day 2 karnival, malta style

We woke up this morning to rain, boo! I had been planning to run, so rain wasn't ideal, but it was actually warm enough that things worked out ok. I loaded up my pockets with my room key, a 20 for cab fare (just in case) and 50 cents for bus fare (just in case). I was able to get about 40 hilly minutes in, and best of all, the locals all said "good morning" without me even prompting them! I love this place.

After our workouts, Beth and I returned to Melita (there really was nowhere else to eat lunch) where we noticed for the second day that many children were running around in costume. Our waiter explained that it was Karnival weekend and part of the custom is to dress up. He also said that there were lots of activities going on in Valletta, the capital, to celebrate. We had been planning to go to Mdina but figured we should check out the festival, so we hopped on the bus in search of an authentic Maltese experience.



The bus ride was interesting.

People of all ages were getting on in all sorts of crazy costumes. One guy had on an outfit that reminded me of Transformers and the thing was so wide he barely fit on the bus. I wanted to take his picture but I wasn't sure how polite that would be. However, there were plenty of photo ops once we got to Valletta!


All of the floats had dancers and loud pop music playing. We weren't quite sure what the theme was?


Cute little guy in costume


Statue of Liberty - symbol of freedom AND corndogs




The view from Valletta. Amazing.


The Apostle Paul was shipwrecked here in 60 AD. This is one of the many churches named in his honor, decked out for Karnival.


Seaside restaurant in Valletta


The parade


Nothing to do with Karnival, just funny :0

While Karnival was super interesting, it was also exhausting (and noisy). We headed back to the hotel around 4 pm because we had spa appointments! I'm not normally a spa kind of girl, but we decided to get facials since they were really cheap (compared to London prices). I wasn't sure what to expect...turned out to be pretty relaxing. I actually fell asleep during part of it, ha.

Afterwards, we went to our room to clean up and get dressed for dinner in St. Julian's Bay. We had to make a booking, because as at least 6 people reminded us, it was Valentine's Day. Valentine's doesn't really interest me (the idea of forced romance makes me want to hyperventilate into a paper bag), but we played along and got really dressed up, drank the silly pink cocktails (hey, they were free), and enjoyed a fixed three-course menu consisting of:

- antipasti

- some sort of pasta that i swear tasted exactly like pasta fazool with different noodles. i HATED this dish as a child (i actually cringed when i saw the navy beans soaking on the counter the morning before my dad fixed this), but i don't mind it now! odd.

- meat. there was a pork thing with tomato sauce, which was great, some kind of meatloaf with a lemon flavor, also really good, and what i think was beef? i don't know, it was a lot of meat. :-)

- cheesecake with pomegranates. this was so good that i accidentally ate the pomegranate stem in my quest to get in every last bit of cake. oops.

We had to take a cab back to our hotel since there was no direct bus, and our cab driver was excellent! He was excited to learn we were American and chatted for the entire 20-minute ride. Such a sweetie. The people here are amazing...