National Museum of Fine Arts and American Embassy

May 22, 2007

This afternoon I received an email from one of the writers I've published in elimae, who told me his 22-year-old son dreamed of Malta after reading my Travel Log!

**

I got off the bus to Valletta in Floriana this morning. Floriana lies more or less at the "land" end of the peninsula it shares with Valletta, which is at the "sea" end and guards the Grand Harbor. I got lost trying to find Triq Sant' Anna, also known as St. Anne Street, which is where the U.S. Embassy is. I realized last Friday that I hadn't checked in with them, and I thought it might be a good idea since I'm here for an extended period. I passed through two security checkpoints, one at the entrance at street level and the other on the third floor where the embassy is located. On the third floor I filled out a registration form letting them know where I am staying, who my emergency contacts are in the U.S., and when I will be leaving. It was a quick and easy procedure.

From the Embassy I headed toward Valletta, but before I entered the city walls, I made a couple of stops. I visited both the World War II Memorial in the center of a traffic circle/turnaround. It features commemorative messages from King George VI (I think that's the right number--he was Queen Elizabeth II's father) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt's message is, interestingly, dated on the second anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I'm not sure if you'll be able to read it from the photo or not, but here goes:



To the south of the war memorial is a garden overlooking the harbor, and along one arm of the garden is another small monument from King George proclaiming his pleasure in assuming the "Colonelcy-in-Chief" of the Royal Malta Artillery in honor of their support for the R.A.F. during the war so far. I took a photo of this proclamation especially for Ron McDougle, husband of my old teaching buddy Suzanne McDougle. Ron already knows more about Malta's military history than I will learn in six weeks here. If I thought Cary Phillips cared anything about Maltese history, I'd "give" it to him too:



I took this shot from the sidewalk looking over the wall into a parking lot below. Even with the cars evident under the tree, the brilliance of the blossoms seemed worth snapping:



**

The National Museum of Fine Arts is quite an impressive place. The building itself, while lovely enough, needs some renovation and it suffers from a failing common to so many museums: lighting the paintings without creating a glare on them. Along with sculptures, some of them quite nice, and even a display of pocket watches, there are paintings here going back to the 15th century, if not further, and many are dark: I don't know if it's from smoke or soot in centuries past, or if the artists intended the darkness. I found myself wanting to get closer than I could without stepping into a glare.

But the work on display is well worth seeing, and a great deal of it features Maltese scenes, particularly the Grand Harbor at Valletta and paintings displaying some portion of the city's defensive walls which are of course still here. Much of the work is apparently by Maltese artists, artists whom I've never heard of but whose skill is not in doubt. There's even a special room for watercolors, deliberately dimly lit to preserve the watercolors from fading. This room includes the museum's single JMW Turner work. Turner himself never came to Malta, but created the watercolor based on another artist's work. This Maltese scene is small and tidy, with a lot of highlighted details on top of the background colors which seem, at least to me, almost impressionistic.

There are many portraits in the museum, including church figures and at least one of the Grand Masters of the knights, as well as other persons of no particular historical interest. The very severe-looking woman in one of them seems to want to reach out of the painting and smack somebody. Two of the works which most impressed me were Mater Dolorosa by Giuseppe Cali (whom I presume to be Maltese) and a painting of Mary Magdalene by an anonymous "early 19th century Maltese Nazarene painter" (whatever that means). The Mater Dolorosa shows Mary's head close-up, tucked into what seems to be the corner formed by the two beams of the cross. She wears a head-covering, and one tear has just fallen from her left eye. Though the rendering of her face is a little soft and hazy, rather than razor-sharp, the effect reminded me of Pre-Raphaelite work. The Mary Magdalene, on the other hand, is brightly colorful, with a beautiful blue sky behind Mary and a very thin gold halo above her head. Perhaps the traditional confusion of Mary Magdalene with the "woman caught in adultery" led the painter to depict Mary topless, though her long wavy hair and upraised hands keep the viewer from seeing anything untoward. She gazes serenely upward with that sweet Renaissance expression of bliss on her face.

There are also two paintings concerning the Cain and Abel story, which I don't recall being a prominent theme in art in general (though Romantic poets were attracted to the Cain character). One of the paintings depicts Abel sprawled on the ground while Cain, with a club raised over his head, has one foot in the center of Abel's torso, ready to strike the fatal blow. In the background one can make out the altar and a small figure, presumably Adam, next to it. It is notable, since the story deals in part with a sacrifice of grains rather than animals, that the brothers wear animal skin loincloths, in what we would probably consider the "caveman" style. The other painting is one of the museum's larger works, probably at least 6 x 8 feet, and shows Adam and Eve discovering the dead body of Abel.

The large staircase which connects the basement, ground and first floors of the museum features banisters made of chains with small maceheads at each end, a reminder of Malta's very military past (and perhaps a survival from the building's original purpose as a private home), and the courtyard at basement level has a small fountain and a large sculpture of a seated Anton Chekhov. All in all, I definitely recommend this museum and the Cathedral Museum in Mdina.

**

This is a shot of the longest surviving wall of the Grand Opera House. It has been destroyed twice, I read, once by fire and once (I think) by German bombers. Currently there are blue plastic seats inside it, so I reckon it's still used for some kind of open-air performance situations:



**

This afternoon, after my almost daily grocery stop (if I buy deli ham or turkey, I have to eat it right then, since I don't have refrigeration!), I gave in and bought only my second book of the journey so far: Ted Hughes's edition of A Choice of Coleridge's Verse, which includes Hughes's 100-page essay about Coleridge's work. I'm still reading my Spanish Arthur Conan Doyle, but I wanted some English to read as well.

Here and there

May 21, 2007

This morning I strolled along a section of the seawall where I hadn't walked before. There are two completely enclosed "rock pools" there (one of which is pictured below)



as well as other partially enclosed pools, with steps cut out of the rock or metal pool stairs going down into the water.



The two enclosed pools are actually attached to the sea as well, but through an opening under the water level. Even inside the pools, the water surges up and down.

Perhaps the most colorful character I've met on this trip so far is a Maltese-Australian man (born in Malta, but at some point emigrated to Australia) who is staying at the Europa. He said he used to swim in these pools as a boy. He is currently in Malta for a wedding and then plans to go to Istanbul, with the intention of buying a large sailboat (with two diesel engines). He has negotiated a price over the Internet/email with the seller, but won't make up his mind for sure until he sees it. If he buys, then he will have to hire a crew and take several weeks sailing it back to Australia. He said he has an engineering company in Australia, and he's getting ready to retire in a couple of years and turn it over to his son. He wants to completely redo this ship and start his own "Windjammer"-type cruise company sailing in the Southwestern Pacific out of Australia. The boat has both double and single bedrooms and a room for the crew. This man, who is probably a little older than I am, mostly wears tank tops: his upper arms are covered with tattoos. He has a sort of British look and coloring, except that he is very deeply tanned. He's full of opinions about the tax rate for upper income folks in Australia and about the government assistance the Maltese receive. On the other hand, he has said that a typical Maltese citizen only makes about 80 Maltese liras a week (somewhere in the neighborhood of $250), which makes the 200 liras-a-month apartment I saw posted a pretty steep proposition.

***

My first "conversation with a stranger" today took place a little further along. The woman is from England and is here with several friends. They are on a package deal, almost like a cruise. They are staying at a hotel called Plevna, and their package includes three meals a day, usage of the hotel's beach club, and drinks (she didn't say if she meant alcoholic or not, but I'd guess not) throughout the day. I had walked down the staircase into the beach club, just to see if the public sidewalk continued that way (it didn't), and was coming back up as she was coming down. Overlooking the sea, the beach club has a pool, a wide deck for sunbathing, and some kind of snack bar. From what she said, they pay significantly more than I do, but they get lunch and dinner for it, which might mean that a "normal" person, who can eat regular food, could save money on the deal! She certainly spoke highly of the place.

It was right in that same area that I had this reminder of El Paso: iceplant hanging down a wall:



This building was in the same neighborhood as well, but almost right across the street from the harbor, on the other side of the peninsula:



***

After lunch back at the hotel, I spent an hour or so browsing what is so far the best bookstore I've seen here (and, no, I haven't seen them all, believe it or not). Books Plus is small, like most stores here, but is very nicely laid out. It's on two floors, and the staircase that leads up to the second floor features a plate glass half-wall along the stairs, with stainless steel banister, as well as a mirror wall to the side, making the store look twice as big and quite bright (and also making one catch a glimpse of oneself out of the corner of one's eye and wonder if someone is approaching). What distinguishes the store, besides its design, is its inclusion of poetry, apparently not in high demand here, and a nice selection of "classics" published in the Wordsworth line from the UK which are priced at only 99 Maltese cents--quite a bargain for this neck of the woods. They also have an edition of Coleridge's poems with a long introduction by Ted Hughes, the late poet laureate of England.

***

This evening, on my way up the stairs from a short walk and reading-on-the-Strand time, I got into a conversation with a young couple I've run into several times here. He is Spanish (Galician, actually) and she is Italian. They have been living in London, where they went specifically because she wanted to learn English. (She already knows French as well, and he also speaks Portuguese and English, and probably Galician.) She is interested in working in the travel industry, and he has already trained as a chef. They had thought Malta might be a place worth relocating to, but changed their minds after spending this trip here. They don't feel (remember that they are young) that there is enough to do here, and they are also not excited about the number of buildings still in ruins, even with all the construction going on. She said they would probably end up in Italy, where her employer in London can transfer here. With his skills as a chef, he can pretty well work anywhere. He also gave me contact information for his father, when I mentioned that I would be going to Spain, because his father has a hostel in Santiago de Compostela, a prominent tourist and pilgrimage site in Northwestern Spain. The hostel (not a hostel in the "youth hostel" sense; more like a bed-and-breakfast) is probably more expensive than I can afford for more than a night or two, but he recommended I go and see it, even if I don't stay there: he said the building is beautiful. He said his father might be able to give me a discount if I mention that his son sent me, but that that would be difficult in summer.

***

I need to end today's post on a somber note. Last week, quite unexpectedly, my brother-in-law's mother passed away of a heart attack, though she had no known heart condition. The funeral took place today. I ask you all to send your warm thoughts to Bryan, his father Jim, and his sister Melanie.

Music in St Catherine of Italy Church

May 20, 2007

My first stop this morning was St Catherine of Italy Church for an 11 a.m. performance of Baroque music on flute and harpsichord. Interestingly, the harpsichordist was the same young man I talked to yesterday at St James Cavalier about the construction of that building. According to the program, he's in his early 20s and composes as well as plays. The flutist looked to be 35 or 40. He's a college teacher here and has studied organ as well as flute and is also a choir conductor. They performed works by Vivaldi, Bach (scholars disagree as to which of the Bachs actually composed the work in question) and Handel, along with two composers I had not previously heard of--Valentine and Philidor. Valentine, the harpsichordist/host told us, was also a chess master who eventually decided to devote his energies to chess and not music.

The acoustics in the church were excellent. It is a small octagonal building, with extensions off the octagon. The main altar, for example, is a rectangle or square off one side of the octagon, as is the entrance. There is a small dome above the octagon, and the outside walls disguise the octagonal nature of what's inside. When the host spoke, he stood just slightly into the main octagon, and there was a bit of echo which sometimes made him hard to understand. The harpsichord was set up, however, exactly under the archway between octagon and altar room, and the flutist stood under the arch as well. When they played, the sound was perfect. The audience was perhaps 40 or 50 people, including a woman with two small boys, and though the older can't have been more than 5, I never heard a peep from them throughout the hour-long performance. It made me wonder if they were musical prodigies themselves, or if they have simply been very well-trained! The proceeds from the concert go to the fund for restoring the interior of the church, which needs a great deal of work, in terms of the paintings in the dome as well as the wall-painting and so forth. The exterior was restored a few years ago, and preliminary work is to begin on the interior soon, though we were assured the concerts would continue, even around the scaffolding.

St Catherine of Italy Church was, when the Knights still controlled the island, the church of those who spoke Italian. The Knights were divided into langues (language groups), and each langue had its own church. Their residence was, I gathered, behind (which is, I think, more or less, east) the church. Almost directly across the street is the Auberge de Castile, which I can only assume had been the headquarters of the Spanish-speaking knights. It is now the prime minister's offices (and perhaps a residence as well?) and is not open to the public.

As I was leaving the concert, a man asked me what I was drawing during the performance. He said at first he thought I was writing criticisms of the show, then realized that my hand was moving across the page in a non-writing manner. He was right--I thought it would be fun to try to draw a bit while I was listening, so I sketched out (with a rollerball--hardly an instrument for sketching, but it's what I had) the two musicians playing and the display case which contains a statue of St Catherine. The man and his wife are German, visiting Malta from Nürnberg, and staying right in Valletta, which I have often wished I had known enough to do. They highly recommended their bed & breakfast, called Asti. (Later I took a peek in the front door--locked!--and saw a beautiful old lobby with a limestone staircase going up the rear wall.) They also gave me their names and contact information, so that if/when I visit Nürnberg, they can help me find a good place to stay and make recommendations as to what to see. Very kind folks indeed.

I roamed the Lower Barakka Gardens again, reading a bit, and snapping this photo:



From a distance it looked to me almost like a chalked or painted "33", in a very stylized form, or even a gang-style logo. But of course it's actually a set of four screw- or bolt-housings with the shadows coming down perfectly, from where I sat, to make the 33. In my photo, unfortunately, I didn't get the angle exactly correct, and the 3s don't quite join in the middle.

Later I wandered past the Grand Master's Palace (or is the Armoury? Or maybe they're the same?) where the Grand Master of the Order lived, back in the old days. It now belongs to Parliament, I believe. There is a parking lot across the street, marked for members of Parliament only, and it is currently closed to the public, though normally it's open. I'm wondering if Parliament is in session, or if perhaps restoration work is going on inside. Anyway, this photo shows a look through the large entryway into the plaza inside the building. That appears to be good old Lord Poseidon standing in the plaza:



Both side-walls of the entryway feature commemorative plaques, which look to be made exactly like the tombstones in St John's Co-Cathedral. One commemorates a visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, and this one commemorates of visit of (you can read for yourselves):



I took a long walk after returning to Sliema, going sort of north along the seawall, though because there are so many inlets here one might be going almost any direction at any given point. The buildings across the street from the seawall/Strand run the gamut from obviously renovated, and probably very expensive, apartments and hotels, to clearly NOT renovated, and sometimes empty, buildings. But the seawall itself is quite nice: a brick or stone surface to walk upon; limestone and iron fencing to prevent your falling off; trees and small bushes in the parkway between sidewalk and street; benches in many places; and often snack shops and actual eateries. There are sandy beaches in other places upon the island, but near here the ocean access is stone. There are "diving centres" where one can sign up to scuba dive, as well as pools overlooking the sea, and--in one spot a mile or so from here--some sand, though the bed was quite narrow.

The television offered here at the hotel is Italian (and I recall someone saying that that is the norm for Malta), and my sister Jane will be pleased to know that Columbo, speaking Italian, is one of the offerings.

Early Morning at Sea

This is a photo I didn't get posted after I made it to land from the ship. I took it not long after sunup one morning, probably the morning we all got up earlier than normal expecting to see Gibraltar.

St. James Cavalier and more

May 19, 2007

The day's early goals were fairly simple: walk to the post office (maybe 3/4s of a mile) to post my sister Jane's birthday present to her. (Shhh. Don't tell her.) I bought it in Rabat yesterday. (Shhh. Don't tell her.) Her birthday's June 3, so hopefully air mail will get it to her on time.

Then I headed for the Plaza, Sliema's mall. The Plaza is not like an American mall, a sprawl of one or two floors of stores. Instead, like most things here, it goes up and not out. I'm not sure how many floors it is (five maybe), each of which has maybe 6-8 smallish stores. No giant department stores. Because Vanilla Wifi's Internet cafe is not open on weekends, I headed for Stella's, which features Vanilla, to get some work done over a cup of tea (actually a small pot of tea) and a chocolate turnover. The tea was fine, and so was the turnover (though I scraped most of the chocolate off), but I couldn't connect to Vanilla. So the manager (owner?) pulled out his cell phone right then and called up the Vanilla guy to report the problem. The guy said he would come out later to see if the router (or whatever it is) was not working right. Anyway, I tidied up the text of yesterday's post, had my tea and turnover, and then went out to find a spot to do some wifi-ing.

The problem, to be sure, was that even in the shade the midday light was bright enough to make it difficult to see the screen on my laptop. So I took care of a couple of emails, made the posting to the Travel Log, messed around a little bit more, then went to the supermarket to get some things for lunch and future meals. I had lunch on the balcony of my room (including taking this photo):



After lunch, I returned to Valletta.

**

St. James Cavalier Center for Creativity is built into the wall fortifications of Valletta. An employee (who, I learned today, is also a musician and composer--you'll have to read tomorrow's entry to get the info) told me that two of the rooms had been cisterns, one of which is now their cinema. They have remodeled and reworked the interior space so that it's a really wonderful blending of the original Renaissance (I think) fortifications and the contemporary exhibit space. You can see limestone walls and arches, and in a number of places they have built a display opening into a new wall, so that the old wall behind it is still visible. The new exhibit had just opened and featured works in a sort of centennial commentary on Picasso's 1907 painting The Demoiselles d'Avignon. The exhibition is called "The Philosophical Brothel", which they say is the original name of Picasso's painting. The work is by students in the University of Malta and the Unversity of the Arts London. I would think any artist would be pleased to be displayed in such a lovely spot. Here is one of the entrances:



And this is a shot of the name placard of one of the works:



Wandering around on the walls, I had a short visit with an older English couple resting on a bench. They were interested in my plans, and the husband recommended that, when I return to the US, I begin caravanning (RVing) again.

**

This photo shows one of the walls close up. I'm assuming that the difference in the amount of erosion is due to the stone itself, some of which would then be harder, some softer. (Or maybe they've tricked me by replacing some stones.)



**

A Bank of Malta location there on/at the fortification wall right near St. James is serious about your not driving too fast into their parking lot:



**

I wandered Valletta some more and found their mall, likewise a fairly constricted high-rise, which also has a cinema. Maybe at some point I'll take in a movie. While in a book and magazine store called Agenda (they have a location in Sliema and in several other places on the island too), I looked for a while at their selection of pens and pencils, still trying to decide if I ought to try my hand again at doing some sketching while I'm here.

**

On a totally unrelated note, I'm slowly reading (I haven't been spending a lot of time reading) the Spanish translation of Arthur Conan Doyle which I picked up in Barcelona: Historias de intriga y de aventuras. Stories of Intrigue and Adventure. These stories (that is, the few I've read) have some similarity to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as moodier and more Romantic elements, such as narrators who have determined to remove themselves from society for one reason or another. Given that I'm reading a Spanish version of Doyle's writing, I'm still impressed. Critics consider him "light" reading, but his skill is evident and the work is very well-done. While on board the Grand Princess, I read Julian Barnes's Arthur & George, a historical novel based on the lives of Doyle and a mostly forgotten lawyer named George Edalji, which piqued my interest in Doyle again. Barnes's novel is quite good, by the way, and it seems that he did a good deal of research before creating it.

Mosta, Mdina and Rabat

May 18, 2007

Today on my way to Mosta, home of the famous dome, I met another Scottish couple. They seemed to be pleased that I knew the difference between Scotland and England. National identity seems to be quite a strong issue with the Scots. (And the husband mentioned that I might want to pretend to be Australian, since Americans aren't terribly popular in Europe at the moment.)

Mosta, as the guidebook says, is fairly nondescript except for the Dome. Unlike most churches with domes, which are built on the cross-like floor plan, and place the dome over the intersection of the two beams (if you will) of the building, the Mosta Dome is built like the Pantheon (the temple to "all the gods," from the reign of Augustus) in Rome--essentially a round building underneath the dome, with side chapels spoking off to the sides. This is a shot of the front of the church:



The twelve apostles flank the main entrance, six to each side, and apparently St. Andrew was the Cooper of the Apostles. Rather than being dressed in the formal sense, his mantle/robe was just sort of carelessly thrown around his mid-section. Maybe he was getting ready to take a dip in the Sea of Galilee. (Mosta's Bartholomew isn't a fashion-plate either, but his robe is at least draped across one shoulder.)

During World War II, a German bomb pierced the dome when about 300 parishioners were inside. The bomb hit, then skidded across the floor and came to a stop, never exploding. This is, needless to say, considered a miracle, and a replica of the bomb (quite a large one for the time) is on display in the gift shop. The church calendar shows the point where the bomb came through the dome, which may or may not be the retouched spot (if you can make it out) in this photo, about 45 degrees right of the peak of the dome, where the windows are.



From Mosta I went back to Mdina and Rabat, since they are just a few miles away. At a small cafe not far from Mdina's main gate, I bought a cup of tea and some potato chips, to supplement my tuna and applesauce, and sat outside to have my lunch. Then I headed down into Rabat to find St. Agatha's Catacombs. After buying a ticket, one is directed first to the Museum, which houses religious objects, coins, pots, Egyptian ushabtis, and artwork. Some of the items are clearly donated, but if most were found in Malta, then the Greeks must have had some kind of presence here, though most of what I have seen so far seems to go from the Carthaginians directly to the Romans. The Greeks founded a number of cities in Sicily, but they may have found Malta not worth the bother. I'm just not sure.

The catacombs are, of course, the main draw, not the Museum, some of which the L.V.Stockard girls (appearing alphabetically: Lou Ann, Melanie and Sheila) would have described as "tooky". The stairway/entrance down to the catacombs is in the plaza right outside the church, which was closed today. According to the brochure, visitors can only enter 1/10 of the catacombs, which cover more than 4000 square meters. They are interesting and creepy. There is a good bit of wall art--whether it's technically fresco or something else, I don't know. It's all damaged to some degree, but still colorful and impressive to see. The catacombs themselves go back as far as the 2nd century C.E/A.D., though much of the artwork was added later. From the main foyer, as it were, at the bottom of the stairs, one can see the main altar, only a few hundred years old, and another alcove, which has the look of a small chapel. The entrance to the open section of catacombs is to the right. One goes up a short set of stairs, and then starts winding down into the catacombs. Narrow walls, low ceilings, and open burial places characterize them. In some of them there are bones; whether original or replica, I don't know. Others are empty. There are small wall niches, perhaps for the burial of children or for ossuaries, as well as the longer "coffins" carved right out of the rock, judging by appearances. One winds around and down, from one "room" to another. At the end of the point that visitors are allowed to go is a small "church" cut into the rock. If one looks toward what I presume to be the front of this chapel, there is a carved alcove to one's back, with a restored decoration featuring doves and, according to the booklet, the Chi-Rho (the first two letters of Christ in Greek), though I wasn't sure what to look for to spot them. Or perhaps they are simply too damaged. Without the low lights in those winding hallways, one might wander lost for a long time. Definitely a claustrophobic sensation.

Next I went to St. Paul's Grotto, which is supposed to be the place that Paul lived while preaching for 3 months in Malta after being shipwrecked there. There is a small, rough cave, carved (like the catacombs) from the rock, where Paul is believed to have lived and where there is a statue of the apostle and a beautiful hanging lamp made of silver in the form of a sailing ship (commemorating the shipwreck and made in about 1980, I think the guide said). There is also a larger room featuring burials in the floor (as at St John's and the Mosta Dome) as well as small chapels or nooks with artwork, including an alabaster statue of St Paul, which is quite impressive, although its whiteness can be too close to the whiteness of the walls if one takes a photo with a flash! (I got a photo of it, though my program is, so far, refusing to download it, as with the Mdina cats. Some kind of glitch which happens for unknown reasons from time to time.)

I also visited the Domus Romana/Roman Villa museum, which is another Heritage Malta site. This museum contains and explains the ruins of a first century CE Roman villa which was later covered over by a Muslim cemetery. The most important features of the villa are several large statues, damaged to various degrees, and the remains of several quite beautiful mosaics. The statues are presumed to be of the Emperor Claudius (his statue is in the best condition) and his family, and this is taken to indicate that the family who lived in this villa had important government connections--perhaps this was even the home of the governor of Malta. There is apparently no written evidence, since the Museum's statements are all couched in conditional terms. The surviving mosaics are mostly geometric rather than representational, though there are some representations, perhaps most notably two maenads attacking a satyr. The most complete and beautiful floor features primarily a lozenge pattern which resembles an ascending or descending stack of cubes (like visual "tricks of the eye" and recalling M.C. Escher's art) which really does look three-dimensional the farther away from it one is. After going through the fairly small museum, one exits to the back, where stone remains of the rest of the villa have been exposed. You're not allowed to walk among these, however.

I then visited Mdina again, mostly just strolling around. Here is a photo of a doorway, which I'm thinking must be someone's house:



And here is a shot of some bouganvilea, not far from that same doorway:



I got off the bus back to Valletta near the cemetery in Floriana and took a longish walk back to the hotel from there, sort of reversing the walk I took on Wednesday. Along the way I found a street I have been wanting to see ever since I stumbled across it on the map a couple of days ago. It's only one block long, and only block off the main street that goes along one of the harbors, and can hardly help but be dear to an old English major:



Triq means street, and the cemetery attendant (whom I spoke with on Wednesday) told me that the q is not pronounced, but indicates a glottal stop. Most of the street names are given in Maltí, sometimes with English translation, sometimes not. One hears Maltí spoken all over the place, even though most folks also speak English quite well. I haven't quite figured out what the situation is. The English took over from Napoleon in either 1799 or 1800, so the English overlay is strong. Prior to Napoleon, who controlled the island for only a couple of years, there were the Knights who ran the place, and who came from many different countries with many different languages (although English was probably not prominent since England was principally Anglican beginning with Henry VIII). There were also two periods when the Muslims were in control of the island, and before that control was Roman/Byzantine all the way back to 218 B.C.E. Maltí is a form or derivative of Arabic, according to what I read, and yet I haven't gotten the impression that there is much of a Muslim religious presence. Catholic churches are everywhere. Somehow it seems that the language survived here, but the religion mostly did not. Maltí itself is written with the Roman alphabet, with some variations, and the Maltese accent is pronounced and quite different from what we consider an English accent. At times I have a great deal of difficulty understanding someone speaking English.

(I checked the phone book. There is one Islamic center listed; one "Jewish community"; a Baha'i group; and everything else is Christian, the huge majority of which is Catholic.)

Anyway, there are many monuments and commemorative plaques which are written in Maltí only, not in Maltí and English, or sometimes in Maltí and Latin, appropriate to the ecclesiastical history of the place. The tombstones of the Knights in the various churches, as well as those of the bishops, are of course in Latin.

The architecture is beautiful. Limestone is obviously plentiful here, and the buildings constructed of it are quite lovely. Facades have a Mediterranean look, and I wonder if this is something like what old Greek/British Alexandria in Egypt (or perhaps even Beirut) looked like a century ago.

I've seen quite a few school kids, and like in America, the high school students stand out more because of their dress and sense of style. They seem to be quite as style-conscious as American kids, and in many of the same ways: black hair with bleached highlights on both boys and girls; boys with their hair moussed up on top into the faux-hawk; pierced ears; and so on. The other day in Valletta, on the other hand, I walked through what seemed to be an elementary school bunch on field trip. They were in fairly serious uniforms--white shirts and the whole bit--and looked much like parochial school kids. Later that same day, I think, I saw some other kids also in uniform, but more of the American public school look--polo shirts in two colors, rather casual in appearance.

**

This evening, after I went out briefly for a walk (the wind is up and it's chilly again), I asked the cook in the little restaurant here in the hotel if it was possible to get a cup of tea. The hot water pot which is always on for breakfast (with tea bags and instant coffee to add to it) was turned off, and--as it turns out--the restaurant had actually already closed. But he took me back to the kitchen, put some water in a hot pot, and made me a cup of tea. And wouldn't let me pay for it either! The folks here are really nice.

In response to a couple of comments

It's been very windy here since Tuesday. Monday afternoon when I arrived was not bad at all. Yesterday was partly to mostly cloudy, with a chilly wind. Better today, but still windy. The temperatures are probably around 70-75, but I'm not really sure. Haven't seen it posted on a bank, as in the US.

As for my eating, those who know me well know there's virtually no eating out and no haute cuisine because of my food allergies and intolerances. It's all tuna, applesauce, turkey, tomato juice, ham, cereal, bread, potato chips or fries, etc. Very very plain.