Living in Malta

The photo is of the rockpool at Paceville where I taught myself to swim when I was six years old.  It is almost the only thing in this area that still looks the same.  I was there on Friday when I went to a conference at Dragonara on the point between my rockpool and St George's Bay.  You can see what is now Dragonara Casino in the background.

I caught the bus from Valletta to San Gwann but arrived late for the conference because I got on the bus that went for a trip around the village rather than going down into Paceville so I stayed on for the ride and then walked from the top end of Paceville.  

The conference was about the Further and Higher Education Strategy 2020 and launched a report commissioned by the government.  When I arrived, the large conference room at the Westin Dragonara was full with men in grey suits.  I found myself a space on the back row after picking up my conference bag that contained the report.  I missed the opening but was there to hear Mr Jacques Sciberras go through the report, Professor Juanito Camilleri, Rector of the University of Malta, critique the report mostly in terms of action and Dr Dominic Orr speaking from the perspective of EU students.  

On the way out to morning tea, I overheard one of the few women who were there bashing the ear of a male colleague about how the private sector, where she located herself, could not afford to implement the strategies recommended in the report.  I suspect that most of the women there were from the private sector but I have no way of knowing because a gender break-down is noticeably missing from the report.

It was a beautiful day, and after sampling the white bread tuna sandwiches with crusts cut off I decided to slip away from the second session which promised a full series of speakers from the sector.  I set off to walk around the shoreline to Sliema and that is where I came across my rock pool.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to walk around the rocks any longer because of all the development so I asked a woman who was walking her dog.  She explained to me how I would have to walk around the marina and I might have to go through the Hilton hotel if a gate wasn't open but I should be able to get onto Spinola promenade.

Walking over the rocks I noticed a lot of fossils that I was not aware of as a child and the square tower where strange men used to hang out is still there.  There used to be a rubble road going round the coast with a fortified wall that had strange tunnels running through underneath that were just big enough for a small child to crawl through but this road is now closed off and I'm not sure what is going on there now.

I walked around the Portomaso marina wall and around the twin harbours, one for luxury speed boats and the other for yachts.  The development of apartments here is huge but at least you can walk around and look at the boats.  At the far end, a gate was open and I was able to skirt another massive hotel and walk past the restaurants on the edge of Spinola Bay.  In the Spinola area, several of the fishing boats have a curious rounded stern that is different from the boats at Marsaxlokk.

After that I decided to follow the promenade around until Sliema where I jumped on a bus to head back to Valletta and Marsaxlokk.  My cousin in Sliema wasn't home so we arranged by phone to meet the following day when I was due to go to another workshop this time in Sliema.  I'll write about that in my next post.