Arrival

Our first international flight from Newark to Zurich lasted a long 7.5 hours. The two very small gentleman in front of us decided it was important for them to lean their seats all the way back for the duration of the flight. Needless to say we had a very restless night.  Not a problem though, upon arriving in Zurich we spent most of the long layover napping on our backpacks.  With an airport nap under our belt, we embarked on our journey to Malta, sampling some compact Euro-Coca Cola along the way for extra energy.

We arrived in Malta around 8 pm and moved in to the Phoenicia five-star hotel for a 2 night stay. While at the hotel we encountered luxurious beds, gorgeous views, possibly the best continental breakfast we've ever had, incredible architecture..

 And two toilets...

After waking up to Phoenicia breakfast, we ventured into the city of Valletta right next door. The city itself is incredibly beautiful, with gorgeous churches at every corner and all of its historic architecture still intact. Linds was able to take tons of pictures, and even though we were able to explore for most of the day we still feel like there's so much more here to see. Every street here eventually leads to the water, and they are filled with boutiques and cafes, selling designer clothing, souvenirs, and local dishes like rabbit, fish, and pastizzi (a traditional Maltese snack,
typically made of cheese or peas.)

The cars here are all very small and compact. Matty has found it difficult to fit, and even more so, to remember to not get into the drivers seat, as they drive on the opposite side.

This view from the Phoenicia is of the town of Floriana.
To the left is the capital Valletta. 

After two nights at the Phoenicia, we moved into the Hotel San Antonio in the town of Bugibba. We stayed here for two nights and enjoyed the scenery and coastline right behind the hotel..

 

On Sunday night I played in my first game against Loyola. Our team, Floriana, is very balanced and we played a great game to win 106-47. It felt great to get back on the court with new teammates. I'm looking forward to the rest of our season!

 

On Sunday night after the game we moved into our new apartment (above). We are on the 2nd floor directly up that driveway. It is a simple place with big views. The language here is very interesting, a combination of Arabic/Italian/French/English/and maybe more. To give you an idea, our address at this new apartment is: Grixti Court, Flat 4, Triq Dawret in-Nawfragju, Xemxija, San Pawl Il-Bahar. Pretty incredible to read and speak. We will not be learning much Maltese while we're here, but it will be fun to try.

These 2 pictures are the views from outside our place. When we walk down our driveway this is what we look out on. Its amazing to think that we just left more than a foot of snow at our homes in Vermont, and now we wake up to this in the morning.

On our first full day at the apartment we wandered outside to explore the neighborhood around us. About a 1 minute walk from our place we found these beautiful cliffs. The cliffs lead down to a bunch of smaller rocks that you can sit and read on, and hopefully swim off of when it warms up a bit. We try to make time each day to come down here.

 Malta Cliff Diving 2012

This is a link to a Youtube video about cliff diving in Malta. At the 1:15 mark and 2:30 mark you can see people jumping into this lagoon that we are standing on top of. There is an abandoned pink building on the top of the cliffs that these crazy kids jump off of, and you can see it throughout the video. It's right in our backyard, but I'm afraid we probably won't be doing too much cliff diving here, maybe some snorkeling and wading through the shallows..