Paceville!
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2007
1
28
29
Trip End
Oct 17, 2007
St Julians,
Malta
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Cousin Lillian joined me today on a mission to find a suitable statue of the saint
The water where we were stranded.
. She knew a few places in Valletta that sold religious items so she was going to be a valuable ally in my quest. Sure enough we managed to find a fantastic statue of Saint Andrew, much better than I could have imagined and I was so happy to have found the perfect gift for them. Aunty Julie was so pleased when I brought it home later in the day and it has pride of place in her kitchen where she said she would see it everyday. :)The weather had turned colder in the last few days as Autumn sets in and I realised that I had not swum since before leaving for Sicily. Today the weather was a little better so once I got back from Valletta I put on my running gear and ran to St Julians. On the way back after working up a sweat I stripped down and dived into the beautiful Mediterranean for perhaps the last time for a while. It was great.
Today was also the last opportunity for me to visit Sister Christine. So we all jumped in the family car and spent a few hours with her late in the afternoon. I realised that this was the 5th time I had visited Christine since coming to Malta, 3 times with my relatives and twice on my own. It was very much a special and unexpected surprise for me to spend so much time with Christine. I promised her I would return one day soon to visit her again
Soaking wet (and crying) Josette.
. It was with a twinge of sadness that I said goodbye to her today, but I did not want to let sorrow become a memory that I would relate to my time here so I stayed in a positive mood. Like all my cousins I have a deep love for Christine, and I am pleased I got the opportunity to gain a much better understanding of the life she has chosen. She asked me to write to her when I got home. Now we are talking about snail mail here (not email) so hand writing a letter was something I had not done in a very long time. However when discussing with Lillian she suggested I write the letters in Maltese as practice and I thought that was a fantastic idea! Now that is going to be a mission!Tonight was the night that my cousins Lillian, Michael and his wife Josette had planned to take me out for a night on the town in Paceville. We had talked about it for some time so by the time it came around we were pumped. We started with dinner at Michael and Josette's house, shared a bottle of wine and also a Martini on the rocks (nice!). I was determined to get them at least a bit tipsy to ensure we had a memorable evening, little was I to know how the evening was going to finally end up! Well after a few rounds of tequila we were well and truly on our way and danced up a storm. Night clubs in Malta are certainly a lot of fun and even this late in the summer season they were all packed. We had a fantastic time until around 2pm when we thought we would call it a night. Well all hell was about to break loose! On the way to the car the heavens opened up and an absolute torrential rain storm hit Malta, and I mean torrential. By the time we got to the car it was as if all four of us had dived into a pool, we were soaked to the core. We could not stop laughing however (might have had something to do with the tequilas not sure!). So we pile into Michael's car and set off home
Soaking wet Lillian.
. Not sure how much I have mentioned the poor quality of many of Malta's streets but today you will get the idea. The place was basically flooded. Street after street we drove down were just swimming pools, there were cars crawling around trying to navigate as best they could. Michael changed our route a few times to make sure we were as high as possible to avoid the flooding waters, and still the torrential rain continued. Anyway we hit this street and I said to Micheal that the water looked pretty deep here. "It will be ok..." he says. "Hmmm maybe this is going to be tricky..." he adds. By this stage we realised that the water was in fact above the tyres of the car and sure enough a few seconds later the car's engine stops and we are stranded. Man it was funny, we just did not know what to do. Josette's initial reaction was to start crying! And that was also her second and third reaction. :) Being the elder statesmen I assured them that we would be ok, but started to think we were in a pretty tricky situation and not sure how we were going to get out of it. The first thing was to get the car out of the deepest water. So off went my jeans and shoes and I got out of the car in water above my knees in an attempt to push the car back from where we came. Meanwhile we were all just cracking up the whole time (oh Josette was crying and laughing at the same time). Happy to say that I managed to push the car back up the hill enough to get out of the deep water, and by this stage the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Problem was the car refused to start so eventually we were forced to call for a tow truck. Well my fantastic evening ended with me drenched to the bone, freezing cold and shivering in the passenger seat of a tow truck meandering our way through the streets of Malta. What a memorable night, and something I will not forget for the rest of my days. Only in Malta! :)
