the last few days

I need to get caught up from the past few days.

Monday I headed out early to get to the laundromat with my suitcase full of dirty clothes. It ended up being easier and more painless than I had expected. It still cost about $15 though. After that was finished, I packed and ate a very quick lunch before heading off to the airport. In hindsight, I probably should have tried to do something other than go to the airport so early. My flight wasn't supposed to leave until 7:30, but checkout was at 12. I just didn't want to leave my bags at the hotel and try to wander around some more. I won't lie, at this point I am starting to get sick of walking, and of sight seeing in general.

So I went to the airport, which was chaos. I eventually settled down with a book to wait out the long hrs until my flight started checking in. To make a long story short, everything in Italy is more difficult than it should be, and this was no exception with the checking in process. Lets just say something that should have taken 5 minutes ended up taking more than an hr.

But in the end it was worked out and I finally got to my plane and we boarded on time. We sat for a while though before pilot came on and said that apparently someone had checked in for the flight and checked some luggage, but then had not shown up at the gate or boarded the plane. Naturally that is a very suspicious security threat, and so they took all our luggage off the plane, and made everyone get off and identify which bags were theirs. This delayed us by about 2 hrs.

So I didn't get into Malta until about midnight. I took a cab to my hotel, which is quite nice actually. I got about 4-5 hrs of sleep I guess.

Today I got up, had some breakfast which was included in the room price thankfully, and took a cab to the Malta Bar that I was photographing. Thankfully, everything went smoothly due to its small size.

Tomorrow though will be a challenge as we have a lot of items to photograph and a short amount of time. I plan to start at 6am so that we have plenty of time to get everything done.

I haven't seem much of Malta, just what I have seen from my hotel and from the road. It seems to be a typical Mediterranean island. Hilly, rocky coastline, some interesting scenery, kind of strange city, old in some parts, ugly in some, somewhat unique style of architecture throughout. I'm not sure which it seems more like, Italy, Greece, Africa, etc. It is kind of in the middle of everything.

Supposedly they speak english here, but I have yet to meet anyone who speaks it well enough to have much of a conversation. Still, its an improvement.

this is the view from my room during the day:
here is the view at night:


I think I have been out of town every St. Patrick's day for the last few years. At this point I am officially sick of traveling and everything that goes along with it. I am not trying to complain, nobody wants to read that. I don't want people to get the wrong impression. This trip is a unique opportunity and that is why I am doing it. But it is by no means a vacation. Never underestimate how difficult it can be to travel constantly for weeks on end, with 100+ lbs of luggage, from city to city, in airports and taxis constantly, always a different hotel room, and always by yourself. It gets old quickly no matter how many interesting things you may see along the way. This would be an awful life if you had to do it all the time, and many people do. I am looking forward to going back home to my wife and my own bed, etc. The next time I come to europe, I hope that I can do it on my own time, with people I care about, and actually spend time enjoying things instead of rushing around. But of course I came here for work, which is what I am doing. I have to remind myself that sometimes. It always seems strange to me though that people sometimes express that they think I am lucky or that they wish they could have my job. I am indeed lucky, but not because of a trip like this.