Arrival

Our students all arrived Saturday, on time, and with no lost luggage. Yesterday and today have been busy, so I'll let Mary contribute the rest:

Since we have been back in Malta after our trip, our internet connection has been spotty. Now that the students arrived yesterday, the landlady has connected our Luther internet and service is much better. I'm glad not to be constantly disconnected.

I was thinking today how impossible it would be to ride bikes like we do in Decorah. The streets are so narrow and uneven that Mark and I can't even walk side by side on the narrow sidewalks. When we walk with the students it looks like a kindergarten single file, long line of people! 

Narrow streets aren't the only new adventure. None of the streets are on a grid and the coastline is, of course, uneven. As a result, we have been lost several times. Plus, I have no sense of direction, so I don't feel confident to go out on my own unless I have learned the route. Even Google Maps is confused. It had a route to the University that had us walking where there was no street. Funny, we can't walk through walls! Mark ended up writing out a detailed set of directions to the University, hoping it will save the students from getting lost.

Mark has a nasty cold/flu bug right now and even that brought a new experience. He ended up going to a "pharmacie" at the airport while he was waiting for students to arrive. The pharmacist made a diagnosis just as a doctor would in the U.S. and sold him some antihistimines and powerful cough syrup, some of which would have required a prescription at home. The entire bill was 14 Euros.

Walking

We walk a lot here. We have no car (driving here would drive us crazy anyway), and the bus service is poor, so we walk. Fortunately, things are fairly compact. But once in awhile we have to go far afield.

The last couple of days we've had to go to Valletta (the capital city, across the bay) for appointments with the immigration authorities regarding our visas. We also had some other errands to run concerning government agencies (more about that in a later post).

None of these places have actual addresses. Just like our apartment here, it's just a building name and a street name. If you don't know the names of the buildings, you're out of luck. Google Maps is (sometimes, almost) as confused as we are.

Yesterday we wandered around Valletta for awhile because the big Festival of St. Paul's Shipwreck is going on this week. The book of Acts and Paul's letters in the New Testament mention St. Paul being shipwrecked in the Mediterranean several times, but never does he mention Malta, specifically. Nevertheless, there is folklore here that St. Paul washed up on these shores on a February day 2000 years ago. They have a huge, week-long party every year to celebrate. The actual date happens to fall on Ash Wednesday this year, so they are celebrating early.

As we were enjoying lunch, we got a phone call informing us that the immigration guy, with whom we had an appointment, was cancelling out on us. We would have to go back tomorrow (which would be today). No explanation.

Today we used the time more wisely. First we met with some key people at the Valletta Campus of the University. Then we decided we needed a treat: The best part of the day was lunch in Valletta's #1 restaurant on Trip Advisor. Last year's directors had also told us it was their favorite. We had a Rabbit Cake starter (rabbit is the most popular meat in Malta), Mark had wild boar pasta that was outstanding, and Mary had a fish soup, which was also delicious. Malta does have good food!

The bad news: I didn't pay careful enough attention to the list of items needed for the visa (it is long and constantly changing), so we have to go back yet again. And we will have to do so again with our students, later.

The exercise app on my phone tells me that we've been averaging about six miles a day in walking. No wonder we eat so well!

First Impressions

Now that we've been in Malta a few days, I can make a few observations. These may be subject to modification as we are here longer:

Malta is very European. Historically, it's a crossroads of cultures (which is the central point of our students' learning here), but modern Malta has a very European feel. One gets the impression that the Maltese are very proud of their E.U. membership.

The cities are old, the streets are narrow, the sidewalks (where they exist at all) are even narrower. There are very few straight streets. One tends to want to orient to the water, but these cities are all built on peninsulas, so there is water on three sides. We get lost a lot.

Malta is beautiful! The sea and the sky are very blue. Even though temperatures have been in the 50s to low 60s, the sun can be very warm. The photo above was shot just three blocks from where we live. But when the sun drops, these old, stone buildings can be very, very cold!

Cars are small, everyone drives too fast. Crossing the street is often a heart-stopping experience (but so far, our hearts have always started again on the other side). If you are crossing in a random place, God help you. If you are in a "zebra crossing" (pedestrian crossings are marked with stripes on the pavement) cars will charge up to you full speed, then slam on the brakes. Car shops doing brake work here must make a killing.

People smoke a lot more here than in the U.S. (also true across Europe). Sidewalk/outdoor cafes are popular, even in winter, because people prefer to sit where they can smoke. Indoor smoking bans are fairly universal in Europe. People would rather freeze than give up the cigarette.

Malta has the worst bus service of any European country we've seen. Almost every city in Europe has great mass transit -- busses, trams, trollies, etc. We've ridden them all and have been jealous of such cheap and efficient means of travel. Malta has only the bus, and it's terrible. The bus drivers tend not to be friendly. One talked loudly on his cell phone while driving. The bus we rode today needed new shocks really badly. Another bus stopped for 15 minutes before carrying on -- everyone but us got out for a smoke (even the driver). You also have to guess about the stops, because there's an electric sign that tells you the next stop, but it never works.

Maltese are not particularly friendly to strangers (perhaps because there are so many tourists here?), but if you meet them and have dealings with them, they are very nice people. Our landlady, Maria, is absolutely wonderful! She took off work to pick us up at the airport, she's taken us out to eat (twice), and she's bent over backwards to be helpful. People at the University with whom we are dealing are very nice and very helpful. But shopkeepers, people on the street, bus drivers (again), etc., tend to ignore us. If you have business with someone, you'd best make an appointment (even if the sign says "open," you can wait a long time if you just drop in, and they'll let you know you are being rude to interrupt). Even the tourist information office gives the vibe that you're interrupting them!

Maltese is spoken here. These islands were British possessions for 150 years, and the marks of that are everywhere. Though 90% of the people speak English, the Maltese language is heard most predominantly. The language is unusual and difficult to describe, but if forced, I'd have to say it sounds like Arabic spoken with an extremely strong Italian accent.

Pigeons swarm over and under the table at an outdoor cafe after the diners have left.

This island is for the birds. Between the seagulls and the pigeons, there are lots. Not very many songbirds or other small species, but plenty of seagulls and even more pigeons.

Almost everything is only open in the morning. At noon or one o'clock, businesses close -- some for the day -- some until three or four, when they reopen until six or seven.

But generally, Malta seems a pretty comfortable place. I think we'll have a good experience here. I would end here, but in Malta, every conversation ends at least three times. So ciao. Goodbye. Ciao. ByeBye.

Arles

Today we jumped on a train to the village of Arles and made ourselves a day-trip. Arles is known for being a typical rural village on the Rhone River, as a site of Roman ruins, and as the residence of artist Vincent Van Gogh during his most productive period.

The train was easy and the tickets very reasonably priced (about $25 round trip for each of us), and the train station was less than 10 minutes walk from the village center. 

The locals have set up a series of "easels" around town to show off sites that were featured in Van Gogh's art. Touring the easels takes one past nearly all of the Roman and Medieval sites, but the Rick Steves guidebook, unfortunately, lays them out in two separate itineraries. We followed the easel walk, but stopped to look at antiquities along the way.

One of the first was the Roman Arena. This is a miniature of the famous Colosseum in Rome, and was built essentially for the same purpose. What makes this one interesting is that it is still in use! Although it was converted to cheap housing in the Middle Ages, since renovations in the early 1800s it has been used for "bull games." These are sort of like Spanish bullfights, but the bulls aren't killed. In fact, some of the bulls develop reputations as big as those of the human participants.

Very near is the Theater, remarkable because the land is so flat here that there was no hillside into which the seats could be built, as in most classical theaters. They had to create the hill artificially.

St. Trophime church and monastery are next to the theater. The church is noted for being decorated in tapestries, rather than stained glass.

We also visited the courtyard of a former hospital where Vincent Van Gogh was committed due to what we would today call depression or a bi-polar disorder. More painting was the prescribed therapy.

We enjoyed a very nice meal here in a busy mom-and-pop restraurant in which we were the only tourists -- or at least the only non-Fancophones!

Marseille

This morning we were up at 0-dark-thirty, as they say, to catch a shuttle to the Lisbon airport. There really isn't much traffic in Lisbon at 4:30 on a Saturday morning, so we made it in record time. The fog was very soupy, and we feared there might be a flight delay, but we took off and landed on time.

Marseille's airport Terminal 2, where the budget airlines come in, wins the prize for the European terminal most likely to be confused with that of a Third World country. It has all the charm of the unpainted cement block with which it is constructed. We also had to wait in line a LONG time for a passport check, even though we were transiting between EU countries. We think France is nervous following the Paris attacks.

There was a bit of confusion finding the shuttle bus into the city center, but once we had our ticket it was smooth sailing into town, and our hotel checked us in with no question, even though it was still before noon.

We set out on a self-guided walking tour of the oldest section of the city, and only got a little lost for a short while. This is not a city with lots of attractions, but the waterfront and the architecture of the old buildings that were not destroyed in WW II is quite interesting. It's what Americans expect France (all of Europe, really) to look like.

We had a nice lunch in an absolutely classic outdoor cafe. There was even a guy with an accordian to serenade us with French folk songs! The food was OK, but the atmosphere was amazing.

After sitting by the sea for a bit, watching the boats and seagulls coming and going, we decided to pick up a bottle of wine on the way back to the hotel. There isn't any! We tried a grocery store and the usual spots, but alas. We don't know where the locals buy their vino, but we're beginning to think that Provence, one of the major wine regions of France, must be a "dry county!"

Belem

Our last day in Lisbon, we took the tram to nearly the end of the line out to the suburb of Belem (bay-LEHM), at the mouth of the Rio Tejo. This place's claim to fame is that it is the place from which Vasco da Gama set sail in 1497 to find India (for real, not the place Columbus stumbled into when he was lost and mistakenly called the people he found "Indians").

Da Gama prayed for a safe voyage in a tiny chapel here. Upon his return, a grateful king and country expanded that into the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. (That is the monastery of St. Jerome, and it has nothing at all to do with Geronimo, the Apache, speaking of Indians.)

The church is a large Gothic structure. Da Gama's tomb is there. It also says much about Portugese culture that he shares top billing here with a monument to the poet, Luis de Camoes (described as Portugal's Shakespeare) who wrote the epic poem celebrating da Gama's voyage. So Vasco and his PR guy are both celebrated here!

That's one of the things we've noted everywhere in Portugal. There are military monuments, but probably just as many celebrations of poets, authors, musicians, philosophers, historians, and other academics.

Indeed, the cloister attached to this church was refurbished as a monument to an academic, after the monks had been kicked out with the dissolution of religious orders here in the 1830s. Historian and novelist Alexandre Herculano is buried in the former Chapter House of the monastery, with a poet, a playwrite, and a couple others nearby.

The cloister is quite grand -- a 2-story affair with lots of intricate carving. And it's big. There were a lot of monks here at one time.

In keeping with the nautical theme, the "Library of Navigation" is also located here, with a maritime museum next door. Across the street, on the riverbank is the Monument to the Discoveries, which celebrates the early navigators and their patrons.

Finally, we walked down to the actual mouth of the river to visit the Tower of Belem. This was a canonade built in 1520 to defend the harbor. For the mariners heading to sea, it would be the last of Portugal that they would see, and the first of home they would glimpse upon return.

On the way back to the tram, we stopped to sample "natas," a traditional pastry that is pretty darned good when hot right out of the oven.

God and the Sea

Today we signed up for a day trip to the nearby towns of Fatima, Batalha, Nazare, and Obidos. We bought the tickets at the Tourist Information office just up the street from our hostel, and the van picked us up just across the street from there. Our excellent driver/guide, Luis, was our companion for the nine hour excursion.

Fatima is the tiny village where three shepherd children bumped into the Virgin Mary back in 1917. She made appointments with them for return visits, and within six months there were thousands of locals showing up to share the vision and/or halusination. (I'm always suspicious of divine revelations that look exactly the way the "seers" expect them to appear.) 

The site is a shrine surrounded by two churches -- the newest of which is a barn seating 10,000. The tiny village has become a pilgrim industry. We were fascinated, but not moved.

Batalha is the scene of a battle (hence the name) where an army of Portugese who were out-manned 4:1 managed to defeat invading Spaniards and thereby sustain Portugese independence (and spawn an era of Portugese naval exploration that changed the world).

The place is a grand Gothic church, former monastery now military installation, tomb of Medieval kings, and shrine to the Unknown Soldier of Portugal.

Nazare is a beach town popular with surfers. It gets its name from a relic of the Virgin supposedly brought from (you guessed it) Nazareth in Galilee. The Virgin really gets around in Portugal! We had lunch and walked along the beach, enjoying the Atlantic ocean spray.

Obidos is an old, walled city -- sort of the Rothenburg ob der Tauber of Portugal. It's a quaint little place with more churches per square meter than would normally be expected, a castle converted to pricey spa-hotel, and aquaduct and ramparts you can walk if you're brave (no railings, uneven stone).

It was a good day. We saw and learned a lot, and topped it all off with a good dinner back in Lisbon.

Sintra

Sintra (SEEN-tra) is a little village northwest of Lisbon that was the national capital back in the Middle Ages, and continued to be the place where kings and nobles built their summer palaces until the end of the Portugese monarchy. It's about a 40 minute train ride, so we rode the train.

Our first stop was the Moorish castle (Castelo dos Mouros), the reconstructed 1,000-year-old ruin of one of a series of fortresses that allowed the Muslims to reign over the Iberian peninsula. The wall and the view are spectacular, and in the distance, one can see Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in Europe. But all that remains inside the castle is the fancy cafe.

After getting a bit lost on the way back down from the castle, we finally found our way back to the bus stop for another trip, slightly down then up hill again, to Pena Palace. This odd and quirky collection of Moorish and Medieval Christian architecture (and some just plain Disney fantasy concepts) was built as a summer palace by King Ferdinand I back in the early- to mid-1800s. Ferdinand was a cousin to "Mad King Ludwig" whose Neuschwanstein Castle we visited near Munich in 2012 -- also part of a recent Hollywood movie about art stolen by Nazis. Clearly the "madness" ran in the family.

After exploring the Pena, we took the bus back down into Sintra to tour the National Palace. Because of extensive renovations in the 1930s, this one looks as if it would be the most modern of the lot. Actually, the core of this palice dates back to the 15th century and the begining of Portugese nationhood. But there are layers of history here.

We walked around the village a bit, tasted some local pasteries and shopped in a few stores, then borded the train back to Lisbon. Since our hostel is actually located right in one of the central rail stations, it was nice of the national railway to deliver us right to our door! After some R&R involving a bottle of local wine that sells for less than "Three Buck Chuck" but tastes even better, we set out for dinner at a local restaurant.

Lisbon, Part 2

Right outside the church, in the square, is a little hole in the wall place considered the oldest and most authentic purveyor of Ginginha in Lisbon. This is a cherry liquor, sold for about $1.50 a shot, that is considered a national drink in Portugal. We each had to try a shot, of course. Very sweet, rather potent.

I don't know if we should blame the liquor or the busy hours of sightseeing, but we were feeling rather tired by now, so took a ride around the full loop of one of the old trollies, just to be able to sit down and take in the sights. After that, we went back to the hostel to relax a bit, before setting off again.

The funicular up the steep hill to Bairro Alto (the upper city) is just down the block from our hostel. We rode to the top for another wonderful view of the city from a different (slightly lower) hilltop. This area dates from post-1755 earthquake, so the houses are only (ONLY) 250 years old, or so.

We skipped the Port Wine Institute because it was a little classier than we were in our travel clothes, and walked on to the Cervejaria da Trindade. This used to be a monastery, but though Portugal is very Catholic, it has had a love-hate relationship with religious orders and shut most of them down in the early 1800s. This one became, perhaps, the world's first craft brew pub. We stopped in for glasses of the Sagres Preta, a pretty decent Portugese replica of a porter.

From there we walked on to Largo do Carmo, a square lined by the headquarters and museum of National Guard, and focal point of the "Carnation Revolution" of 1974 that transformed Portugal from a dictatorship to a democracy. Also here are the ruins of the Convent do Carmo, another monument to the 1755 earthquake.

There is an elevator here that was built by a student of Gustav Eiffel (as in Eiffel Tower in Paris), that would have dropped us within a couple blocks of our hostel. But still feeling chipper after our brief rest, we walked down, past Cafe a Brasileira -- a coffee house that was a hub for Bohemian poets in the 1920s and maintains that decor. It's still a "happening" neighborhood, with live music in the streets.

After another R&R break at the hostel, we took the elevator back up to a nice restaurant we had spotted. It was raining by now, and restaurants do not begin serving until at least 7 p.m. So we splurged on a bottle of Portugese vino tinto (red wine, not bad for the price of 11 euro, or about $12) served with bread and olives. That helped us kill time until we could order what turned out to be a very good meal. Sea food is great and cheap here.

Lisbon

We arrived in Lisbon on Monday evening after dark. Getting dropped off the airport bus in the middle of a strange city after dark (where you don't speak the local language) is somewhat disorienting, But as in much of Europe, everyone seems to have some basic English, so it didn't take long to find our way.

We are staying in a hostel. Formerly known as "youth hostels," these places still have a young vibe, and we are undoubtedly the oldest people staying here, but not the only ones for whom the adjective "youth" does not apply. The room is basic, but clean, and we don't share a bathroom (though that could have been an option had we wanted to save even more). There is no maid to make our bed, and we have to rinse off our own dishes after making ourselves breakfast from the (rather abundant) breads, cereals, and fruits provided, but otherwise it's quite comfortable.

Tuesday morning we took off on walking tour guided by our best travel pal, Rick Steves. Thanks to his guide book, we bought our day-pass for mass transit, found our way to the trolly stop, got on the trolly that would take us to the top of the hill, and walked a short distance to the Castelo de Sao Jorge -- the Medieval castle built by the Moors in the 11th century atop older ruins dating back to the Romans. It was retaken by the Christians in 1147 A.D., and has a commanding view of the city and the mouth of the Rio Tejo.

After touring the ramparts and the small museum, we walked awhile in the surrounding neighborhood, looking at houses still occupied today after being built 300-500 years ago. Being older and wiser travelers, we walked the narrow, winding streets primarily DOWN the hill toward the waterfront, where we visited the Fado Museum. Fado is distinctive Portugese folk music, usually sad.

After learning about singing the blues in Portugese, we caught a bus to the Praca do Comercio and the old downtown, known as the Baixa. While ground floor businesses flourish, almost nobody lives above them anymore, because the old buildings lack the basics of modern plumbing, and rent controls mean developers are unwilling to invest in renovations.

We visited the church of Sao Domingos, which still bears very visible scars of the great earthquake that occured here in 1755. This was a huge quake, estimated 9.0, that leveled most of the area. You would think it happened just last year, because of the impact it had on Lisbon's history. It's mentioned everywhere.

All of that was just our morning! Stay tuned for the rest.

Milan

Milan is a good tourist destination and is a clean and classy city. We took a city tour just so we could see Leonardo's Last Supper, but the other sites were also worthwhile and we had an excellent guide. 

To see the Last Supper you need to book tickets months in advance because they only let 25 people in at a time. Before entering the room you go into a little holding chamber to take out the humidity. Leonardo painted it directly on the wall so it is very fragile and has been restored many times over the years. The colors are much more subtle than we expected and the lines aren't so defined, so it has a dreamy and beautiful quality. We are so glad we went. 

The Duomo in Milan is also impressive, and well guarded with armed military personnel. There are churches all across the city, and we visited several, both historic and neighborhood places of worship. 

We enjoyed seeing the La Scala Opera building, but we didn't manage to get any of the $250 sold-out seats. Lastly, we stepped into the Prada and Versage stores just to say we had been there. Funny that nobody asked if they could help us.

Another Adventure

We arrived in Malta yesterday to begin five months of living in the city of Sliema. We will be administering a Luther College study abroad program with 12 students who will arrive at the end of the month.

We have a traditional Maltese apartment that is quite livable. The neighborhood is good, with the ocean only three blocks away. This is a big tourist area, mostly for northern Europeans, so there is plenty of shopping, many excellent restaurants, and plenty of night life (which doesn't mean much to us, but that our students are sure to find when they arrive).

The University of Malta is about a half hour walk from here. It has about 11,000 students and is rather compact, with buildings much closer together than at most American universities. This historic capital city of Valletta is across the bay. We have seen it from a distance, but have not yet had the opportunity to explore it.

View of the Valletta skyline from the central campus of the University of Malta.

Before the students arrive, we'll be escaping for several days of travel around Europe on our own. Stay tuned!