Did I mention that we have a fabulous view from our flat?
We spent the morning settling in to our flat. A night’s sleep and unpacking did a lot for our appreciation of the flat. We reorganized things and made room for our stuff and so it feels more like home. We both think we’ll be quite happy here. We’ll probably buy a few things to improve our use of the available space, but over the next few days, we’ll settle in just fine.
We then set off to find a Vodaphone store so we could equip ourselves with a local SIM card and internet access. We located an address for the store in a shopping mall on the harbor side of Sliema. Walking from our side of the city to the harbor side means uphill, then downhill. We kind of meandered our way down all sorts of little streets. We stopped at a Boots the Chemist shop for sun screen, which we desperately needed. We also stopped at a shop that Christine thought was the bookstore she loved as a child. It still sells some books, but is now more a stationery and office supply place. We located the Vodaphone store, after a couple of false starts, and got help from a very nice young woman who got a kick out of us two elder ladies trying to understand what we were purchasing. But success. We have a Malta phone number and internet connectivity. We’re trying out only one phone with the SIM card, Christine’s. We’ll see what happens. She’ll likely get sick of me asking to see her phone so I can look something up, so I may end up purchasing a new SIM, too.
We had a nice lunch at Oggi’s Café on the harbor front and then we headed for home. On the way back, we went exploring around our neighborhood. One of the reasons Christine selected our flat was for its location. Christine was born in Malta and lived here four different times until she was 10. Her father was in the British intelligence business during and after WWII and so his location was reassigned every 18 months or so. He chose a Malta return every other assignment so that Christine’s mother, Rose, who was Maltese, could be back in Malta to see her family. Our flat is very near where Christine lived. So we went up and down the small narrow streets trying to locate various residences, including where her grandmother lived. The streets in Sliema are generally very narrow, and most of the properties, once you get away from the seafront, are old, old buildings. What we like are the many Maltese balconies on the second floors of buildings.
Christine’s grandmother lived on Stella Maris Street, which we found, but Christine couldn’t remember the street address. We’ll track that down later. But at the end of Stella Maris Street is Stella Maris Church, imagine that. We both remembered this street and church from our visit here in 1985.
We located one of the apartment buildings the Tyrrells lived in, really beautiful old stone building with wonderful windows and shutters.
Another Tyrrell apartment is just down the street from our flat. Christine knows the location, but the original building is gone now, replaced by a new high-rise apartment building. There is so much construction and building going on everywhere in Malta. It’s such a shame that so many old buildings are being torn down. But Malta now is a tourist destination and high-rise buildings are going up like crazy.
On the way back home, we stopped at a little market up the street around the corner from our flat and purchased some things we needed. The market has lots of vegetables on display outside. One would think this is a little mini market (as the sign indicates), but I think we would find whatever we needed in there. It was amazing how much stuff was in that little store. We’ll do most of our shopping there, I’m sure.
We then had a real treat. Christine has a second cousin still in Malta, Carol Farrugia. Carol had found Christine on Facebook a couple of years ago. They have communicated a few times and so when we were coming to Malta, we agreed we’d meet. We met Carol for a drink. She is a very interesting, charming woman. She’s just 2 months younger than Christine. She has lived in Malta her whole life. She remembers Christine a bit from childhood. Christine and Carol spent their time together piecing together the family tree and recounting recollections from childhood. It was great fun listening to their histories unfold. We’ll be getting together with Carol and her husband Joe with Eve on Thursday evening. Should be great fun.
We walked along the seafront promenade for a spell with Carol and then walked her back to her apartment, just a few blocks from our flat. We returned home happy and tired.
I love this blog thing! Bravo! Looks like a beautiful place. Enjoy and be safe. Xoxo. G