Christmas in Malta 2009

Main street in Zurrieq

On the eve of the 22nd Ann and I made our way to Gatwick airport. We had a flight to Malta the next morning at 7.15 AM and didn’t want to count on public transport getting us out there in the morning as London was having severe traffic issues due to snow and ice. Lucky for us the the flight was almost and time and we made it to Malta without any problems.

While England and the rest of northern Europe was struggling/celebrating snow and ice we ended up in Malta’s warmest Christmas in more than 20 years with temperatures up to 24 degrees – nice!

On December 24th, while Ann was busy, I walked around the village she is from taking pictures of the Christmas decorated houses.

Door in red

Miniature windmill

Christmas decorated house

Handpainted picture on the back entrance to a bar

The last photo is a hand-painted picture on the back entrance to a bar that really have an aura of Christmas. As I walked by Christmas music was blasting out in the streets. Check out the front and side photos.

In the evening of the 24th we went to the village’s Christmas Procession where kids dressed as angels and shepherds walk the baby Jesus through the streets as they sing carols.

Christmas Procession

In the evening we went out with Ann’s siblings and partners to a nice restaurant on Vittoriosa Waterfront.

All the kids

After that it was on to the university church where we went for midnight mass. The church was packed with people sitting outside watching the service on a big screen. We got a seat inside and watched the Maltese service which started with this kid retelling the Christmas story. Very cute.

Christmas recitations by boy

Well I’m used to celebrating Christmas on the eve of the 24th but here it’s different so we had to let the gifts stay under the crib for another night before we could release the excitement.

The main crib with gifts

The next morning we got stockings, opened gifts, played games, Wii and watched films.

An extra bonus is that Ann’s mum has orange trees in her garden so we could all start the day with a glass of fresh juice – delicious.

Delicious
Making juice

Merry Christmas!

Good bye Prague, hello London!

So my final days in Prague came to and end faster than I had expected but I’ll save that for a later blog post.

no refunds given
Photo by pnoid00

Tuesday afternoon I arrived in London in the pouring rain and it was raining a lot. Ann has been saying that London weather is not as bad as people make it out be to but this day she was a bit off. I’m not complaining tho. Ann had cooked me a nice English meal of Shepard’s Pie and showed me around our new home. Mmm, our new home. It’s been almost exactly two years since we went on our first date in Prague and now we are finally living in the same country 🙂

Our house

The next day the weather was a lot nicer so while Ann went to university I could get out and explore the neighborhood. The picture above is of the house we live in. We are in the house on the left with the red door on the first floor where we share a two bedroom flat with an Aussie/Brit couple.

Terraced houses in Willesden Green

Our neighborhood is covered with streets of terraced houses – all looking the same but also very different. It’s an interesting place to walk around and see how these maybe 80 year old houses have evolved differently depending of different styles and owners. Some are very nice and others are falling apart.

Mediterranean & East European Food

London is a very multiethnic city which also shows in our neighborhood with all sorts of exotic shops and restaurants. Compared to Prague which is very homogeneous (if you don’t count in the tourists) it’s a quite different atmosphere with all these cultures mixed amongst each other. On my trip I remember seeing Polish, Jamaican, Brazilian, Pakistani, Indian and South African and I’m sure I forgot a few. Also I’ve seen one synagogue, two mosques and a couple of churches and this place:

The new moon

There is plenty to explore still and I’m looking forward to tasting the different foods and seeing what else there is to explore in this area.

Before I made it home I came across this piece in a school yard, “Share My World” – what a nice welcome 🙂

Share My World