a perfect day

today i sold one flat at school, a flat with two bedrooms and a garden. but not really, just for fun.
it was the first whole day at school, in the morning with an extra of 45 minutes, in the afternoon with 30 minutes. the afternoon teacher is still cool. we had him in the second morning lesson too today. everyone is jealous, who doesn´t have him in the afternoon, because we have him in the afternoon. but he wears two earrings. i don´t know yet, if it´s better than wearing only one, i´ll decide it later.

we learned about the future today: going to, will future and present continuos for the future. and unfortunately i choose the wrong one to say, that there is a little chance for me going for a run in the afternoon, so i said that it´s sure that i go for a run in the afternoon. and so did i.

aaand... i won´t say, that i like running. but, it was nice. beautiful. like in a movie: the sea, the sunshine, the wawes. it was okay :)

we learned also, that english is an "apologetic language", and if you don´t have time, you don´t say i don´t have time, you say i´m a bit short on time.

tomorrow i´m getting my heat panel. Julian had no time today, but today we had 16 degrees, so i won´t freeze until tomorrow.

in the evening we had a school activity, we went out for a dinner to the Hard Rock Coffe. Luc showed me the meating point, which is ca. 5 minutes far from our appartement. i had a cheseburger, i liked it. it was not like in mc donalds, no. i don´t know how many students usually come, but a very very long table was full of us. and the afgan boy has no birthday.

school activity

bigbig burger

the secret entrance, and for today the secret exit too :)

chapter four, in which i...

explain what happened in Gozo.

we got up early today, as planned, and we wanted to take the bus at 10:17. but we were too early at the bus stop. so we went to mc donalds for a coffee. and we just missed the bus. so we had the time to enjoy our morning coffee at the seaside in wonderful sunshine. and we got the next bus easily :)

after 56 minutes of travelling with the maltese public transport we got to the ferry. the man there was wawing that we should hurry up because the ferry is leaving now. it only took 25 minutes to reach gozo (about 6 km), and we saw the mini island Comino too, between the two bigger ones.

first we thought, we could explore the island by ourselves, but a very diplomatic taxidriver offered a 5 euro transport to the capital, Victoria. as we arrived there, he had another special offer: he is going to show us the whole island, for 15 euros. we were deliberating a bit, and decided to accept his offer. so we had our own a hop on hop off taxi.

Joe, the taxi driver was an excellent guide. we learned that gozo is about 70 squarekilometers large and there are about 30.000 people living on it. there are 13 villages, one of them is the capital, in the middle of the island. so it wherever you go, you´ll pass by Victoria.

we saw a temple from 3000 b.c, the Calypso-cave, a fishing village, Joe´s birth village (with its 300 people living there the smallaes village on the island), salt pans, the azure window, the church where the pope was once, an aquaduct and of course we visited Victoria. as we arrived at the end of our tour in Victoria we had a delicious lunch in the first pub we found (yes, we were both hungry). then we tried to walk up to the citadelle, but after 1.5 hours of trying and getting lost over and over again we gave up.

on the ferry back to Malta we could see an admiring sunset. i really enjoyed it. Luc fell asleep on the bus, so i could organize everything i saw today in my head. now i have to make a selection of the pictures, because i have exactly 200 of them :)

morning coffee. for everything else there´s mastercard.

Gozo - Comino

other ferry

arriving in Gozo

if you didn´t reduce your speed...

palm trees :)

Ggantija megalitic temples, UNESCO World Heritage 

amazing red sand. there´s a wall one meter below the sea level, to stop pirates. Sicily is in that direction. Joe told us, that you can see sometimes the lights of it.

Calypso cave, unfortunately closed, because it´s dangerous now

the same as in Rio. in miniature

fishing village, Marsalforn. marsa means harbour in maltese

Basilica Ta´Pinu. the stations of the Cross are starting here

Azure window. i took hundreds of pictures, it was amazing. there is the Fungus rock too, the nights discoverd a healing plant there, and guarded the rock therefore

narrow street in Victoria

Victoria under construction. i have to come back here

nearly too miraculous...

we got lost in Victoria. he showed us the way back :)

amazing view. islands are amazing. you always have the sea around you.

maltalingua

in the morning i went to school with the dominican girl, because Luc and Luca had to be there half hour earlier. the school is not even 5 minutes away, only 3 minutes, if, and only if you don´t lose your orientation. but fortunately i got a little map from the school, so we arrived on time :)

the coffe machine was not working, for me it wasn´t important, but Caroline´s english was suffering under the lack of coffeine, so she was talking in german to me all the time... :)
we had a grammar test, according to the points upper intermediate, but the speaking was only intermediate, how i expected, so i´m in B1+ now. i have to check the names of my classmates on the  list, beacause i don´t remember everyones name yet...

in the morning we have general english, this week we are 10 in our class. Luca is here too, and another german guy, and a german girl too. with these germans i´m in the same afernoon class.
in the afternoon the focus is on speaking, and on "functional language".

in the morning they showed us the secret entrance of the supermarket too, but i already knew it :) and they warned us always to look right (or left? i´m going to have some problems on this island) before we cross a road. and there were some other useful advices too. and now i know, that if i ever get lost (never happens...) i can ask a maltese from the street, and he or she will help me. or will ask other maltese to help me. or ask all of his or her relatives to help me, until i´m not lost anymore.

tomorrow we have no school, because of a public holiday, St. Paul´s day. it happened long time ago (1st century a.d ?). St. Paul (was he St. by then?) had a shipwreck here in Malta. he tried to escape to get his head cut off. maltese were first mad at him, because if he had a shipwreck, he should have died, so why is he alive... then a snake bit him, and he was still alive. maltese were still mad at him, because now he really should have been dead... but St. Paul didn´t die, he survived, and maltese thought: wow, he is cool. and that´s why they celebrate tomorrow St. Paul´s day. but during the week we will have longer lessons, so there is no less english this week.

i took some photos of the appartement, and of our evening walk with Luc to Paceville. and he is joining me tomorrow to visit Gozo, Malta´s sister island (he once visited Gozo almost, but then he didn´t, but i don´t know any details. maybe better so.)

tricky door

this has lights on it. but i´m still not able to make good photos at night

for ice skating

i tried to photograph the wind here

maltalingua

the secret entrance of the supermarket. as an entrance i can use it, but not as an exit...

hop on hop off

after getting up too late today i started out to find the hop on hop off bus. i knew, i´ll find it opposite of the burger king, in the city next to St. Julian, in Sliema. i got a bit lost once, but then at 12 o´clock i hopped on a bus, for 2 euros cheaper then i thought.

the bus has 2 routes, the ticket is valid for both of them, so i decided to be fast, because i wished to see everything. i´ve been sitting for 3 hours on the open top of the bus, then, chilled to the bones, i had to go inside the bus.

driving on the left is dangerous. and maltese like to walk everywhere, since there are not too many footways (no footways...). i tried to assimilate, and began to walk on the road, like maltese, but 2 eldery men ordered me back on the road. so i behaved myself.

then i hopped off in Mdina. Mdina is the old capital city of Malta, it is also called the silent city. but the guide on the bus only told the fact, and not why it´s called so. although it was quite quiet... :)
after one hour of sightseeing i hopped on again, and travelled back to the actual capital, Valletta. there i had 30 minutes to catch the last bus of the second route. so i went for a walk, i found a big-big lift. here i saved another euro, the cashier let me go for free :)

my second route was without any hop offs. after finishing the tour the bus driver took me nearly home. so as i got totally wet because of the rain, i arrived at home.

there are too many cats in malta, i saw them on the street. and i think, the small houses, which i saw yesterday, are cat-houses :)
and in my eyes every church looked the same today... two towers and a dome. the guide on the bus told once (in german to be sure i understand everything), that i should pay attention to the cherries. i was wondering because i saw some orange, lemon, grapefruit or giant-lemon trees, but no cherry trees. and cherries in february? then the guide added, that these cherries are either catholic or greek catholic cherries :)  (Kirche=church, Kirsche=cherry)

a new flatmate arrived today too, but not to my room. Caroline, from the Dominican Republic, but she has been living in Austira for few years now. and she had her troubles opening the doors too, so i´m not the only one.
and now Luca explained how to use the gas heater. and tomorrow i´m going to ask for a heat panel for my room too.

and now the today´s photos...

lemon? grapefruit? i only know them from the supermarket...

mdina

in mdina

blue blue sky & palm trees

barrakka lift valletta

the driver reduced nothing...

angry blue

cat-house

very blue

 simply beautiful

finally arrived :)

with some pain in my legs and a nice vietnamese lunch in my stomach, after 2 hours of flying we almost landed in the sea. but fortunately we didn´t :)

there are a lot of palm trees over here, cypress, bear-ear-cacti. the taxi driver had to let me in the house, because what a surprise!, i couldn´t open the door... :)
i have two flatmates right now, Luc, from France, and Luca from Germany, Düsseldorf. So the names are easy to remember for now. Luc showed me the supermarket, because tomorrow is sunday, and it won´t be open. and he showed me the school too, twice. it´s about 5 minutes of walking. aaand, he taught me how to open the doors, both of them.

then i went for a walk. there is a beautiful seaside promenade, with two towers. but unfortunately i´m not able to take good photos at night.

airport

promenade. no good photos...

that lantern is smiling, but you can´t see it...

Love

St. Julians