From a tiny rock in the Mediterranean...

Alright, I'm stealing a good idea from a friend. Since I'm staying here in Europe for another year, I thought it would be good to keep everybody updated on what I'm doing (I wouldn't want you all to forget me!). Since I just got to Malta, I figured this would be a good time to get started. The last couple weeks in Holland were crazy since I had meetings with program coordinators, supervisors, professors, housing agencies, etc.

I moved out from the student house that I was living in for most of the last year in June (much to the housing company's annoyance - I'm still happy about winning the argument to get my deposit back. They overcharge and treat the residents terribly, I don't feel too bad about scamming them a bit, but thats another story). I've been living for the past two months in a friend's room since she was away on fieldwork in Italy for most of the summer. But she was coming back and I needed to find a new place. After checking the internet for listings and calling around, I decided to go with a housing agency (not the same one as before of course) and got a new room two weeks ago. I painted it last weekend - mostly a pale white-green colour, but one wall is bright spring green and one wall is dark violet. I love it! I figured I'd only be here for another year so I could do whatever I wanted and not have to live with it forever. Don't know how my landlord will feel about my colour selections, but since the room was pink-brown with one hunter green wall before, I can't imagine the huisbaas is too uptight about a coat of paint.

I've finally got most of my program arranged for next year. Depending on politics and my class schedule I'll probably be going to Jordan in October/November. Yay! More fieldwork! I'm looking forward to it and hoping that it will work out with my schedule for classes. I'm going back to Canada for two weeks at the beginning of September too, just before the start of classes. I booked the ticket about two hours before I left to come here - to Malta!

The trip started a little rocky, the plane was delayed by almost an hour because of a late arrival. Most of the discount airlines here in Europe seem to be notoriously late. I feel for them, but its really getting bad when they post on their website that "60% of flights on time in the last week". Doesn't seem like a reasonable thing to be bragging about, but hey! Its cheap!

So, I got to Malta at night, which I was a little sorry about. I wish I could have seen the islands from the air. Since I'm driving back to Holland I won't get the chance on the way back either. Oh well. The house here is nice though, even though its in a run-down neighbourhood. Not a bad neighbourhood mind you, just run down. That seems to describe a large percentage of Malta in general though. The island seems to be one giant city that is slowly disintegrating. The policy seems to be that someone will build a house, then if they move out no one will buy it and the property will just be abandoned. Thus, there is a proliferation of abandoned buildings absolutely everywhere.

There are also some spectacular fortresses around the harbours and farther inland. Yesterday, we started with our fieldwork by mapping and drawing some of the tower forts built around the coast of the island. There's a series of small towers that were used to monitor the ships around the island during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

In the afternoon we went to one of the larger forts, Fort Ricasoli (I have no idea if I'm spelling that right). The fort itself was locked up tight with welded iron gates in front of all the possible entrances. However, where there's a will... We swam around the outer edge of the fortress in the harbour or climbed down a conveniently placed rope (depending on whether fear of drowning or falling was most pronounced in each individual - I swam) to get to the far side of the fortress. From there, we found an entrance that only had a small board in front, easily moved and bam! we were in! The most interesting thing about Fort Ricasoli is that both Gladiator and Troy were filmed in the fort. There were a few props and set elements still lying around the fort. In one small building we found pages from the Troy script and administration- schedules, phone numbers of the contractors in Malta, etc. Unfortunately, we were asked (very nicely) to leave by the "security guard". A Maltese guy who used to work at the fortress, but now just keeps tourists out on his own initiative. Very strange, but we thought it would be better to humour him since we knew we probably weren't supposed to be in there. Getting out was a million times easier than getting in, but I wish we could have stayed a little longer. The guy was telling us about where the coliseum and palaces had been in the movie sets. It would have been really amazing to look around some more. By the way, it seems that they're going to start filming on a sequel to Gladiator next month, I think its probably going to be shot here too...

At night it rained. I've been looking forward to coming here for weeks from Holland since I'm getting a little tired of the neverendingrain! It was really brief and dried up almost immediately, but it was still a bit rude I thought. It hasn't rained in the entire month that the rest of the field school people have been here, but the day that I arrive... Oh well. Didn't really matter and we went to Paceville anyways. Paceville is one of those Mediterranean island club districts that are so famous (or infamous, whatever your pleasure). It was a good night, we came back to the house at 4:15. I don't think I need to go into too much detail though. ;-)

Today I went to Valetta and browsed the market streets for awhile. I bought myself a hot pink air mattress! and lime green goggles. Nothing like neon! Its becoming disturbingly prevalent across Europe, although the Dutch seem to have taken to it even more than any other country. Its really scary when you come across neon witch shoes with sparkly heart patterns and this is perfectly acceptable fashion. Sigh. I'm wearing flipflops and hiking sandals pretty much ad nauseum. There's only so low I can sink for the sake of chic. I've adopted pink and green clothing as viable colour choices, I can't go much farther than that.

Well, I'm off to the beach now. Its about a million degrees outside, but the air conditioning in the internet cafe is giving me goose bumps. I need to go outside to warm up. It seems somewhat unnatural to say that though. Hopefully I'll get back here soon and post again. We're going to the other island tomorrow (Gozo) and there are beer and wine festivals starting around the island over the weekend. I'm sure I'll be able to keep myself entertained... Later!