Stop killing us, Malta!!!

Everyone who had a pleasure to visit Malta agrees that traffic here is more than insane. Every day is a life risking experience trying to avoid speeding buses in narrow streets or suddenly stopping cars which start to drive backwards with no particular reason. And everything here is being followed by unbearable symphony of sounds caused by honking maniacs. This post is dedicated to my lovely friend who was hit by a car by one of those maniacs. No, she is not dead... Jezzzz, people…

This amazing story started not so long ago when my friend went for her shopping in Sliema. She was suppose to come back after few hours, but it was already 22 o’clock and we started to worry. Due to the fact that we are not mobile freaks and don’t need that thing stuck to our pockets, my friend left her phone at home. Around 23 o’clock a policeman came to our home saying that our friend got into an accident and that we need to go to the hospital. I have to mention that the policeman didn’t offered to drive us there, he just asked if we know where Mater Dei is. So, we ran into the hospital shouting at very sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow staff and being freaked out by almost dying elderly people in the corridors. Finally, we found our friend who told us that she was crossing the street while a car appeared from nowhere and bumped into her. She hit her head pretty hard and lost consciousness for a moment. The funny thing was that it took around 15 minutes for ambulance to come, even though the accident happened 15 minutes away BY FOOT from the hospital. My friend had to shout few times at the hospital staff cause she was asking for some ice for her head but got one ice-cube instead. She was released the next morning but came back to the hospital the day after to get checked again. They told her to wait until her name will be announced. After 7 hours of waiting and failing to get checked she came back home. Applause for the efficient health care. BRAVO, Malta, BRAVO…

Heeeeeelloooooo!!!!!!

I’ve just thought that I have to share with you, my dear readers, this mornings’ conversation.

So, I was chatting with a new Erasmus girl on my course while my Maltese course-mate who was sitting nearby looked at me and asked:

- Are you a new Erasmus student, too?

Me:

- Ammm, I’ve been studying with you since the first semester. You haven’t noticed me, have you?

Course-mate:

- Mmmm… no.

This is a person with whom I had 4 lectures per week last semester. Thank you for acknowledging my existence!

We’re Cold As Ice, We’re Willing To Sacrifice…Our Health

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“I’m freezing my ass here, mum”
“Couldn’t sleep at night because I was shivering from the cold”
“Wait wait, can’t type now, my fingers have just froze up”

These are the usual phrases that make our friends and families raise their eyebrows and ask: “Where? In Malta?!”. Who could ever thought that winter in Malta is so unbearable and highly increased humidity and extremely cold houses will start slowly killing us. We came here with the intention to enjoy never-ending summer but what we got was sinusitis and clothes which completely dry in 5 days and have the stink of the wet dog.
Maltese houses just can’t heat up during the day and it’s no way for you to enjoy a warm night. Oh, hell, you can’t even enjoy a warm day inside. The most ironic moment was when my friend and I were sitting in the balcony, enjoying sun in our short sleeves and every time we wanted to go inside we had to put on some clothes. So, what’s wrong with these houses? The biggest problem is vents which are basically holes in walls sucking in cold air and not releasing it outside. We started stuffing those holes with towels, covering it with a plastic bag or duck tape. Nothing helped. At least now we can admire amazing flora and fauna growing on our bathroom ceiling.
Second attempt to get warm was switching on an ancient heater. It looks really pathetic and has a grill which heats up and starts threatening to burn your skin, your clothes and your house. Weeeell, I sincerely don’t think that those stone monsters burn…

Heaticus Sovieticus

Third thing which helps us to get some sleep at night was invented by my mum. And probably by many other mothers. Bless our amazing mothers! Without you we would freeze to death, use drugs and roll our eyes less… So the amazing thing is just a simple plastic bottle filled with hot water. Roll it in under your blanket and enjoy first warm 5 hours. The funniest thing is our little conversations in the morning when we discuss previous night and my friend usually tells us how she was hugging her plastic friend all night. 
You might think that our house is cursed or that we live in some kind of a shed where you can see sunset through your walls. Hell no! The same situation is at our University. Everyone sits with their coats, hats and mittens on. Come on, it’s not a first winter in Malta. Do something about the heaters! I remember one lecture when Maltese girl opened a window which caused a horrible draught directly to our necks. My friend turned around and asked her politely to close the window cause it’s getting extremely cold. That girl just looked at us and said that it’s too hot for her inside. Take one of your five jumpers, would you?!
So now we live with the hope that it’s going to get warmer in the middle of February and we will finally be able to take off our woolen socks. Cause, believe me, woolen socks and flip flops are far from couture.

So this is Christmas...

Yes you are...Yes.You.Are...

Dinner On the Road

It is time…it is time to tell you about THE Shortcut. You might have heard of it, you might have even tried to cross it or maybe after this story you will feel the urge to test your ability to survive while walking through it.

Basically, it’s a really horrible pathway connecting University and San Gwann. At first you have to slide down the rocky hill to get on the track. This is the place where my friend kissed a rock with her spine. Painful even to watch… So you move forward, cross some kind of a gates in the prison fence, get through the bushes (or trees, hard to tell). And here it is! A ditch with huge rocks which, as we painfully learned later, is nothing but a river bed for a mighty Amazon which gets back to life on every rainy day. As it is pitch dark at night we always have to light our path with mobile phones. Otherwise, you might step into a dog poop or face a chicken. Yeah, you’ve read it right – A FREAKIN CHICKEN. I’ve almost stumbled on her and she didn’t even care to move. Ok, I admit, I was spooked at first, that’s why I’ve screamed like a little girl and then tried to scare that damn creature away. I guess she was laying an egg or something... Back to the worst part – the Amazon. It’s almost impossible to keep your feet dry on even a slightly rainy day. All the shortcut just starts to roar from the water. My friends have almost survived a really really really rainy night while getting back through the shortcut. Actually, it’s pretty hard to get on the streets when it starts to rain here. Everything just gets flooded. Now I’m pretty sure how it feels when tsunami strikes... 

When technology meets a Maltese Man. (part 2)

So, last week we had our first individual presentations. We’ve been a little bit suspicious when lecturer asked to send him our finished work cause, as everyone knows, none of the rooms have a computer. The lecture started with the hope that our tutor will bring his laptop and after blowing dusts from the projector everyone will start their walk towards guillotine. As you’ve already suspected one of the gentlemen in the crowd had to volunteer and give his laptop for a public use. That’s not a worst part. The projector which was connected to the computer kept switching off every 3-5min in this way bringing more stress to every presenter. The only way to revive that bloody thing was to unplug it and plug it again. Everyone had a 5 min presentation to deliver. Can you imagine yourself talking in front of the crowd of 26 people, shacking as hell, trying to remember what you want to say and being interrupted by this “little” technical difficulty? I was the last one to get my 5 minutes of glory. Unfortunately, after 3,5 hours of use laptop’s battery was running low and I could clearly see that there won’t be enough energy for my presentation. I had million of ideas running through my head, such as, making a dash for my laptop at home, killing someone, crying. I’ve even remembered that lecture without electricity and was ready to test my ability to talk without visual material. In the end another coursemate offered her super small laptop and I was given an opportunity to tremble in front of my colleagues. Can’t wait for another presentation…

When technology meets a Maltese Man

Even though, I’m an Eastern European and I suppose to be familiar with all the technologies from the Middle Ages, there were only few times I’ve seen this thing ->

And in the University of Malta you can find the head projector [that’s how it’s called] in every room. Even one of my tutors [I dropped his lecture eventually] was using transparent paper slides with the text he written by HAND. It could be understandable, cause he is around 80 years old, but why then he was talking about innovation and that good managers have to adapt to the changing world all the time? “Excuse me, sir. I’ve heard about this really innovative thing they have in the West. It’s called PowerPoint!”

Almost every day our tutors struggle to connect their mini laptops to the TV or the projector in the room. You haven’t experienced student life in the University of Malta to the fullest if you hadn’t seen those friendly men in their blue shirts and knitted vests who fly in and use their magical remote control to make everything work in the room. Thanks guys! I’m being serious now, if weren’t those men our lecturers would still be swearing in Maltese and pushing all the buttons.

I just adore one lecture where my tutor switches off the projector and starts reading information from the book while adding some pointless statements such as “Disabled people – people with disabilities” or “You know…I don’t know”.

Today we had presentations delivered in one of the lectures and suddenly electricity went off. So my coursemates continued to present their material with the hope that electricity will turn on every second. Since our university, apparently, doesn’t have a generator, we spent an hour listening to the speech about the Museum of Fine Arts, with no visual material. I just want to remind you that it was a presentation about MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. You know what upsets me the most? That Lidl has a freakin generator but not the University of Malta…

Oh yeah, don’t forget the IT technologies in the library. I will try not to expand on the fact that they still use Windows XP, or the time a lovely lady with insanely long nails explained to us that the problem why we couldn’t print out one paper is because the file was in PDF… Cause, you know, I don’t know… From that day we sworn to ourselves never ever ever use the printers in the library. And we keep this promise by not entering it at all…