Cool facts about malta

Alright, we have learned quite a bit since being here and thought we would share some cool facts. 

This is called mosta dome, a huge church built in the 1800s. During world war 2, malta was still a british colony, thus was at war with the axis forces. One day during afternoon mass, axis bombers flew over malta and dropped a few bombs. One was dropped on top of mosta dome and broke through the roof into afternoon mass. The bomb didn't go off, and the locals now refer to the incident as the miracle of the mosta dome. Rumor has it that when thebomb was opened up, they found it filled with sand and a note from nazi occupied Czech, who allegedly sabotaged its production. Crazy stuff right? 

This is at St. John's co cathedral in Valletta. The church was built in the 1500s. I attempted to take a panoramic shot of the ceiling, it was so incredible! It was painted over a five year span with oil paint, and covers the life of st John. It takes up the entire ceiling of the church. 

This is Megan and I on our apartments roof overlooking St. Paul's bay. This is the spot where people believe paul was shipwrecked and swam to shore. When he arrived on land he was bit by a poisonous snake, leading the Maltese to believe he was a cursed man and must have been a criminal. Paul however showed no ill effects which led the Maltese to believe he was a special man. He taught them about Christ and healed their sick and converted many to Christianity. Today 98% of malta considers themselves Roman Catholics. 

This is Megan trying kinnie, a popular  Maltese soft drink. Didn't like it so much... Till next time!

Malter

Hey everybody! We have been soaking up Malta for the past week now, some highlights: 

Bus rides: everything in Malta is within 20 km or so, which should take about 10-15 min right? Nope. Our first day we were introduced to the Maltese bus system, taking an hour and a half to get to our apt 15 km away. But we are learning to love it here and the buses get us everywhere for an insanely low price. 

Valletta grand harbor: do yourself a favor and search that on google images. So beautiful. Also the city of Valletta is really fun with a ton of cool history. St Johns co cathedral is the most ornate church I have been in, we will post a photo or two later. 

Mdina: malta's former capital city is completely walled in with only two gates to enter it exit from. There used to be a moat surrounding the city. Its the real deal. We went to a cafe there and from the terrace enjoyed some chocolate cake and coffee and enjoyed the views of the eastern half of the island. What an incredible view! Later that day we checked out st Paul's catacombs, which Megan wasn't digging all that much (to her credit it was a bit scary). Later, we walked around the town of Rabat where apparently Paul gave a great sermon that converted a good chunk of the maltese population to Christianity. 

Beaches: we have been to two sandy beaches so far(most of Malta is rocky); mellieha bay and golden bay. The water is still a bit cold from winter but the beaches are beautiful and will be spending most of our time on the water this next week. 

Hope all is well stateside, we will update again soon!

Some snappy shots

View from the Dingli cliffs

St. John's Co Cathedral 

Grand Harbor in Valletta, worlds deepest natural harbor 

View from the city wall of Mdina overlooking the eastern part of the island, with Valletta to the right 

Malta

Y King Nuggets??

Well Hay!!!!!! So we've had some time to really soak up Madrid, so we thought we'd go and have a day trip to Toledo. Toledo is awesome.....incredibly beautiful and outrageously up hill, somehow in both directions. There we walked o the top of toledos library, which looks more like a castle, and is one of toledos 2 giant structures. We walked across the bridge that Don Quixote took his journey on and ate weird little ravioli next to a tunnel dating back to the 15th century, take that olive garden!  

                              Then we ate at Burger King. 

We went to the Prado, Ryan got bored, we left. So we went to Mercado de San Miguel and ate until the clanging  of change ceased from Ryan's pockets. But!!!!! Let me talk about food real quick. Ok, I've eaten some good cheese in my time, I'm not about to exaggerate and ruin my street cheese cred, but HOLY crap did we eat the best mozzarella in the world. It was so fresh it was basically a cream. It rated like ice cream and was served in a heap on a simple piece of bread and drizzles with a peachy honey preserve and then your lady Jamon was placed on top.epic.

            The last night of Spain we watched soccer, and I actually didn't wanna die. We cheered, they won and now were in Malta on a new chunk of land ready to be SHLOCKED. 

   Until next time 

                   -M 

Photosss

Madrid

Megan's favorite food

Toledo

View in malta 

So far so great

Sooo the past couple of days have been pretty great. After our hellacious day of suffering from sangria poisoning we met up with our mates Abi and Erin and went to Parque de Retiro. Its an enormous park covered in people rollerblading, resting on grass, paddling in small boats and eating a lot of ham. We then later visited the Reina Sophia Museum and had the pleasure of looking at a few peices by some big players in the art world. Like PABLO Picasso anyone!?!?! The Guarnica was unreal...definitely starred at that for a long time. There was some other freaky deaky art that obviously was crazy and made no sense, was paired with bizarre squawking and robot sounds and was probably designed by R2D2. Thus making me afraid for what our children may interpret as art. 

      Later on in the day we we're takin around the city by some great new friends Maria and Adam. We ate lasagna made by a sardinian, ate tapas at a basque bar, Orio, and drank fantastic basque wine Chocoli. We then decided to pretend like we were 18 and on spring break in Miami and we partied till 5 am, walked home...and died. The next morning we drug our bodies across town to the biggest flea market we'd ever seen, at least 20 thousand people all sardines together looking at Spanish antiques and all sorts so brick a brack. It was quite overwhelming, but still great. 

      Well till next time! Here's some photos below

Photograficos!

First day

Hey everyone! Quick recap of our first night/full day in Europe:
Our apt is in a barrio called Salamanca, about a 3 mile walk from the center of Madrid. We took a long stroll last night past many tapas bars and finally settled on one for dinner. We ordered without checking the menu, we just pointed to what we wanted, which turned out to be a great meal but nothing special. Megan and I then received the bill for the meal for almost 50 euros! Lesson 1 learned as we will now order only off menus.
Next we headed out to meet up w Abi and Erin, our friends who happen to be in Madrid. We ended up at an Irish pub, which the girls thought was pretty funny. We traveled all the way to Spain to drink at an Irish pub playing exclusively Green Day songs! We walked to a tapas bar and ordered 4 sangrias and ended the night.

Day 2: woke up around 11am, everyone sick w food poisoning. Slept all day. Not how we envisioned our first day but it's all good. Tonight kicks off the fiesta de San Isidras in Madrid, a pretty big celebration featuring bull fights, live music, and tapas competitions. We miss you all buy are about to check out the festivities! We will post some photos tomorrow.

Check ya later

Soooo this mornin we left for Madrid. The flight was epically long. We watched a lot of tv, drank more soda than we ever have and managed to get no more than an hour of sleep over 14 hours of plane time....I cannot feel my face. But we couldn't be happier. Cuz were goin to freakan Spain. 

Good bye sweet portland!!!!