Magellan Trip : Unplanned Festivals and Unplanned Companions

This last week I had one of my favorite hostel room groups of people. Out of nowhere the majority of us became friends for the brief amount of time we shared and decided to explore parts of Malta we would not have seen otherwise. This instantly meshing group consisted of an Aussie named Emily, an American from Virginia named Megan, a German named Laura, and a Polish girl named Natalia. We seemed to get along instantly and when Megan turned my attention to a fascinating website that documented almost every event Malta was hosting for months to come, we decided we needed to participate in at least a few of them. While I chose to abstain from the wine tasting Megan decided to go to, Laura, Megan, and I did decide to attend this International Food Festival being held at Mdina- one of the oldest cities in Malta. Unfortunately, Megan got caught in some pre wedding plans, of which a wedding was the purpose of her visit. So that left Laura and I to go to the festival by ourselves and we had a great time. There were a few live performances, cheese tastings, and of course: plenty of food. However, despite all the exotic foods, I "phoned it in" and ended up eating at the American table. I feel bad about not choosing to try something new at an international food festival, but at least I facilitated a conversation with a local Maltese woman and her children about how much of a national focus the Knights of St. John have on their school curriculum. Small consolation I know, but I did finally try rabbit. I had this rabbit pasta, in which I had assumed it would be a pasta with chopped pieces of rabbit interspersed throughout the dish like chicken or sausage is, but instead my plate came to me with pasta as a staging ground for the large rotisserie-style quartered rabbit placed on top. Even still, I was determined to complete my mission and afterwards I can say that rabbit was not too bad, but nothing I would seek out at home. It tasted similar to unseasoned turkey, it was not gamey but slightly dry for my taste.

The second hostel friend adventure was a Sunday trip to a supposedly interesting outdoor market called the Valletta Street Market. My companion for this trip was Megan, but we happened to run into another one of our recently departed hostel friends, the Aussie Emily, who had left the day before due to the lack of availability at our hostel. The three of us then continued to find this street market whose name is a bit of a lie, being that the city limits of Valletta end decently far from the market. In an effort to both shorten the story and not sugarcoat the truth, the Street Market was a horrible waste of time. We were not greeted by exotic treasures, handmade souvenirs, or traditional Maltese food. Instead we were privy to a surprising amount of knockoff shoes, belts, watches, bootleg DVDs, and prepacked Nestlé ice cream products. Also there seemed to be a pet store type table that was selling caged birds, but they also had a cage of rabbits nearby and I was met with the disturbing thought of whether or not those rabbits were destined to be a housepet or a Maltese meal. Simply, it was horrible, a waste of time, and forced me to miss a reenactment that I would have enjoyed exponentially more.

On the way back from the street market we happened to run into some sort of garden festival being held in Independence Square where we saw this immense and well organized bed of flowers laid atop of what is usually a dancing fountain. This flowerbed did well to redeem some of the wasted time from the street market.

Once Laura and Emily left, the Polish girl named Natalia showed up to take their place. Unfortunately she was only here for three days considering that we seemed to get along instantaneously. Nevertheless we ate breakfast together one day before she took the same cruise that I had signed up for the day after. That night was also her last night so we went for a late dinner and walked along the Strand, which is pretty much just the rocky seafront of Sliema. I saw her eating breakfast the next day and we said our goodbyes, regretfully I did not think at the time to give her my number, or email, or even enough information to become facebook friends...fleeting friendships at their best, right?