the last one, for Julian :)

So, here I am, at home again, after 2+2 weeks of Malta. And it was amazing!
But, there are some important things you should know before you decide to go there... First of all, Malta is minute (this is one of the new words, I learned there, so be aware, your English might improve :)), and maybe that´s why I often had the feeling, that people know me... they were smiling at me on the streets :) then I smiled back :) And Maltese drive on the wrong side of the road. Try to keep this in mind, now you think it´s impossible, I thought it too, and now I have my problems with crossing a road at home too.
Back to Malta... if you´re new there, explore the island with the Hop-on-hop-off bus, it´s fun. But don´t hop off everywhere, you can always go back to the beautiful places with the public transport, and with your classmates from school. Your classmates and other students will be your new "family" there. You can go everywhere with them. For example to Gozo, Malta´s sister island. Gozo is even smaller than Malta. You can see ancient temples, or the amazing Azure Window. Make sure your phone is fully charged or you have enough batteries for your camera. We had a taxi for ourselves, and the driver was an excellent guide. Or you can visit the old capital of Malta, Mdina. I was there three times. Or the new capital, Valletta, four times... :) The carnival was fascinating, everyone was wearing costumes, the little princesses, spidermen, batmen, lions were the cutest :) Don´t miss the tour to the Three Cities, organized by the school, and guided by Mariella. And go to the Golden Bay for the most romantic sunset in your life. Take your boyfriend too, and if you don´t have a boyfriend, just grab a random guy... no. no random guys. And if you´re in an adventurous mood, you can walk from the Dingli Cliffs to the Blue Grotto. And if you want to have even more fun, you simply can get lost, like we did :) And please, learn a lot of adjectives, because if you don´t, you can´t describe what you´ve seen. You´ll need more than beautiful and wonderful. Learn better adjectives :)
Okay, learning... there is this language school too. Which one? This one. I learned so much there, not too much grammar (but trust me, learning grammar on Malta is better than learning grammar anywhere else :) ), but real language, "functional language". You´ll hear this term, if you have Paul as a teacher. If you are more lucky than me, you could survive a nuclear war in a bunker. I wasn´t lucky enough. And don´t miss any pronunciation course of Katrin, she´s the one with red hair, and she can write these little phonetic symbols fluently (write fluently?). And if you´re there, please, please give Toni a hug, it´s from me. And if you have someone else as a teacher, don´t be afraid, i met them all on activities, dinners, they are okay too... ;)
Dinners? Yes, every week you can go on a dinner, with all the other students, and with some teachers. It´s the best opportunity to make new friends. And sign up to other activities too. I was at the laser tag, I just can say, wow. I was not good at it... but that doesn´t matter. It was the first time in my life, but not the last. Or you can go to a winery, I can tell you, the white wine is the best :) By the way, it´s Julian, who organises theese all. Thank you Julian :)
And thank you all, dear Maltalingua-Team, for this incredibly great month :)
Réka 

charge your phone, girl!

it was late yesterday as i finally got to the hotel. i planned to wake up early, maybe at 8 or 9 o´clock, then i pack my luggage, check out of the hotel at 11, go for a walk, buy some souvenirs, then take the taxi at 12, and leave for my flight... that was the plan.

but as i woke up, and realized, that it´s half past 10, my plan changed immediately. and my plan changed again, as the taxi driver showed up at 11 at the hotel, while i was checking out... so i drank my coffe at the airport. and i bought the souvenirs at the airport. and i spent 3 hours at the airport. but i didn´t miss my flight :)

i arrived at Zürich without any other distructions. too much people here (all Malta could live in Zürich). and my phone gave up. i wrote two messages, so the important ones knew i arrived. and i could check the adress where i should go, and then nothing. the phone refused to do anything. not even a peep. but i found my friend´s house easily, of course... try to pull your suitcases many kilometers on an uneven way, your fingers will go dead. today´s lesson learned. for ever.

and now i don´t know what to say, or how... and while i´m trying, i can´t see anymore, so i stop trying now.
goodbye Malta, i´m definitely coming back. i already have my flight tickets in my heart :)
and goodbye Maltalingua :)
and goodbye everyone :)
i love you too ;)

nuclear war and grammar auction

this was the perfect day for a last day. only the test wasn´t soo exciting (45/48).

but after the test, everyhing was fantastic :) we had to hide in a bunker, because of a nuclear war. but the bunker was too small, only big enough for 6 people, and we were 12 in the class, which is not the best situation. i crossed my fingers not to become a cook this time, so i became a fashion designer... that is much better than a cook. a fashion designer with leader skills. to demonstarate these skills i tried to organize the voting. i was not bad at it. but it didn´t seem to be convincing enough... so i tried to be pretty, and beatuiful, and tall... and more... but nothing helped. they would have let me die... me, the perfect woman....  

but there is still hope in this world, in real life i would have survived, the elementary school math teacher got the most votes :) so, alive or dead, i enjoyed the game.

and in the afternoon we played grammar auction. and guess who won? yes, it was me :) so two cool games for my last day :)

aaaand, the sun is shining. not permanently, but there was only a little bit rain today. maybe the sky is sad because of my last day too... 

wine tasting

yes, i drank some wine. not a lot, only a bit. the winery is full of barrels, as expected. and the man there showed us, what the grape has to go through, to finally get into the bottle. 

we could taste three different wines, a white, a pink one, and a beautiful deep red. i liked the white. 

one of our teacher had an observer today. she was a bit nervous, but now i know in which order i should use adjectives, if i have to, or i want to use more, not only one. and the whole day we were shouting to each other things like: "he´s hungry. hungry? he´s absolutely starving!" because now we know how. the whole day :) it was like an insider joke, but then we explained it, and the outsider got inside too.

tomorrow is my last test, last day,last dinner. i have my flight ticket printed. so now i´m coming home. not like last time, when i stayed two more weeks instead. so mom, dad, Ger, miss me now a bit please :)

distopia

today´s topic: villains. we almost didn´t mention heros. and Barney Stinson was Dr Horrible today. 

in the afternoon we visited the three cities as a school activity. but not a random three cities, the three opposite of Valletta. the knights founded these cities. they came to malta and went to Rhodes to fight for christianity. there they lost a battle, and came back to Malta. and here they won a battle against the turkish army. so they were happy, and because of this happiness in 1565, they founded Valletta in 1566, but that´s an other story. 

and we´ll go for a dinner, organised by the school (yes, a school activity again, great job Julian :) ) so we´ll go to gulululu (how much lu-s?) i was told, that this is a restaurant, where you an eat traditional maltese food. so i could eat a rabbit, if i want. or some parts of some rabbits..

tall cactus (old photo, i got it today, from the Dingli to Blue Grotto trip)

fortress of Victriosa

i´d immediately move in here

gate of Victoriosa

here they used to repair the ships long time ago

harbour

ears-eyes-nose to hear-see-smell the danger

over there, that´s Valletta

jedi & pandas

we finally went to Golden Bay today. it should be the most beatutiful sunset in Malta there. and it was the most beautiful sunset. last time´s breathtaking is not enough for describing it... and we were listening to the fizzle of the hot sun as it reached the cold water :) as it reached the level of the water, until it disappeared under the water, it took only 2 minutes. or even less... and i went in the sea again. i love to feel the sand between my toes. but christmas isn´t all around us. 

aaand i smoke for the first time in my life shisha (do i write it like this?). for real. and small, and bigger clouds came out of my mouth and nose :) it was definitely not the last time for me. i felt like a little baby dragon. 

at school we learned some linkers again, and Nostradamus came on too. i got a little gift today too, from our afternoon teacher. it only a piece of paper, but she wrote on it, that it´s for me, from her :) 

in the coffee ole i´m the smiling girl. the woman there always writes something specific to recognise who ordered what, i today i saw her drawing a smiley :) i´m really going to miss Malta when i´m back at home, and this makes me a bit sad. not a bit. 

very scary, so it´s okay if you can´t read it, believe me

no words... i need more adjectives, teachers!!

can you hear the fizzling?

real language

that´s what we learn here.

for examle, in the morning lesson we learned about defining and non-defining relative clauses. but not only the grammar part of it. we had to say our sentences without saying a word. so the sentence "Bob, who i went to school with, is my best friend" sounded like "hm, hmhmhmhmhm hm, hm hmhmhm" :)  i think i´m not bad at saying it like this. Melanie understood everything, of course. mondays are crazy.

we had nice weather today, so we took our lunch to the seaside. but there was a chewing gum, exactly where i was sitting... but my trousers are okay now.

after school we went to Valletta again. i wanted to buy a small maltese cross. and i bought a small maltese cross. now i need a chain, or something, but i don´t want a silver chain, or anything metallic, i want a leather one. and we did a race with Stefan. you may remember, Stefan is the tallest guy here. we ran up some (a lot of) stairs. i had about 10 meters advantage. but he is very very tall. aaaand i won :) and i´m not going to mention here, that he lot his jacket, and had to pick it up, so that´s why he lost a bit time. because i won anyway :)

and i began to translate/rewrite the blog in english, because of Julian. actually, this is the english version. but there is a hungarian one too, which is the original. and if you like this, you have to learn hungarian, it´s even better.

and we waited and waited...

on saturday evening we decided to go to the Paradise Bay on sunday. and that´s why we went to the Paradise Bay on sunday. we were waiting in the bus stop, but the bus didn´t come. then the next bus came. so we didn´t think of anything bad.

(afternoon, 15:00)
Paradise Bay is beautiful. the colour of the sea is amazing, i´m beautiful on the photos. then we started for Popeye Village. the first bus didn´t stop. now we know (after 3 weeks...), that we have to wave with our hands. so we waited for another 30 minutes.

then we missed the stop to the Popeye Village, but it was okay, we had to go back a bit. and there we had to wait for the bus. and we waited. and no bus came. only buses to Valletta. after a while (long long time...) we changed our plan, so now we were waiting for another bus, to the Golden Bay. if a bus came, we would be right on time for the sunset. but no bus came. then after a while (another long long time...) we decided to take any of the buses, because it was too cold... but no bus came.
finally a bus came, and we took it, because everything is better than staying in a bus stop the whole day. the only thing that kept us alive was, that we decided to eat the brownie at Piccolo Padre, once we got back. and then the surprise... the restaurant was closed. because of staff dinner... pfffff...
(evening, 20:00)

so we went to mc donalds, and had a lot of chocolate.

next time we´ll be better. and Eda is the best parter for such an unsuccesful day, we laughed a lot instead of crying :)

no pictures of this afternoon

i have to learn how to whisper

so, yesterday we planned a trip for today. actually not we, it was Konrad, a german boy (everyone´s german...) planned it, we just joined him. and i was told, the weather will be nice too. so, it was nice.

we met at 10.30, 5 girls and Konrad. we travelled by bus, a lot. Malta is little-little, but busses can´t drive straight ahead, they make a lot of turns. but it´s okay, we are on holidays, so i like it. we started at the Dingli cliffs. we took a lot of (an even more) photos. we saw a little church, and a bigger one too. theoretically, we had to go always next to the coast, which means, you always can see the sea, or sea the see? (bad one) yeah, theoretically.

but once we noticed, that we don´t see the sea. we lost the sea on an island. on a little-little island. so we asked some maltese, where we are, and they showed us the way back to the coast. because of this little (longer) interruption, we missed the Hagar Quim temple. then it turned out, that i can´t whisper. and i can´t even think: i forget to switch to german while talking about the guy with the british accent sitting next to us... 

we arrived right before sunset at the Blue Grotto. we sat on a fence, and were watching the amazing theatre of nature. then we had a very romantic bus drive home, the driver switched the lights off. he only switched them back on for the new passengers to see, where they can take a seat. we bought some pastizzi in Mdina while waiting for the other bus. then we ate a döner as we arrived in St. Julians. and in the evening we visited Marta at her hotel.

now i miss one of my three towels. and today´s word was: breathtaking. but we must ask tomorrow how to say it, we are not sure...

Dingli cliffs

big church

breathtaking

did i mention that blue is my favourite colour?

news in brief

57/58 in today´s test.

knees, shoulders okay. 

trekking to the south of the island today.

Granny, happy birthday! kisses

wow, laser tag

i just got home, and i have no kleenex... tomorrow. but i´m still not ill, nothing hurts, that should hurt if you have a cold. 

but everything else hurts. both of my knees and my left (doublechecked, left) shoulder. it happened at the laser tag. by the way, it´s a huge fun! and i was not the worst :) then i fell over a door step, or something like that. because there was a little room, where you could hide. and i think, Julian was there, and Melanie saw him. so i stepped in, was scared, wanted to step out. and then i flew through this door step. i don´t know yet which colour my knees have, but both of my shoulders are pruple-blue. and now i´m a bit slowlier then usually. according to Eda i´m a penquin now. 

in the afternoon class we were travelling to a desert island. it was me, "the cook", wo was dropped into the sea to the sharks, as our boat began to sink. i had no chance against a "sick little boy"... and we learned how to make a noun, if you have a verb. and the secret of a long life is not a secret anymore: antioxidants and no more then twevehundred calories.

the number of my towels is still three, plus the ones wich i own.

hedgehog and /ti:/ /eɪtʃ/

yesterday´s and today´s newest adventures:

yesterday we cancelled every afternoon plans, because of the rain. so i went for a walk by myself. i got wet, but it´s my own guilt. i found cacti (plural of cactus, i asked. and the plural of fish is fish), which had some purple fruit on them. these are the prickly pears. my taxidriver on my first day told me, that there are a lot of them. so i want to try them. but i was told, now it´s no season for them. and they grow very big, not like the ones i saw yesterday. 

the afternoon teacher liked my homework, and i like that she liked it:) we had to write some sentences with idioms about love and relationships. but my homework turned into a little story :) and today we wrote a book too. it´s hanging in room 4 now :) we had to use the idioms and we learned some phrasal verbs too (verb+preposition... they are difficult...). this week we learn a lot of new things, grammar, expressions, i´m really enjoying it now :)

for tomorrow i have to write again, because of some linkers, we learned today. i chose "children need more play time in order to develop into healthy adults. 

we had an extra pronunciation course in school today. i learned, that the th is not simply th. there is a voiced th and an unvoiced th too. and you have no rules, when to use which one. but we had some funny minimal pairs. then we learned some tongue twisters. but i can´t say any of them.

in the evening we went out for a dinner with the school. to a restaurant with football decoration. and all the dishes were named after football players. what do you think, which burger i chose? of course, the "Puskás" cheeseburger. but i can say, the cheseburger in the Hard Rock Coffee was better. however, i had an interesting conversation about german language with a german guy, in english :)

i´m getting sick... my body is failing against the bacteria. everyone is ill now at school. note for myself: have to buy kleenex. i need them now.

look at the decoration... why?

no rivers on malta

... only if it rains. but then, every street turns into a river. and you have to jump over it. or you just jump in it. and you have wet shoes. but that´s not a problem, i like being here anyway.

i was a good student today. i did the optional homework. and the others assured, that i´m not a know it all, just smart. (i am a know it all, but they like me...) and they are using me as a walking dictionary. and it´s clear too, that i´m not a german, because i´m nicer than a german. :) no, the second part is not true. however, today, i had a great day too.

in the afternoon we were shopping with the girls. they bought a lot of things. i only bought a cappuccino. Max came with us too, but he gave up at 6. 

my room was cleaned again. and now i´m a bit confused. there is a sign in the bathroom. if i want new towels, i should leave them in the bathroom, then i will get a new one. and if i don´t want new towels, i should leave them in the bathroom, then i won´t get new ones. i just thouhgt hmm. and i had some question marks flying out of my head. (no. no question marks.) and this towel thing is beacause of saving the environment. and of course i want to save the environment, but i didn´t know what i should do with the towels... so i decided to hang them up outside, in the balcony, i was hoping, that they will forget about my towels. but they didn´t. so now i have my two towels, which i had before, and i got a new one. so tomorrow i will have to try harder to save the planet, right now i failed...

and since i have no fridge, i decided to eat all my food what i have. nothing was green, so i put some pesto on everything. then everything was green. and i ate it all. 

cats

between two rains i went for a quick (slow) run in the morning. the sun has really strong power, even now, in february. on my way home i wanted to try another way. of course i got lost. but i found a cat village. a cat village! i think maltese love cats. everyone has cats. and cats are in the streets too. and if somebody hasn´t got a cat, he wants to have a cat. 

unfortunately the weather forecast was right, or i wasn´t thinking strong enough of the sunshine, but we had a rainy afternoon. so we went to the cinema again. the theory of everything. i´m going to watch it again. 

in the evening we had dinner, i don´t know the name of the restaurant, but it´s below the pizza hut. 

there is some talk of a lot of italian will arrive to the school this weekend. we´ll see tomorrow. 

somebody cleaned my room. but it wasn´t dirty. i´ve been staying there since yesterday, so why...? is it always like this in hotels? 
i bought the most beautiful mug :) there are hearts on it, and Malta. and it´s blue inside. so, it´s perfect.

fiherman with his cat

cat without its fisherman

i like this house

and this house right next to it

cats village. you can donate some money, to buy them some food

i can´t get enaough of the blue...

it´s not a bird, but it looks like one

i'm just a little black rain cloud...

hovering under the honeytree.

and above Malta... the whole day. but we just ignored the weather and went to Mdina. Stefan has already been five times there, i think, so he was our "guide" again. we ate chocholate cake there, it was delicious, but the brownie yesterday is the best for me. we agreed after, that now we´re done with cakes. 

while waiting for the bus back to St. Julians, we bought some pastizzi. it´s a traditional maltese pastry, filled with chese or ricotta (i don´t exactly know, what ricotta is, i have to ask an italian). and pastizzi is very cheap, 30 cents only. our afternoon teacher told us, that´s why nobody dies of hunger in Malta. and beacause everyone has a lot of cousins, not like me, really a lot of them, and the cousins have a lot friends too, so if you got homeless, there is alwas somebody who says, hey, come to my house, and then you are not homeless anymore. and since i´m here, i haven´t seen any homless, so it could be true. or i wasn´t paying attention.

as we arrived back from Mdina, i moved to my hotel. acutally, that was not easy, bacause i had to walk 5 minutes to reach the hotel... so on monday i´m going to have to get up 5 minutes earlier... :) then i tried and tried and tried and tried again to open the door of my room. i almost gave up, but then i tried once more, and there it was, i opened the door, by myself, without any help :) then i did some practice, because i thought i just opened it accidentaly. 
no microwave, and nothing to boil some water. i will need a glass or a mug. or i´ll just be okay without it.

everyone says, it´s going to rain tomorrow, but i refuse to believe them, but pay no attention to little me :)

grandmaster´s palace, Mdnia

beautiful glass things

here we had the chocholate cake. and a hot chocholate too. i´m going to die of an overdose of sugar...

cloudy view

heaven on earth

today i´m moving in a hotel. yesterday they finally confirmed, that everything was okay with my booking, because before they were not sure. and so wasn´t i. so everything is fine now :)

this week i wasn´t so good, i only did 42/46 points in the test. then we learned some adjectives. for example, happy is a bad word, an sad and nice too. you have to use better ones, so i´m going to use other ones. but i have to learn them first. and we had lunch in the lovely sunshine today :)

we went to the cinema too. we saw Kingsman, i liked it. the best part was as the brains were exploding, they were like little fireworks. after the cinema we met some other students, and went to yesterday´s restaurant for a brownie. but it´s not just a brownie. it´s the brownie. hot, and with cold icecream on the top of it. it was planned, that we four were going there, but then we were 17.

at the evening we had a school activity again, beergarden. 5 of us are flying home tomorroy, so it was a bit like their goodbye party too. so we were out until the early hours (i learned this expression this week, and now i managed to write a sentence, where i can use it, proud of myself :) )

that´s it

dinner

so, Luc cooked today. but he was not simply cooking. we had a welcome drink, and some minipizza and tomatoes and chips and salami as entée too. and then we had spagetti with salmon. and salad. and he set the table too. everything was perfect. then he apologized for not preparing a dessert for us, but he doesn´t like any desserts. then he put some french cheese and fruit on the table. 

and he didn´t let us help, not even washing the dihes. 

i ran today again, and i learned (not really learned, but recapitulated for tomorrow´s test) a bit. and there was a homework to, i have to have a look at it tomorrow morning, beacause i didn´t succed to match up all the expressions. 

but today, it was warm. i didn´t had to wear my jacket. and now i have to sleep, double as much in the same time.

time anchor

i was sparkling today. not only once.

we learned a lot: at the end of the words you usually don´t say a t sound. either you make a glottal stop, i´ll show it when i´m home, or you assimilate the sounds. you don´t say fat boy, you say fappoy. and you don´t say good girl, you say googgirl. and not fat cat, it´s fakkat, and not this shiny, and cheese shop, but i can not write the pictures of the sounds you say there, so you have to wait for me to say all these words connected to each other.

aaand, i used the the future perfect, which we learned in the morning, in the afternoon, while speaking to our teacher :) i was so proud. and now i know the difference between used to, be used to and get used to too. we had a lovely example about holdig your own baby.

in the afternoon i ran again. it was windy. very windy. and cloudy. and rainy too. but believe or not, it was still beautiful. and the waves were huge. no. they were more then huge. they came up to the promenade. and i had to jump away from them, not to get wet. it was amazing, i only thought wow, and wowthatoneisbigger, and howbeautifulisthis, and the maltese, i think they were maltese, beacause they didn´t seem to be surprised by the waves, were smiling at me all the time... :)

in the evening we went out for a dinner with the school, to Piccolo Padre. i had pizza with artichoke. it was again a nice evening, we had a good conversation with all the others. and i think we´ll come back to this restaurant. i hope next time other teacher will come too, today we only had one, and she is not teaching me.

and Luc is going to cook for us tomorrow, he invited Melanie and Alyzée too. and Luca is moving out to a better appartement, he said.

no fireworks, but never mind, i´m staying here for two more weeks!!!

such an exciting day today:)

yesterday, love was such an easy... no. yesterday, while i was running, i had a great idea. then, today, i won the tabu game in class, then we won the quiz. 

in the evening we wanted to go to Valletta, for the fireworks. hmmm. we knew, that if it rains, there will be no fireworks. but it was not raining. and as we arrived, the carnival was still on the street, it was great. but no firework. we asked a policeman first, if and when is the firework. he was not a policeman, and he had no idea. then we asked a real policeman. he was not from Valletta and he had no idea either. then we asked a costumed man from the carnival, he said, there are no fireworks in february. fireworks are usually in the summer in Malta. then we asked a couple walking down the street, they said, the firework was yesterday. 

so we took the bus back to St. Julians.

aaaaand, now my great plan, which has developed from my great idea since yesterday: i´m going to stay in Malta for two more weeks!!! (it´s a surprise now :) )

what happened is, that i´m really enjoying Malta, i love being here. the people are great, i like how they teach in the school. and i asked in the school first, if it would be possible to stay, then i spoke to mom and dad, and everyone said okay :)

now i´m happy. and here are some photos too.

and there were no padlocks right from this sign

they say, the carnival will end today, but they are maltese, you can never be sure...

i´m a princess

i moved uo to B2 today :)

i bought a lovely checked shirt today :)

aand, i ran 12 kilometres today !!!

but i´m not perfect, not yet, so there are no photos today... :(

carnival in valletta

i got a roommate today, Ana, from Italy, and i like her.

today´s program was Valletta again, because of the carnival. we tried to meet at noon, but we had two different meeting points... bad oraganisation of us. but finally we had everyone. we took the bus again.

then suddenly someone had the great idea to change in Sliema for the ferry. everyone agreed, that was the first time we lost one of us today. 

the carnival was fantastic. first we were in the most crowded place, that was not good, and since almost everyone is german, we knew about the tragedy in Duisburg few years ago, so we looked for another place. that was the second time we lost someone today. but Stefan with his 1.90 m was not lost for long time.

imagine the children in costumes (i liked the litte spiderman, and the ladybird baby, and the little lion, and all the thousand princesses and elsas from frozen) and adults, dancing in the street. and carnival trucks, colourful, huge, amazing. and very loud music. from every loudspeaker something different :)

three of us were staying untill late. we had an interesting converation about different cultures, religions. then we decided to take the ferry back to Sliema. but the last ferry was already gone. then we had to take our plan B (the bus).

no day without a picture of the sea

Sliema

Valletta

my favourite one

no. that´s my favourite one

he was waving to me :)

or this one

we bought some (a lot) delicius maltese pastry