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!