Everything I learned I learned in Kindergarten

We could learn a lot from crayons.
Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, some are more popular than others - but they all have to learn to live in the same box.

Goodbye Malta, Hello New House!

Ok, so I may have been neglecting the blog for the last couple of days. I've been on vacation, ok? We arrived home safe and sound yesterday. Well, safe, yes. Sound? That might be up for debate.

Let me start with our last couple of days in Malta. Wednesday we took the ferry over to the island of Gozo. The Maltese Islands are made up of Malta, Comino (which is tiny and not really worth mentioning...) and Gozo. Gozo is only about 9 miles by 4 miles so not too much to see. There were a few spots of interest including an ancient cathedral and the Azure window. We got some absolutely amazing pictures at the Azure window, which is a naturally formed crest in the rock. It forms a window. Seems pretty self explanatory...

We discovered something else about Gozo that wasn't advertised in any guide book. Are you prepared for what I am about to tell you? We found the first documented black hole on the face of the earth! Documented by us at least. You might think I am crazy, but I happen to be rather proficient at reading maps (never mind that we got lost before) and I also happen to be married to a honest to goodness geographer, and we both agreed that it did not make logical sense that we should be driving along a road knowing FULL WELL where we were on the map and go down an incredibly steep and winding road and end up at the end back in the middle of the main town!! Since this did not make logical sense, the only real explanation was that there must be a black hole. I knew you would agree.

Speaking of crazy roads, this road that we went down was by far the steepest, windiest, craziest road on the face of the planet. When we first got to it I actually said "I don't think this is a road" only to have two cars drive past us and down this goat trail. We figured if they could do it, so could we. We slowly and cautiously started down (only to notice the second guy down the hill PASSING the first guy like it was the 401) and actually made it to the end not being any worse for wear. The road was graded it was so steep. I've only ever seen that in Canada where they have to prevent cars from sliding down in the winter. No such weather in Malta!! We were driving down another very steep and windy hill and Ryan asked me "could you imagine driving this road in the winter?" And of course we could imagine because it WAS winter!! No wonder they can have such horrific driving conditions!

Once we got ourselves out of the black hole, we returned to the resort. It was also Valentine's day and we opted for the resorts version of a romantic dinner for two. The dinner was actually quite amazing. The venue could have used some work, but the food was fantastic! We started with roasted duck in coconut juice with roasted vegetables, (please forgive me if I don't remember the exact wording!!) followed by a creamy cauliflower soup which we both agreed was incredible, even better than the soup we had for lunch that day which I have to say, was pretty good! The soup came with a parmesan cheese wafer which was so cool and also super tasty, but we couldn't quite figure out how they made it. I ate mine with my fingers and Ryan put his right in his soup. Cheesy goodness for all. The main course was a choice of three dishes. I had a chicken breast basted in lime and honey, parsnip puree (sounds gross, tastes SOOOO good) and a mix of bacon, onion, and dates. It was absolutely mouth watering! Ryan had beef tenderloin with goat cheese, roasted potatoes with onion, bacon, and fried mushrooms. I would tell you how good it was, but I was so preoccupied with my incredible meal that I didn't even bother to try it! Ryan insists that it was phenomenal. I guess I'll just have to trust him on that one.

Thursday was spent being very very lazy! We were going to go to the Hypogeum, but they have an environmental rule that says they only take 80 people per day. They were booked up until Feb 19th, so we were out of luck. We slept, read our books, slept some more, ate lunch, slept, sat by the pool (Ryan has the farmer burn to prove it) and did some more sleeping. It was a blissful day. To make a great day even better, we even went to dinner "early" that night (as in, as soon as they opened) and we got a great variety of foods. It was the best dinner menu so far that week , as far as buffet dinners went.

Friday we got up, ate breakfast, I went for a Swedish massage, and Ryan packed our bags. We then made our way through Mellieha (were we stopped to mail some post cards) and made our way through the winding streets to the airport. We didn't even get lost!! (Or sucked into a black hole) We arrived at the airport even earlier than we planned and had quite a long wait til they opened our flight. We had a spontaneous picnic lunch, played some rousing games of cards, and waited. Once we got in we browsed the souvenir shops and had some cappiccinos at the hard rock cafe. We got up in the air without a hitch and even met a very nice British lady who was living in Malta and flying home for a visit. She tried very hard to convince us to teach in Malta instead of England!

Once we landed we had a bit of a wait for our shuttle to come and get us. We played a few more rousing games of cards (eucre for two is fun) and ate some dinner. Here begins the craziness.

We had arranged before we left to have our new house keys sent to the house at 10:15p.m. by a cab company that TimePlan uses all the time since no one was going to be around to give them to us. At quarter past 10 we were standing outside our house waiting. We waited a few minutes, then called the cab company and asked them if someone was on their way. They didn't know what we were talking about. They didn't have any house keys, nor could they get ahold of either Sally or Bob to find out what was going on. We were homeless!! The guy at the cab company felt bad for us and he was very generous to call around and help us out as best he could. We eventually conceded to the fact that we were not getting into our house that night so we arranged to have a hotel room at the Travelodge. Sounds simple, right? Try finding the Travelodge. The hotel that I thought was the Travelodge was not. We walked through downtown Romford at night (not a wise thing to do) and we wandered aimlessly trying to find the building. I finally asked a guy (the only drunk on the street it turns out) and he pointed us in a vague direction that we were already headed in anyway. We did eventually find it and checked in. The bed was horrific (we were smashed into the middle in one of those horrible torture chamber beds that bends inward) and we had an "interesting" continental breakfast. But, it was a warm place to sleep and we weren't paying for it!!

Turns out that the keys were actually delivered to the house by a different cab company than the one Sally told me she would use at 8pm and dropped off to our new room mate who we didn't know existed. Long story short, we now have keys to our house and are slowly getting ourselves moved in.

I promise promise promise pictures will be up Monday. Love you all!

Malta part 3

I'm sure most of you are hoping for some amazing stories of scuba diving and how amazingly clear the water is, and how much fun we had. Please don't hold your breath. We didn't go. Not that we didn't want to. We got up early, ate breakfast, got our gear and headed to the dive school. When we first walked in I could tell it wouldn't go well. The first thing the girl said was, "it's awfully windy out". As in, we don't want to take you diving if it is too windy. No problem. We talked about it and decided that we would do half today and half tomorrow when it was supposed to be less windy. Then came the filling out of all the forms. There was a medical form (the usual - history of heart disease, do you have epilepse, do you have any other dibilitating disease that we should know about etc.) And, of course, are you pregnant. Are you pregnant or is there ANY CHANCE that you could be pregnant. I had to put yes, since technically there is a chance that I could be pregnant. That threw up red flags all over the place and both instructors were dead set against me going underwater. Apparently there is a theory that diving harms a fetus, and since no woman in her right mind would allow you to test that theory on HER fetus, there is no definitive proof. Needless to say, I was grounded. Ryan probably could have gone, but what fun would that be if it was just him and not both of us? And here I thought this was a vacation to do what we wouldn't do once we had kids!! Boy was I wrong. Looks like scuba diving is out of the question for Egypt too. Snorkling maybe.

Anyway, since we were both so disappointed that we weren't diving we had to find something to fill our day. We decided to go down to Mdina (the silent city) and explore. You aren't allowed to take a car in, so we had to park and walk around. It was absolutely gorgeous. Very well preserved from ancient times, and they have all sorts of incentives to keep it that way. We walked around, visited the natural history museum (a waste of time and money) and the Mdina dungeons (kinda scary, and really really gorey). We had a nice day and finished it off going to the Dingli Cliffs but it was too cold and too windy to stay. We got about two pictures before I retreated back to the car. It's kinda freaky to stand on the edge of a two hundred foot cliff and feel like the wind might carry you away any moment! We will have to go back. Speaking of going back...turns out that although we thought we were going somewhere new we had actually been to Mdina before. According to the gps, on friday night when we were driving rather aimlessly trying to find our hotel, we found Mdina by mistake. We don't remember too much, but the roads all suddenly looked VERY familiar!

On our way home we decided to take a different route home and see some of the western edge of the island. Once again, these were all roads we had travelled on before, by accident. We got to one point though which had a sign saying "road closed, no access". We weren't sure how serious they were about no access, so we kept driving. Every couple hundred feet another sign, "road closed, no access". Ryan, my fearless leader, kept going. In fact, he was such a good leader that we even had another tourist in a rental car following us. We went up some seriously windy roads and into places that were clearly off limits. The road was under construction (like, one side of the road was GONE) but Ryan kept on. We ended up at the end and both hoped that we wouldn't run into some concrete block forcing us to go back!! Apparently, when the sign says "road closed" it's really only more of a suggestion. The poor little Chevrolet Matos was not a happy camper! Next time we will have to rent something with 4x4!!

Tomorrow's plan is Gozo. Should be great, if the ferry makes it across for all the wind we've been having!!

Malta part 2

We are still in Malta, and we didn't get blown away by the storm. The wind has been fantastic, and we have some great 'wave' pictures which will go up on myspace as soon as we get home.

Meanwhile, I just finished schooling Ryan in a game of 2 person Eucre. Ok, so maybe schooling isn't quite the word, but I did win in a 10-9 victory, even after he tried to cheat and stack the deck while I was otherwise occupied getting us cappaccinos (and cookies, but he thinks that was only cause I am cute...)

We spent today in Valetta (the capital) doing a Lonely Planet version of a walking tour. Oh, Bruce, Ryan wanted to say a big "THANK YOU" for recommending the Lonely Planet books. We picked up the Malta and Gozo one right before we came, and it has been awesome. They have really great advice and stuff, as well as just the straight cut goods about what is worth seeing and what is not.

Actually getting to Valetta seemed to prove more difficult than first expected. Maybe it's because when I look at a map I expect the scale to be bigger...like, 1 inch = 1 kilometre or something rather than only a few hundred feet. We drove for literally 5 minutes and found out we were halfway across the map! I thought we wouldn't have travelled nearly that far. Long story short, one wrong turn means being VERY VERY lost!! Lucky for us, the island isn't that big, so we were able to get back on track quite easily.

Once we were there (and I must say that the whole experience has made Ryan quite proficient at the left hand driving and round-abouts) we couldn't even find the city gates. We were officially pathetic tourists!! We couldn't find a parking spot, we couldn't find the beginning of our tour, we couldn't find much!! We did find most of the spots of interest, and the city as a whole was beautiful. Very ancient and historic and crammed into a very small space. The buildings were beautiful, made of limestone and towering above the street to maximize space. The streets were very narrow and sloped. Ryan turned down one street and we were shocked. There will be a picture up later, and you'll know exactly what I am talking about! It felt like the street went straight down! Cars lined one side, and there wasn't much room for manouvering!

It didn't take long to walk the entire perimeter of the city. We had lunch at a cute little bistro and then headed back to the car. We got back to the hotel with only minor incidents of lost-ness. The country is really really beautiful. Steph, I have your wedding all planned and I think you should come to Malta to get married!! The pictures alone would be worth it. (not to mention getting married...but let's focus on what's important!!)

We have arranged to have our first scuba lesson tomorrow morning at 9am. We'll have to let you know how it goes. We're both very excited, although I am not sure if I will be very warm!! No one mentioned that we were coming here during the coldest part of the year!! I was expecting it to be much warmer, although 17 degrees is better than -17, right? Bring on the sunshine and hot(ter) weather!

Malta part 1

We're here! We flew out of Stansted last night (after a short delay) and arrived in Malta at 12:05a.m. local time. The flight was uneventful, the plane was too small and the food sucked, but what else do you expect? We did meet a very nice couple who were also travelling to Malta (well, Gozo actually) and who offered to help us find our hotel. We flew over Europe with clear skies and even saw Paris in lights. We landed in a torrential rain storm though, welcome to Malta!

When we landed we were the only people from the whole plane who had to fill out landing cards since we held passports that were not EU. We got our luggage, our rental car and were on our way for what should have been a 20 minute drive to the hotel. The island after all isn't that big! The guy at the rental car place said that our hotel was on the complete opposite end of the island, but just follow the signs and we should be fine. Should be. We followed the signs until the signs were no longer clear, and we made one small wrong turn at a roundabout and found ourselves going in the wrong direction. Good thing we had the gps. We turned back and started again, this time staying on the main roads. Another wrong turn had us sitting at the side of the road contemplating what our next move would be, when a very kind gentleman stopped and asked us if we needed help. The Maltese are very friendly! Even though it was coming up on 2:30a.m. we let him help us and he got us going in the right direction again. We pulled into the hotel just after 3a.m. Somehow, we managed to make a 20 minute drive turn into 2 hours!!

Needless to say, we slept in this morning. We ate lunch at a bistro attached to the hotel. Since we are only on half-board, we budgeted some money for lunches and such. We figure we won't use half of it. The food us really cheap! Our room is really nice, it has a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean and the islands of Comino and Gozo. We are within walking distance of the ferries, so we may spend a day over there as well. We spent this afternoon exploring a bit, and then retreated inside when a major storm hit. The waves and wind were awesome!

I'm sure I am forgetting details, but I will do my best to keep you up to date. We are just heading down to eat some dinner.

Love you all!