Remembering Malta

Malta

I went on a school trip to the country of Malta. Before the trip my class was deciding on where to go and we each had to give a presentation on a place and convince everyone to go there. I decided to research and present Malta. My presentation won and my class went to Malta.

Most people have never heard of Malta. It is a group of islands: Gozo, Malta and Comino that make up the country of Malta.  It is in the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Africa (50 miles from Italy and 176 miles from Tunisia.) The official languages are: Maltese and English. In 1996 the currency was the Maltese Lira (today it is the Euro.) It was a British Colony from 1815-1964 and became a Republic in 1974. Today it is part of the British Commonwealth of Nations (since 1974) the European Union (since 2004) and the Schengen Area (since 2007.) 

I remember the trip to Malta well. Not only was it really nice to leave cold Germany for warm Malta, but the fact that 98% of the people speak English meant we didn’t have to worry about language issues. We flew into the only airport and stayed at the New Dolmen hotel right on Saint Paul’s Bay (where Saint Paul became shipwrecked in 60 AD.) A Dolmen is a prehistoric monument of two or more upright stones supporting a horizontal stone slab thought to be a tomb. When we weren’t touring around the ancient ruins and places around Malta (like Hagar Qim) or visiting the sites of the First Great Siege of Malta (1565) or the Second Great Siege of Malta (1940-1943) – the Mosta Dome which survived a 1,102 lbs. German bomb attack and the Lascaris War Rooms -   or taking a ferry to Gozo and seeing Calypso’s Cave or taking a boat to the Blue Grotto in Malta or taking pictures on the Azure Window Arch (which fell into the sea in 2017) or going to Popeye’s Village (where the Robin Williams movie was filmed in 1980) we had free time to walk around without any chaperons and met some local Maltese kids and hung out at their home. They had never met American teenagers before. We went midnight swimming in the warm Mediterranean Sea when we weren’t swimming in the hotel’s heated pool. We would also climb over the balconies separating our rooms (it was a very high drop) and hang out in each other’s rooms. We had a class contest (questions about Malta) to complete during the trip and the winner got some Maltese Lira. I won the contest and got the Lira. There are so many other stories I could tell of that trip. One last thing that I vividly remember is it being so hot the day we left Malta (I was wearing shorts and sandals) and when we landed in Frankfurt my brother and sister met me at the airport and we went right to a German Fest. It was pouring rain and very cold (you could see your breath) and yet I wasn’t able to change from my shorts and sandals.

The picture is of the Blue Grotto in Malta.