Alternate Title: New Year, New Adventures
Day 5
On New Year’s Eve most of the sites on our heritage Malta pass were closed, but not the aquarium, so it was fish time. But before fish time we had a goal. That goal was Cinnabon.
Becca, that’s a stupid goal, you say. And you are right. But we kept passing it on the bus and my Wisconsin friend wanted it, apparently all Cinnabon have closed in Wisconsin and she needed a fix. So, it was time for a quest!
If you do nothing else on a vacation go on a few dumb quests, they bring joy and that’s what matters. Vacation is about more than just sightseeing, it’s about having fun too. We had fun, and succeeded in our quest and ate some delicious gooey cinnabon. 10/10 would quest again.
After our breakfast, we went to the only Heritage Malta attraction open on New Year’s, the aquarium. Now I don’t quite see how aquariums fit into heritage, but I’m always down for some fishies, so I’m not complaining.
The aquarium in Malta is very okay. It’s pretty small, but it does have some cool parts. There were a few good spots to take neat pictures. There was a shark tunnel as well, so we got to be encompassed by sharks.
The weirdest thing we found had nothing to do with fish. Someone before us had messed around with one of the interactive video boards and somehow got it onto Youtube. Now I’m a pretty good person, and I’m not here to mess with the aquarium, but how can one ignore such a great opportunity? After a bit of pondering, my friend and I left the board playing a new video. Since we are good(ish) noodles we set it to play Geography Now! Malta. Which is educational, so basically, we provided a public service, you’re welcome Malta.
After hanging with the fish for about two hours, we went down to the coast. Once again, stupidly beautiful views. This time with added rock danger. I’m known as the boring one when it comes to dangerous adventure. By dangerous I mean “I might fall and hit my head, or fall and get wet, or just fall.” I’m all for adventure, not so much for minimal risk. But my friend started climbing on the rocky terrain and I plucked up my courage and followed, slowly.
Our, very mildly dangerous expedition led us to the water’s edge where we tried to take good pictures. The thing is, I was not made to be an Instagram star. I don’t know how to take pictures, at all. My friend kept having to set up her camera for me so I would take a half decent shot of her. I’m willing to take pictures of you whenever, just don’t expect much.
Sorta okay pictures in hand, we started walking around the town and we found a Planet Walk, which is, apparently a thing? Basically, a line of planet statues that you are meant to follow. My friend was really enthused but I was mostly confused. We followed along and then I was betrayed, why? Because we couldn’t find Neptune. I was already sad that Pluto was nowhere to be found, but Neptune too? What is the Solar System coming too?
Devastated by the lack of Neptune, We headed back to our hotel to have a break before heading to Valetta for the big New Year’s celebration. I haven’t really celebrated New Year’s in ages. I always babysat in High School and mostly stayed home in college, so going out was sort of exciting.
We didn’t get too crazy. We started by finding some of Malta’s signature thick hot chocolate. This was Thick with two c’s, basically a soup; and it was heavenly. Others may turn to alcohol for a good time, not this girl, chocolate all the way.
We then headed into the big square where the National celebration was being held. They had a big stage with lights, smoke, the whole nine yards. When we first arrived there was a singer, who I thought was very good. About twenty minutes before midnight they switched to a DJ which was a bit of a step down. The best part was every now and then a burst of Streamers would cover the crowd. They were awesome to watch.
When the time came, we counted down together and just after zero: fireworks. We had chosen to come to Valetta specifically for the Fireworks and boy were we disappointed. Think like one step below Minor League Baseball. Still fireworks, but not exactly spectacular. We think it may have been because of the wind, which there was a lot of, but really, who knows? Malta’s websites are basically impossible to decipher.
After our brief disappointment it was time to head home. We had to take a bus back to our hostel, and so did half of Malta apparently. The bus stop was absolutely packed. Every time a new bus arrived the people in the back of the line pushed and pushed making moving an impossibility. It was like mosh pit but instead of getting closer to a stage, you were trying to get closer to your bed. Rather then being worried for our own ability to breathe, my friend and I were preoccupied trying to keep space around a little girl next to us. We fought hard to stand our ground and keep a bit of breathing room for the girl, but she still looked petrified by the mob crushing around her.
By some miracle we made it safely on the bus and were even on quick enough to grab seats. The little girl also made it on unscathed, but not untraumatized. I understand wanting to get on the bus and get home, but pushing rarely makes anything better. I witnessed several people give up and leave the bus stop due to the mob and one French lady kept yelling about how ridiculous it was. She wasn’t wrong, but she was incredibly annoying and not very helpful.
All in all, a great start to the New Year.
Day 6 and 7
New Year’s Day was incredibly chill. Lots of things were closed, so we decided to hang near to our hostel and look around San Giljan. San Giljan seems to be the posh, nightclub district of Malta. Lots of fancy bars and restaurants.
It also has a lot of hotels and such, so definitely a tourist district. I wasn’t very enthralled by San Giljan, it does; however have a beautiful coast. Most of our day was spent lounging on the beach watching the tide roll in and hanging out by the harbor watching boats.
As you can see, not a super interesting day, but very necessary on a long vacation. Even I cannot go touristing nonstop, I need to take a day or two to relax every now and then.
Our last day in Malta was a bit more interesting. Our first stop was the Rotunda of Mosta. You know that this church is mildly special because I bothered to look up its name rather than just saying “some pretty church.” That begs the question, why the special treatment?
You see this church is more than just pretty, it has a story to go along with the beauty. Remember how I mentioned that Malta was hit hard by bombings back in World War II? Well churches were just as likely to be hit as anyone else, and the Rotunda was hit with a big old bomb dropping right through the beautiful dome.
The bomb hit during the middle of service, yet, no one was killed or injured, because the bomb did not go off. Every single person made it out safe and the bomb was disposed of. I was surprised to learn that this has not been recognized as a miracle by the Vatican, but the people of Mosta certainly regard it as one. And they should, I think it’s miraculous.
Be warned if you visit the church expecting to see the bomb that fell, as my friend did, the memorial they have is merely a replica, not the OG bomb. You can however see right where it fell as the ceiling, while repaired, was never repainted.
After seeing our miracle, we headed on our way to the Ta’Qali craft village. I didn’t really know what to expect when we went, and I’m still not quite sure what we found. The crafts village is definitely a work in progress, the idea is to have a large collection of craftsman and artisans making and selling goods in one place, but at the moment it’s a little weird.
The bus drops you right in front of a big old construction site, so, like sane humans, we bypassed that and walked down the road a bit to the Mdina glass factory. I love a good glass shop, but what I love even more is watching glass blowers. Inside the giant glass store there was a workshop where about ten artisans worked together to make some awesome handmade glass. I watched for at least twenty minutes. There’s something about true craftsmanship that is hard to look away from.
We then left the factory and tried to find the rest of the village. See the glass factory is huge and sort of isolated, but we knew there had to be more, so wandering we went. And went and went and went. We wandered around a big park looking for artisans and kept coming up short. After at least an hour of confused wandering, we decided to cut our losses and head back to the bus stop.
Only there did we notice the mysterious sign pointing into the construction site. But no, we reasoned, they wouldn’t want tourists walking into an active construction site. Turns out, we underestimated Malta’s disregard for sanity. After seeing a different tourist traipse right out of the mysteriously open construction gate, we decided to give it a go. Lo and behold, once you passed construction you found crafts!
There were quite a few shops selling all kinds of nifty crafts. Turns out that a lot of souvenirs that you can buy on the island really are handmade at Ta’Qali. I think in a few years, once construction is completed, this will be an excellent spot to come for souvenirs, right now it’s mostly really confusing and mildly unsafe. But if you won’t walk through construction for crafts, did you deserve them in the first place?
As we waited at the bus stop mother nature decided we had had too nice of weather on our adventure thus far. So the skys opened onto our unprotected heads and doused us in water. Torrential downpour are the words I would use to describe this glorious event. Never have I wished more for a bus shelter. By the time we made it onto the bus my friend and I were joking that I wouldn’t make it onto the plane later because I had more than 100oz of liquid in my jeans.
We made another stop in Mosta on our way to grab our luggage and head to the airport. We did some shopping and ate some delicious Maltese pastries and then it was time to go.
Getting to the airport and onto the plane posed no problems. On the plane we actually had a bit of excitement in our safety demonstration. It started as usual, and then some random guy decided this was the best time to use the toilet. The prerecorded message was cut off and the guy was asked to sit back down and listen.
Recording starts back up again and all the flight attendants start pointing at the exits when, once again, the recording is cut. A very annoyed voice comes over the speakers, “Are you really taking pictures right now? Seriously?” A few rows behind me a lady had gotten out of her seat to snap those ever important Instagram pics. It was a little astonishing that not one, but two people so completely disregarded the safety demonstration that they were willing to let the whole plane know how little they cared about it. It’s common knowledge that no one really listens, but try to not listen from your seat when flying.
In the end everyone heard how to be safe and we took off, saying a last goodbye to Malta. I really enjoyed my time there. I had never thought about Malta before, but now it’s definitely on my list of recommendations. Turns out there’s more to the island than falcons and beaches, who’d have guessed?
Ambling Adventures 