Marvelous Malta!

HI!!!
Long time no talk!!  We have been away from any extended time on the internet, so I have finally got a chance on the internet, and I am taking it!! Wahoo!

Marvelous Marvelous Malta.... It was a good decision to skip Greece (bad weather, greeks on strike, pressured time line) to be able to experience the beauty and people of Malta.  One of Jon's motherlands... or mother's land should I say.  Jon's mom and her family left Malta and arrived in Canada in 1969, but relatives and friends remain in Malta, and what a neat little land it is!

Not sure where to start, we stayed with some close family friends of Jon's family Joe, Doris, and their son Stelvio.  They have an incredible house, located in the middle of the island of Malta on a hill overlooking one side of Malta, we could see for miles, and see the ocean (I was corrected numerous times... not the ocean... the sea!!), and over to the other islands, Comino and Gozo.  We were once again stuffed with food again and again, Doris, our malta mom is an excellent cook, and made sure to cook us some genuine Maltese dishes which were really delicious.  Joe and Doris have two sons and one daughter, Sinclair, oldest son, who has a lovely wife Jacqueline, and their two beautiful kids Jake and Maya, Benveyl is the beloved daughter who is busy with her fiance Giovanni working like crazy and renovating their house-to-be for when they get married, which is this December! And the younger of the sons Stelvio who we got to spend a lot of fun times with and Stelvio's lovely girlfriend Elsa.  She has similiar hair to me!!! Except a red tint, it was so fun to be in a country where curly hair is the norm, and it is loud and proud, or big and curly haha.

Joe and Doris took us to many many spots on the island, the Blue Grotto, Valetta, Hasan's cave, a cave with a church in it, the smart city, movie sets, Pretty Bay, numerous view points and historical spots, seems like everywhere on the island has breathtaking views.  We went to markets, Doris is a machine, it was fun to tag along, and to get my elbows up when there were cheap shoes to be fought over with the locals!  Unfortunately shoes arn't the best to buy and bring home in backpacks, so there was a limited quantity to be had.

Sinclair and co, and Stelvio and Elsa took us all over the place when they weren't working.  We got to hang out with lots of Stelvio's friends which was really neat because we got to know the local young crowd and see what they do and what life is like for them.  We hit up Birgu Fest, which is a festival where the whole town of Birgu turns off the lights and the whole town lights up as many candles out side their houses as possible, it was really neat!! Theq set a world record that night!  Jon got to play soccer with the Maltese boys, and we also got to bash the squash ball around while we were there too!

Jon's Nana's half sister Carmen, super fun lady with lots of energy took us over to the islands of Comino and Gozo! The water in Malta is a rich deep bright blue, it is almost like there are lights under the water and they are shining upwards.  The coastline of the three islands is very dramatic, like a movie set, it just doesn't seem real.  We will post pictures soon, we can't access the tower from this computer.... so unfortunately no pictures to date. 

Anyways this is getting longwinded, but to summarize... we got to stay and meet really nice genuine people, and really experience Malta as we spent the most days in one spot on our whole trip in Malta.  There is something about having a place become familiar, that was foreign such a short time ago.  Malta, was rad, and the people were short - for the most part, which was excellent for us. haha.

More to come soon....

Love Heather and Jon.