Gozo & Football

Last weekend there was a celebration in Gozo - I havent worked out what it was for, I think any excuse for a party. Most weekends there are celebrations around Malta all including street parades with religious statues and lots of fireworks. Anyway a good excuse to go to Gozo.

We caught the 6.30pm ferry across - the only way other than private boat, seaplane or helicopter (probably could swim if you really wanted to). It takes about 30 minutes to load the cars and passengers onboard for a 20 minute ride. Because of the festival, ferries were running all night.

On arrival at Mgarr Harbour on the south east of the island, we headed out to look at a 5 star hotel and checked out the rates just in case- only 145 euro pn

Gozo is the main agricultural producer for malta so a large part of the island is covered with farms. Next stop was a fruit and vegetable market as the produce is fresher.

By this time it was about 8pm so we headed off for some dinner, a beautiful little bay on the northern side of the island called Marsalforn. This area is known for its fish and other seafood. John had his usual Spaghetti Marinara which was full of seafood as you can see. I find the seafood in the Mediterranean to be much stronger in flavour than the seafood we get in Australia so I don't really like it.

Dinner over we headed back to the capital of Gozo - Victoria also known as Rabat where there were exhibitions of dancing, music, art and some incredible nativity models made from rocks collected from the ocean.

We had a few drinks at an outside bar and then headed back to the Harbour hoping to catch the midnight ferry - which of course left at 11.55pm - next ferry 1.30am so a long wait in the queue for the next one. It was amazing to see all the small children playing around while their parents were sitting in cars in the queue looking very tired. Interestingly the car at the head of the queue was being driven by one of the Maltese Government ministers who was not impressed that the ferry had left 5 minutes early. We finally arrived home about 2.30am.

Sunday Football in Malta - soccer for you guys. John attended a European Finals Match, albeit the final played between two Maltese sides, Valletta and Hiberia. The game venue lived up to all expectations - a crowd crush leading into the stadium and the local police being pelted by full water bottles (luckily the bottles were made out of plastic). The crowd was as entertaining, as was the game.

Tunisia

We flew from Malta to Tunis (the capital of Tunisia) and immediately transferred to Sousse a 2 hour drive. Sousse is the second largest city in Tunisia and is more tourist oriented than Tunis.

The currency in Tunisia is Dinar and 1 Dinar is roughly worth 1 Aus dollar. Everything is quite cheap a coffee is 1.5 dinar and a pizza is 4 dinar. The average wage of a school teacher who knows 5 languages is 600 dinar per month whilst a cleaner in the hotels earns just 150 dinar per month. They are big on tipping with most people expecting a dinar for any service they provide.

We gave the cleaner in our room 1 dinar each day and she made sure we got clean linen and towels every day

Stayed at the Tej Marhaba pictured above - this is the view from our balcony.

The beach is golden sand similar to Australia, but thats where the similarities end, as soon as you get close to the beach you are constantly hassled to buy something, rent a sun bed or take a parasail ride. The same can be said for all of Tunisia where bargaining is a way of life, everywhere you go you are hassled to buy.

The Medina of Sousse (old walled city) is an interesting place, it contains hundreds of souks all looking to sell the same leather goods, pottery or jewellry to tourists, these areas are relatively clean and would be a pleasure to walk through if not for the hassling. The medina also includes the daily shopping for the residents including the fresh ( maybe) food market, these areas are dirty and smelly, we even saw a dead rat in the gutter

John standing in front of a butchers shop in the Medina the things hanging on the wall on the left of the picture are entrails and on the right a head all meat is covered in flies but is for human consumption.

We did a 2 day trip to the south of Sousse with 1 night spent in the Sahara at Douz,we did a camel trip on the sahara, dressed up in traditional arab costume, no pictures because it was in a sand storm but that lent to the experience, visibility at times was down to 2 camel lengths. We stopped at an oasis to shelter from the storm for a while, got off the camels and sat next to them for added shelter, then an arab pops out from behind a palm tree to sell us a drink.

This is el-Djem roman ruins where some of the movie Gladiator was filmed

Below is Matmata lunar landscape and hotelwhich includes the set for the Star Wars movie

In the mountains close to Algeria

Chott el-Djerid Salt lake

We had a great time but we were pleased to leave -been there done that.

We were subjected to a ful body pat down and a complete check of all our hand luggage at the airport. The French people were allowed to walk straight through ( I forgot to mention that Tunisia was colonised bythe French and French is spoken everywhere)

Malta Week 4

Sunday was cousin Paul's 60th birthday so some of the family went to lunch to celebrate - we went to a hotel and had the buffett - 16 adults and 3 children, soup , pasta, salads including cold meats and seafood, hot roasts and other hot dishes with all the trimmings, cakes and desserts with icecream, cheese & biscuits. Definately ate too much the cost was 16Euro pp which is about $29 aus

When you purchase an apartment in Malta you can buy it at various stages of completion i.e.

-A shell this means you get a space without any internal walls or plastering or plumbing

-Unfinished - internal walls completed also electricity wiring (not fixtures) & plumbing

-Finished - unfinished plus windows and internal doors

-Highly finished - finished plus kitchen and bathroom completed

The building above is the one we are living in, the apartment below us as well as our apartment are both completed but as you can see others are still at the shell stage. Everyone in Malta consider themselves a handyman or they know someone who is so they buy at the shell stage and complete the fitout themselves.

It is not uncommon to see an apartment with different styles of windows and even different balconies.

Friday May 1 was Labour day in Malta and a public holiday - day started out well very nice weather so we went sailing with cousin France, about 1 hr into the trip weather turned windy with a 2 metre swell, John got seasick and had a miserable day. On reaching dry land we went to the chemist to get some motion sickness tablets - in Oz John takes Kwells because they don't make you drowsy, unfortunately malta doesnt get Kwells anymore so the Chemist recommended John take morning sickness tablets - he promises not to get pregnant.

This weekend was the European Firework Festival - we went to the waterfront on Friday night and had dinner while watching the first night of fireworks - started about 9.30pm and finshed about 1am. On Saturday night we went again so we could see the Australian entry - this was synchronized to music - they did us proud and I think they should win(maybe I am biased)

After a month on the Island I think we have seen just about everything- type to start travelling - we are heading to Sousse in Tunisia for a week of sun (still a bit changeable here) and to work on the tan so the next Blog will give you some insight into that part of Northern Africa