I'm sorry that all I seem to be writing about it driving in Malta, but sadly, so far that's all I've been up to.
Day 4 (Friday 30th if you're keeping notes in a diary) I was able to have a lie in. I wasn't due in the office until 1pm (midday to all you people on GMT). I was also able to sample the hotel breakfast I was paying for for the first time.
The meal is a 'help yourself' style breakfast. A choice of cereals, different breads with a toasting machine nearby, a selection of fresh juices, several different coffees and teas and a cooler cabinet full of different meats and salad veg. There are also bread rolls and the usual choice of butter/marge, jams etc. So for me it was two slices of toast, a few different slices of cold meats (think I had salami, bologne, chicken and chorizo) some cucumber, fresh pepper and tomato washed down with a few glasses of pineapple juice. Well I might as well get my money's worth!
The drive to work was almost a success. I only made one mistake and ended up in a building site. Thankfully this time, turning round and going back put me in the direction I was supposed to be going in so it was hardly a mistake at all. I'll just put it down to a spot of extra site-seeing.
The drive home was a different matter all together...
It was the first time driving at night. You'd think the roads would quieten down by 9pm, but no, they just fill up with revelers and people going off for a night out. It wasn't the last part of the journey that caused problems, it was just getting from the office to the main road. A miriad of tight alleys, back streets, no road markings. I was going round in circles again. At one point I went down a steep hill, only to discover at the bottom I had just gone down a one way street in the wrong direction! There is just no logic to the road system. It looks and 'feels' like it's in a grid (like New York) but every so often, for no apparent reason, one particular road will be one-way. Then the next will just have a 'no right turn' sign at the end of it. Many times you can actually see where you want to end up but have no way of working out how to get there! The total journey time to get home was 40 minutes.
I always park in a small car-park at the bottom of the hill in St Julans. It's a good 5 minute walk to the hotel from there, up a steep hill but a) it's the only excersise I'm likely to get and b) if I try and park near to the hotel I"m likely to get trapped in another set of one-way alleys. The car-park belongs to a local supermarket, and at all hours of the day there is an old man waving traffic in and out as though he's an attendant. He doesn't wear a uniform though, but he does help a lot. I've noticed people giving him a tip, but so far I"ve just walked past him....
...I'm expecting to come back one morning and find he's let the tyres down on my car!
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