Returning to Madrid
Most of us parted ways when our bus arrived back in Madrid. Several hours of daylight remained and Jane and I decided to have one more walk about the city and share a late dinner. She accompanied me downtown where I checked into the Hotel Europa at Sol. I’d booked this room rather than returning to the Hotel Infanta Mercedes because I thought that if I was going to spend a Saturday night in Madrid, I might as well do it in the center of town.
I couldn’t have had a better companion as we wandered in a generally westerly direction to the Plaza de Espana with its monument to Miguel de Cervantes and his two most famous creations. Not only is Jane something of a Hispanophile but she has an infectious way of finding delight in small, otherwise ordinary details.
(Jane’s picture of me at this monument is a bit more risqué but she posted it to our WhatsApp group and I didn’t save it to my phone so I can’t share it with you.) We also walked through the Sabatini Gardens and past the Royal Palace before settling down for a light snack and some drinks. We said our final goodbyes and Jane headed off to the hotel room she booked near the airport because she had an early flight Saturday morning. I spent more time out and about because my flight to Malta was later in the day so I could sleep in.
A brief stay in Malta
Some of you may know that even before I visited Malta some five and a half years ago I was contemplating spending some of my retirement on this small European island. In response to the question I’m frequently asked, some of Malta’s features that attract me are its location – both for its warm Mediterranean climate and its centrality, its participation in the EU and the Schengen Area, its medical system, and the fact that English is one of its official languages.
I first visited Malta in late June 2012 and I stayed in the capital city of Valletta. My trip to Spain provided me the perfect opportunity to experience some fall weather, attempt to gather some additional information about programs for ex-pat residency and stay in a potentially less expensive part of the country.
I’d rented a flat through Home Away and, after fighting some surprisingly heavy traffic, arrived in Mellieha sometime between 20:30 and 21:00. I met my hostess Maja and she showed me the apartment, made me a cup of tea and oriented me to the immediate neighborhood before bidding me goodnight. Curiously, when I answered her question about visiting Mellieha by telling her about my long term plans, she suggested I might want to consider some of the inland villages because they were safer, less congested and less expensive. I found her comment interesting because, while I’d certainly experienced some congestion on the way from the airport, there hadn’t been a single moment during my previous stay when I’d felt unsafe.
When I woke the next morning and stepped out onto the flat’s small balcony,
I took one look at the view and knew I wouldn’t consider a move to Malta that wasn’t near the water. The only plans I had for Sunday were to relax and unwind and to walk around the village and the bay. I stopped for a late afternoon lunch at a place called Ventuno where I had a Maltese Platter filled with olives, local cheese, and the uniquely Maltese dish called bigilla. Of course, I had a Cisk – the local beer – to accompany it. (Although Cisk is a personal favorite, I doubt it would be well liked by beer drinkers who seek bitterness and strong hoppy-ness in their brews. Cisk is anything but that.)
I took my time at the restaurant because (a) you can do that in Europe and (b) when this
is your view, why would you rush to leave it?
It was here that I had a second interesting encounter. The fellow sitting at the table just behind me started a conversation. As it lengthened, he introduced himself as Ray, offered to buy me a drink and invited me to join him and his wife and mother-in-law because “that’s what we Maltese do.”
We sat for nearly two hours and he gave me quite an earful about how much Malta had changed in the past five years since the new Labor Party government had come to power. He talked about government corruption, crime, and the underfunded infrastructure. He told me that Malta had become something of a haven as a place where oligarchs and drug lords laundered money. The three of them all pointed to the recent assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia the journalist whose work on the Panama Papers led her to accuse several high-level Maltese officials of laundering kickbacks from wealthy Russians and Azerbaijani leaders and that had her son proclaim the Maltese a “people at war against the state and organized crime, which have become indistinguishable.” He suggested I consider finding a place on Gozo which he believed retained more of the Maltese character rather than the main island.
Now, I took his thoughts cautiously because, coming from an increasingly bifurcated political situation in the U.S. where demonization of one’s political opposition has become commonplace, he could simply have been a rabid supporter of the opposition party and incapable of portraying the Labor Party in any positive manner. Still, when I put his observations together with my experience traveling from the airport and Maja’s comments, it provided food for thought on my bus ride into Valletta Monday morning.
My arrival in the Maltese capital added another side dish to my contemplative meal. I found Valletta considerably changed from my visit half a decade ago when the city had the aura of having changed very little in the previous half century. Construction, including gutting several buildings I’d found to be quite charming, pervaded the city and, I think, changing its character to the point where I’d have liked to have spoken with John, my neighbor from my first visit, and Albert, John’s friend and café owner and gotten their impressions. I think my landlord, Patrick, would approve but I’m not certain they would feel the same. On the other hand, most places that are vibrant and alive will undergo significant changes over a similar period. But I hadn’t come to Valletta to sightsee, I’d come to Valletta on an information gathering mission.
Unfortunately, I gathered less information than I’d hoped. The Identity Malta Office in Valletta wasn’t the one that could provide me with the information I needed something I learned only after waiting for nearly an hour to talk with an agent who told me that I needed to go to the Identity Office in Sliema. It was close to noon and because these government offices close at 14:00 and I’d had an extensive wait in this office, I didn’t think I could get there in time even though Sliema wasn’t very far. The woman I spoke with tried to be as helpful as she could but was unable to answer most of my very specific questions.
As things stand now, I’m giving more consideration to Plans B and C regarding a possible ex-pat retirement. For the mean time, I will remain inertially attached to my home here in Maryland while preparing for my springtime trip to France and I look forward to sharing my experiences with you after I return.