This week we had Wednesday off of school, so I decided to bust out of this joint early for a long-ish vacation. Marissa had a friend's wedding this weekend, so she was stateside. When I first came to Spain, I had figured out that I would end up doing a lot of solo adventuring and traveling, but it didn't work out that way. So I decided where I wanted to go, and I went! I spread my wings and flew, all the way to the island nation of Malta, located to the south of Sicily, Italy. It was awesome, and I am pretty proud of myself for doing it. I actually had a great time and think I will take more solo vacations in the future.
I started my trip on Tuesday afternoon, heading to Sevilla as usual. I was surprised when I got to the airport, it looked like a group of bored teenagers had attacked. The whole front hall with the ticket counters was a mess with toilet paper hanging from the rafters. A person was walking around throwing paper bits like a flower girl at a wedding. Once I got a bit further in, I realized, as I should have right away because this is Spain, that it was a strike. The airport staff hired to work in the food shops and the cleaning staff were all on strike and were hard at work to prove their point of how necessary they were. It seemed a lot more successful than the school strikes where the teachers or students don't show up for a day or two.
Anyways, I didn't arrive in Malta until after 8 o'clock. I had originally planned to spend all my time on the smaller island of Gozo, but when I realized that I was going to have to take a bus to the ferry station, then the ferry, and then two more buses to get to my hostel on Gozo, I decided it was better to spend the night on the main island. I checked into my hostel and headed out to find food. This beautiful pizza is what I found, and let me tell you, it was freaking awesome. I enjoyed it with a Maltese beer. Everyone who says that pizza and beer is the perfect combination is so right. I even made it through eating an entire meal out alone without feeling too awkward and stared out. Go me! The pizza was big enough, that it actually would have been nice to have someone to share it with, but such is life. 
After a relatively good night's sleep, I got up and walked around Sliema, the town where I was staying. The breeze was blowing, and lots of people were out running, walking, and riding bikes. Wednesday was a holiday in most of Europe, Worker's Day or something like that, so I imagine there were more people out than usual. Next it was time to make the journey to my other hostel, and journey it was. It took more than three hours with all the transfers and waiting to finally arrive at my hostel. I didn't mind too much because I got to see more of the islands riding the bus around, and the weather was quite nice. On the ferry, I rode on the top deck, where it just so happened every family with children was on that boat. I was a happy girl, watching the kids be kids and enjoying the salty air. 
By this point, it was already Spanish lunch time, so I wandered down into the fishing village of Marsalforn where I was staying to scout out the food situation. I ended up eating this delicious and juicy cheeseburger and fries. I know, not very Malta-y, but it is extremely hard to come by a good burger in Spain, probably because they make their hamburgers with at least some ham! After, I walked along the coast a bit, taking in the blueness of the water. I was exhausted from traveling, so I'm not going to lie. I went back to my hostel and hid out in my room for the rest of the afternoon reading until dinner. I had a light dinner and headed back to my room for more reading, a good start to any trip.
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