PHOTOS. OH MY GOD, PHOTOS.
so hey ;Db
That, I have to admit, is some severe inadvertant myspace angle going on. To be fair, it's hard to choose an angle between hideously flattering and just plain hideous when taking photos of yourself squinting into the sun while sitting on a thousands year old alter stone in the middle of Malta.
There was likely lots of blood spilled. I am halfway between thrilled and grossed out, which is entirely as it should be.
There is a field of some sort of vegetables outside of the fence. I had to wait for the bus for aaaages and ended up sitting on the side of the road perched on a falling down stone wall, next to some prickly pears and watching the horizon waver in the heat. Good times.
For me, Malta was all about scrabbling into, over, and sometimes around ancient ruins and that time where I inadvertantly got myself stuck outside the city walls of the fortressed city of Valletta. (A note: fortressed cities have very few openings to get in and out of. Sometimes, it neccessitates scrambling around the very tip of the islet the city is situated on, over rocks and ruins and dodging 6ft high sea spray so it is at times better to turn back instead of deciding that if you've already climbed through rocks, there's no way to go but forewards.)
Sometimes, the ruins are amazingly convenient to get to, such as the 5000 year old temple inside a hotel.
You have to go through the hotel lobby, ask the staff where the ruins are, and they will direct you to the left, through the cafe, take the doors to the gardens on your right and go past the pool. I happily climbed allllllllll over them but sadly did not realise I had an audience until accidentally looking up to see an entire line of half a dozen builders on the roof of the hotel block surrounding. They waved.
At some point, there was a boat tour and a hop on, hop off bus tour. Malta is disgustingly gorgeous.
The local guides were all very awesome. Sadly, they all thought I could not speak English and when someone is speaking very slowly and clearly to you, it is too heartbreaking to tell them different. It helps that I generally look bemused and slightly bewildered all the time. One of the guides actually started repeating numbers and drawing them on his hand. Other times, they kept offering me the Japanese audio track commentaries which really would not have helped.
(It is a rule, every asian tourist is Japanese. It is also sort of true, because I was almost mown down by a large Japanese tourist group while in the middle of the bus terminal in Valletta. There was the little, uniformed woman leading the tour with her little flag speaking into a walky-talky while the rest of the group had ear pieces. It was all at once exceptional genius and really very strange.)
Malta is incredibly Catholic, due to the fact that Saint Paul shipwrecked there and spent three months living out of what is called St Paul's Grotto, which was previously a cave turned Roman prison. There are holes in the bare carved rock ceiling where ropes used to be threaded through to hang up the prisoners while they tortured them. There is also the tomb of some bishop or another down there, so watch where you step. As with all majorly Catholic countries, they tend to like their martyrs, so sometimes you get on a bus and all around the front surrounding the driver are religious icons and pride of place, a picture of Mary, mother of God, being stabbed in the heart with a golden knife.
The buses are old, rickety and drive around with the doors permanently open. I have jumped out of a (slowly) moving bus. It is sort of awesome.
This is the bus terminus. The buses do not cross the island in a grid, but all roads lead to Valetta, the capital (HERITAGE LISTED) city. Almost every single bus goes to and from the central bus terminus, a circular collection of bus bays where the numbers are completely random, located outside the city gates. It is chaos. Chaos is a kind word. It is a giant jumble of buses parked randomly, sometimes backing into their bays as it is one way.
Surrounding the bus terminus are a collection of snack shops, selling savory and sweet pastries. Malta is only a stone's throw away from Sicily, so the Italian influence on their cooking is strong. Which pretty much means their cakes are so cheap and absolutely to die for. I must have eaten about six a day. At least. NOMNOMNOM. I like to order through the system of 'that looks interesting therefore I will point at what I think I want and eat it'.
Sometimes, this ends up being a cheeseburger pie which is exactly what it sounds like: a burger patty, cheese, tomato sauce, onions, in a pie crust. It was not as good as you'd kinda expect it to be. This method involves a lot of hit and miss. Other meals, I'd walk into a cafe and ask for the Malta special. Every meal was pretty much a surprise.
From the bus stop, across a... well, it is a bridge, I guess. Over a moat/ravine, there are the city gates.
At some point, I found myself on top of them, behind the letters, with no idea of how I got there or how to get down.
I really loved Malta. I think in about fifty years, I shall retire there except for the fact that there are stairs everywhere and I would likely break my neck. But, still, a lovely place to visit.
I shall not go on about Dublin and London because I think I've already said what I wanted to, as well as Slovenia far back, so the next stop of significance was Wales to visit hawksface.
Wales was full of snow and epic ruins.
Also, sheep. Also, snow. It took me about six hours to make a normal four hour coach ride because of the hideous weather. I was also snowed in a few days after Christmas trying to get back. ;A; Never the less, castles!
Aberystwyth. It was very pretty. We also popped over to Cardiff where I geeked out happily over the Techniquest science museum and bonded with a Melbournian who worked there as a guide. There was a sadly unsuccessful hunt for Ianto Jones because the Welsh accent is decidedly hot.
Long walks in the snow are very nice theoretically but it takes determination to continue thinking that when your toes have gone numb. Very very numb. And the only good thing about frosted over cars is the ability to scrape smiley faces in the ice and hopefully make someone's day a little more sparkly at the expense of frozen fingers.
From Wales, it was over to Morocco. Marrakeesh, which is the most terrifying place ever to go as a solo traveller and I do not recommend it at all. AT ALL.
I stayed near the Djama el Fna, the main square, near the souks - the windy maze of markets where people got terrifyingly aggressive about getting you into their stalls. For luck, they tell you, so it's best to just ignore them and walk on, or else they'll drag you in, sit you down, make you a cup of mint tea and insist on doing the touristy things like show you how to put on a turban, Berber style.
As you can tell, I was hideously impressed.
Clearly, I am Asian. Morocco does not get THAT many Asian tourists and the ones they do get are mainly Japanese and Korean. The rule of thumb appears to be Japanese, thus I got shouted at a lot in Japanese.
It is not, contrary to belief, more convenient to nod and walk off if they ask if you're Japanese. ;; I really did think my days of being followed by slightly creepy men speaking in Japanese were over when I left Japan, but no. (It would not have been so bad if I actually understood them but sadly, their Japanese is on the whole better than mine.)
After a few days, I trundled off to the Sahara to see a man about a camel. Because I am not entirely lacking in common sense, I joined a local tour that also took us to see gorges!
It was very pretty. And also, very large.
We camped out overnight in the Sahara. There was a sunset
and a sun rise
and more importantly, camels!
The desert is stupidly beautiful and also, so cold I kinda wanted to die.
Camel!
Unfortunately, to get to the desert from Marrakeesh, it takes a surprisingly long time. Like, twelve hours by bus long.
Why do I always look grumpy in photos? :| Maa.
Upon getting back and being hit by the TIDAL WAVE OF HUMANITY that is the Djama, I went and got tattoo'd.
Henna, natch. ;Db People in Spain kept asking if it were real but sadly, I am not so hardcore.
From Morocco, to Madrid. The highlight of my visit was the authentic(!!) ancient Egyptian temple that was transported over in 1968 as a gift from the Egyptian government for Spain's financial aid in saving some of Egypt's cultural heritage and monuments. This temple would have been flooded due to a new dam, so they took it down, shipped it over and rebuilt it.
I
In other words, you wish you were my size so you too could fit into the tiny little passage ways and hidey holes and crawl about into the treasury and hidden crypts on your hands and knees. The people staring as I did it were just jealous.
I stayed at a renovated 17th century Spanish palace turned into a hostel. The roof was quite spiff.
The most disconcerting thing about Madrid is that parts of it reminded me of Melbourne. That, and about three old men came up to me, said something in Spanish, smiled, and walked off. I don't even want to know what that was about. ;;
The logical progression from Spain would be to Portugal, but I took a four hour flight detour and hopped back over to London to catch up with my bff from Japan who I worked with for four months and saw every single day of those four months, and also incidentally to see lunatic_seas who was on a far crazier jaunt about the continent than I. I think I spent a total of 50 hours in London, and 18 of those at the airport but it was worth it. ;Db
I flew into Faro, Portugal, which is a tiny little seaside town quite overrun during summer but all but deserted during the winter. Like the rest of Portugal, Faro did not believe in pavement or flat surfaces to walk on, but these mosaics of paving stones that looked charming but were quite tough on the feet.
And, being a seaside town, there were GIANT STORK'S NESTS everywhere. This is the gate into the old city.
There's a stork's nest on the highest point.
The sunset was also startlingly beautiful and in my habit of walking to whereever I like, I happily skipped down the end of a very long pier and watched the sun set.
It was also impressive from the marina.
One of my faaaavourite chapels is also found in Faro, which I love purely because of the OMFG WHAT THE HELL SO CREEPY KJJKKJAJKHJAHKHAJWHJEHJWAE factor.
The Chapel of Bones.
Apparently, when expanding the church that this chapel is found in, they had to dig up part of a very large old graveyard, full of monks. They decided to use the bones to build a chapel in which to meditate about death and the afterlife in using the bones which is just so many levels of "..." that I cannot begin to say how utterly creepy it is.
There are also tombs in the floor. Many of the sculls are broken or smashed and the femers are being eroded away, which just adds to the general air of ".... urk."
From Faro up to Porto, Portugal's second largest city. There's a saying somewhere that Lisbon shows off, but Porto works and it's a strangely beautiful and medieval looking town but bustling with people.
Everything about it is impressive, from the old cathedrals to the skyline, studded with old churches.
Built on a river and a few km away from the harbour opening, Porto is famous for its many bridges, the most well known being the Dom Luis I.
The building you see behind it, up the top of a hill, is a very pretty church which you should never walk up to get a closer look to because it is decidedly awkward to find that it's the local Lover's Peak and full of couples making out.
Doubters will be happy to know that while I did happily trundle down the coast on a cold, stormy day to watch the waves
I did not cross the DANGER U WILL DIE DDD: barricades. See? I am learning.
I figured out that by the time I get home, I'll have flown 18 times in a little over 6 months. That is, quite frankly, ridiculous and I'm afraid to think that flying has become commonplace.
But it's hard to forget that it's awe-inspiring that we can take to the skies and fly. Through clouds and rain and stomy weather, there's something magnificent about the sky. I watched the sun rise over the curve of the earth and I think that in some way, every day is a bit of a miracle.
This was flying into the Canary Islands.
The airport is right on the coast which makes coming and going a little bit of a religious experience.
I ALSO THOUGHT, A LITTLE, THAT THEY WERE GOING TO TACKLE ME FOR TAKING PHOTOS INSIDE THE AIRPORT. I AM GLAD I WAS WRONG;;
Gran Canaria was beautiful. Heart stoppingly, awe-inspiringly, magnificently stand on the shore and stare out seawards for hours beautiful.
I went there by day and by night.
Late enough that the restaurants and bars were closing but the lights never turn off. It gets sort of creepy pre-dawn, when it's only a few early morning joggers and the cleaners, performing all those unseen duties to keep an island paradise as pristine as it is.
I woke up early and trundled down to watch the sunrise, walking through the silent streets in the dark. It was cloudy and overcast and I lay in one of the sun lounges to wait for the morning light to break through but it took a bit longer than anticipated, so I fell asleep until one of the workers came over to do a bit of rearranging, stumbled upon me, and it's hard to say who was more surprised (or shrieked the loudest).
Though the clouds were thick and dark, little patches of light managed to shine through.
I went back in the afternoon, with all the crowds and walked along the beach ankle deep in the waves.
I think it's sort of silly to walk outside of the water on the beach. I'm a pretty determined frolicker, even on my own, jumping over the waves and digging my feet in the sand and just generally appreciating being there and ignoring everyone around me.
I fell a bit in love with the place. Not to live, but a short holiday - though I don't think I'll ever go back again. I'm not sure that any of these places are where I'd ever go back again. I think that sometimes, life is about moving on and leaving places and experiences behind.
But now I am back in London for two days before flying off to Turkey! I am so exhausted that I am going to sleep for a week when I get back home. XD;