Michael Crichton's novel about a global warming conspiracy was my entertaining escape fiction while we were in Europe. Kind of a guilty, over-the-top pleasure, I admit, but definitely fun.
I don't know why, but some time last year, Wheat Thins started coming with tons of extra salt on them. The first time I encountered it, I thought it was just a bad box. But it's been consistent every time since then, across various varieties (except the low-salt kind). Nabisco, stop it! It's way too much salt! You're killing us. You took out the trans fats a few years ago, which was fine. The crackers got harder then, but that's a minor deal. But seriously, cut back on the salt!
Malta’s long history is very interesting, including what is widely thought to be the shipwreck by the apostle Paul in AD 60 described in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles chapter 28 , the last chapter in Acts. Later there was a period where the inhabitants were killed and it was mostly unpopulated, then was resettled around AD 1049 by a Muslim community and their slaves, who rebuilt a ruined city and called it Mdina after the Arabian Madīnah / Medina. Eventually Christians reconquered the island, yet the Arabic dialect spoken by the population remained, with new Christian faith. Here is one example, a guest house called Dar is-Sliem, “house of peace” in Maltese, similar to Dar es Salaam in Arabic, the largest city in Tanzania: Nowadays Malta is a strongly Catholic country. This is evident in many ways. Visually it is obvious in the large in the many, many churches on the islands. In the small, see the very common house devotional niċċa (niches) and shrines that are al
Mira and I made it to Malta! This is where our trip really began, at the airport which has a nice aquarium: Some views around the town of Sliema where we stayed. It has big built-up tourist areas but also plenty of locals and older buildings: The promenade along the beach is great. Along the southeastern tip (see this Google Maps view ) there are swimming pools cut into the stone in the ocean and people swim and practice diving there with constantly renewed water but without being in the open ocean: And there are cats. First, this statue of one looking out over a bay, then some real ones. They’re pretty mellow: I srictly didn’t park my lack of a car here: And while it probably seemed like a good idea to mix “energy” plus “Malta” to make the name of the electric company, “Enemalta” didn’t sound so good when we saw this sign outside public toilets: We will have more to share about this beautiful island!
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