As things turned out, I didn’t have much planned for my last day. After much consideration last night, I decided not to go back to Gozo to visit the remaining sites there that were on the “things I want to see in Malta” list I’d compiled before I left the States. (For those who haven’t been paying attention, these are the salt pans, Ggantija Temples and Calypso’s cave.) Trying to squeeze these in would have required too much planning and certainly meant getting up early and rushing about to get a bus to Cirkewwa (whence the ferry to Gozo) especially since the bus schedules change on the weekends when buses run less frequently.
Even if I’d been able to work that out, I had to hope the ferry’s arrival in Mgarr somehow coordinated with the bus schedule on Gozo to get me to those sites in enough time to see them and then reverse the process. It required a level of coordination and happenstance that was simply too much to contemplate.
Instead, I simply went for a bit of a walk in the morning strolling around at an easy pace before the day grew too hot and too busy. After a bit, I aimed for the YMCA internet café hoping I’d be able to check-in online for my flights tomorrow. But it was closed so I contented myself with walking about a bit more letting Malta imprint itself on me. Eventually, I went back to Albert’s for a bite of lunch – a nice tuna baguette. Since his café wasn’t busy and I was in no rush, we had a good long chat about the confluence of religion and politics and the influence of the former on the latter. Although we talked a bit about the States in this regard, our focus was mainly on Malta. It was a fun conversation and I’ll just say that Albert has very strong opinions.
When Sally
dropped in to settle the bill from Thursday night, I decided to try Albert’s internet connection. He has two workstations on the lower level that you reach by descending a very steep set of stairs. I paid my couple of euros and discovered that Albert has “Maltese” internet in his café. By this I mean something it has less than full functionality. I was able to select my seat but, despite Albert’s best efforts to help, not able to print my boarding passes. Sally was still sitting having a soft drink when I finished so I joined her and we chatted a bit about nothing in particular before she set off to people watch in St. George’s Square and I went to do the same in the Upper Barrakka Gardens. I had planned an early dinner followed by an early bedtime because I needed to be up and about by 05:30 on Sunday to check out with Patrick and have him drive me to the airport for my very early morning flight. By the way, you can see a few miscellaneous pictures here and here.
Before I finish, I want to make a note of some of my observations about the Maltese approach to energy conservation. I have seen some compact fluorescent bulbs but they are not as ubiquitous as they were in South Africa or Zambia. On the other hand, there is surprisingly little air conditioning for a place that can get as hot as Malta and with the peak heat typically occurring in August that lack seems a tad daunting. There are fans everywhere, though. On the other end of the temperature spectrum, as I learned from Diane last night,
individual rooms have space heaters rather than having central heating for the entire home or even relatively small flat such as mine. This makes sense as the climate rarely demands heating. (This is true of the older buildings in Valletta I don’t know about the new construction in Sliema and elsewhere.) All the electric outlets I saw have switches that shut the power to the outlet when it’s not in use. The same is true for large items that can be used on demand such as the water heater, so vampire power use appears to be quite minimal.
Finally, on to the trip home. It seems to me that 21st century travel rarely happens without complications – even minor ones. In this instance, the complications begin when the flight from Malta to London leaves almost 40 minutes late and predictably parks at Terminal 5 at Heathrow while my connecting flight is at Terminal 1. As a result, I have to catch a bus between terminals, pass through security, stop to get my boarding pass because the flight to Washington is on United and the flight to Heathrow was on Air Malta (United doesn’t fly in to or out of Valletta). Then, dragging my one and only bag, I have to haul my butt to a gate that will undoubtedly be (and was) almost as far from the ticket counter as it could be all the while thinking that since the first flight was late I had only an hour to get all of that done.
           So, what happens? When I arrive at the gate huffing and puffing, I discover that the flight to Dulles will be delayed by at least an hour thus turning the stress and rushing about of the last forty-five minutes into a useless expenditure of my energy. I went to a kiosk to see if I could grab a bite to eat but I had no British pounds and the premium the vendor wanted to accept euros was far more than I was willing to tack on to the already inflated airport price.
           Once we got under way, the flight back to the states was calm and uneventful. The aircraft, a Boeing 777, is the most comfortable plane I’ve ever flown. The seats are about 2 inches wider than the seats on the 747 I flew to Europe and I can’t even guess how much more leg room it has and when someone short like me notices leg room, you can be certain there’s plenty. We touched down at Dulles about 40 minutes late but I was able to breeze through immigration and customs and come home to a cat who seemed truly happy to see me.