Malta - day 2: exploring the island

Our first full day in Malta has been spent mostly driving around the island. We visited Mosta Dome, where a bomb was dropped during mass during World War II but then miraculously didn’t explode. The dome dominates the skyline around Mosta and is the fourth largest dome in Europe. We tried to take a boat to Comino but there didn’t seem to be any running (probably because we are outside of the main holiday season) so we then drove to Wied iż Żurrieq on the western coast of Malta to visit the Blue Grotto – a natural arch in the cliffs.

Malta - day 1: first impressions

We arrived in Malta yesterday afternoon just before dusk which meant we didn’t get much opportunity to see much of the island on our way to our hotel in Qawra. The guidebook advised against renting a car on the basis that Maltese drivers are a bit crazy and don’t pay much attention to speed limits, give way signs or indicate – and it wasn’t wrong! I’m quite relieved that Michael is going to be doing all the driving particular after encountering some of the crazy drivers down narrow pot-holed roads! Still crazy road conditions aside, we are enjoying it so far!

Dreams

I often find when I go away on holiday to a French-speaking country that I tend to start dreaming in French as well. Normally this happens during my holiday, although occasionally it happens afterwards. I’m not fluent in French by any means, not even close, although I speak it well enough to get by without needing to carry a phrasebook around with me and well enough that I rarely have people reply to me in English. Clearly there is a part of my brain which has absorbed and is able to understand more of the French language than I realise.

Brussels - day 3

Our final day in Brussels was spent wandering around the area around the Palais Royale although once again we’d left ourselves too little time to visit any of the museums which was a shame as we’ve since heard that the Musée des Instruments Musiques (or Museum of Dead Musical Instruments as I nicknamed it) is well worth a visit. In fact, now that we’ve arrived back home, we’ve had a few recommendations of places to visit which would have been a little more helpful if we’d had them before going to Brussels. We’re off again tomorrow – this time to Malta.

Brussels - day 2

We are discovering just how exciting Belgium is – a quick perusal of the guide book left us wondering if there was actually anywhere interesting to visit (art galleries and museums become a bit same-y after a while) and so we ended up visiting Autoworld – a large aircraft hangar filled with vintage cars which admittedly Michael found more interesting than I did (the displays on how engines work failed to hold my attention for more than a couple of minutes). We then had a wander around the Place Royale but unfortunately arrived there too late to visit any of the museums.

Brussels - day 1

We’re now in Brussels and enjoying a nice relaxing evening catching up with friends. We’ve had a brief wander around to the Grand Place and surrounding area – buying chocolate and then relaxing in a bar serving an overwhelming variety of beer – the beer menu was about as thick as the average Yellow Pages and the sheer amount of choice somewhat bewildering but I eventually decided to try a mango-flavoured beer which was a bit bizarre and tasted more like beer-flavoured mango juice. The strawberry beer was equally strange and tasted more like a banana smoothie which was a little unexpected.

Pager-free and ready to relax

Three weeks of being pager-free are ahead of me! It is so nice to be off call and be able to completely relax and switch off from all things work-related. Tomorrow Michael and I are heading off on the Eurostar to Brussels to go and spend a couple of days with our friends Joel and Vik. We’ve been to Belgium a couple of times before (the last time being when we got engaged) but this’ll be the first time for visiting Brussels. I’m looking forward to spending time relaxing and catching up with friends but not to tomorrow’s 6am start!

Fireworks

I’m not a huge fan of fireworks – a fireworks night several years ago at Michael’s parents where a rocket came down landing about six inches away from my foot had made me quite wary of fireworks in general. Despite this, I agreed to come out to a local firework display with a group of friends this evening, which I actually quite enjoyed (probably more because I spent most of it trying to get some half-decent firework photos rather than worrying about stray rockets) and then we headed off to the pub afterwards to defrost in front of a roaring fire.

Family time

I’ve been able to get home to visit my family a little more often than usual lately which has been great. There are so many nice things about going home – spending time with my mum and dad and trying to catch up with as many brothers and sisters as I can fit into one short trip home. One of the nicest things about going home to visit my family is being able to be a part of my nieces’ bedtime routine – reading them a bedtime story, tucking them up in bed and singing them to sleep. It is just lovely.

Saturday night quiz

I’ve been spending the evening at a quiz night organised by the am-dram group that I’m involved in. To be completely honest, I hadn’t been all that keen on going but faced with the choice of staying in and potentially being harassed by trick-or-treaters knocking on my door all evening and going out to the quiz, the quiz seemed marginally the better choice of the two. Michael was working at an event so couldn’t make it. It wasn’t too bad an evening in the end (our team came third, but there were only four points separating the top four teams).