could dangle your legs over the side and we stopped at some utterly beautiful lagoons to jump in the sea and go swimming and exploring heuwage caves.



Our mighty vessel of fun and the Blue Lagoon of Comino

Day 8: drove all over the island in an open back jeep, the highlight of which was when we were in the middle of nowhere and could see a storm cloud afew miles out to sea "it's a while off yet" - my sisters boyfriends famous words... Literally the moment he said that a hurricane force wind threw every speck of dust up in the air the Mummy style and we had to burn Rubber and haul ass out of there. 70mph down dirt roads, dust, sand, rain and wind battering the jeep, and I had Metallic blasting out 'the four horsemen'... The words totally, fucking and awesome describe this adventure best...
Watching the thunder storm, the lightening kicked ass.


My phone's camera rocks.

Day 9: visited Mdina, a truely beautiful old town. These pictures say it all.



Day 10: come home :( it was 28degrees when I boarded the plane, it was 8 when I got off.
It's been 4 days and I still can't get warm!

Ah well, only another year before I an afford to go again!



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