August 29th, 2007, 1 Comment »
- When you live on a tiny speck of land in the middle of the Mediterranean.
- When you live on an island off the coast of an island.
- When you take some visiting friends down to see a local tourist attraction.
The last person you expect to see is an international rock sensation.
Julie and I are with our friends Rob and Suze, and we’re wading around in the shadow of the spectacular azure window. We’re just on our way out when we pass a group on their way in. Suze points out that we’ve just walked past none other than Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and occasional nudist.
Rob snapped a surreptitious photo while I resisted the temptation to go over and ask him if Catholic school girls do, in fact, rule. It was a bit surreal, as it’s kind of the last place you expect to meet the guy who wrote, say, “Sexy Mexican Maid” or “Fight Like A Brave”.
I happened to see Mr. Kiedis and his girlfriend again today as they were riding a scooter down Republic Street in the island’s main town of Victoria. That dude has a lot of tattoos.
I saw over on Malta Forums that somebody scored an autograph.
In related photographic news, check out how I managed to ruin this perfectly lovely shot. That’s me with the snorkel. I did manage to compensate for it, though, by snapping this nice photo with Rob’s camera.
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July 11th, 2007, 2 Comments »
Last night, as part of Rabat’s festa, Gozo’s main city hosted 36 (36!) horse races up it’s main street. The course was a straight-away, about a kilometre long and went up a seriously steep incline.
It was pretty fun, and definitely not a show for the tourists. There were a smattering of visitors around, but the majority of the fans were locals, drinking beer, smoking cigars and consulting race programs. I assume there was a schwack of gambling going on, though I didn’t actually spot any.
I’m sure it was pretty safe, but I liked the imagined danger of the horses (and harness racers) roaring past the crowds with nothing but a few feet between them. As you can see in this photo, the crowd actually stands in the middle of the road to get a better view until the horses get quite close.
I took a bunch of photos, and these were the fourteen best ones. It’s a busy day here, so I made extensive use of the poor man’s Photoshop–ye olde ‘Enhance’ button in iPhoto.
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May 17th, 2007, 7 Comments »
Last week we were shopping in the market square in Rabat, and happened upon a fish seller (not, as far as I could tell, that kind of fishmonger). We weren’t in the market for fish that day, but we asked when he was there. “Tuesday to Friday”, he replied.
I returned last Tuesday, and he was nowhere to be seen. I tried again today, and there was no sign of him again. What gives?
I asked one of the vegetable sellers nearby. She told me that “he doesn’t come if it’s windy”.
“Ah,” I said, knowingly, “thanks.” I’m still not sure why the wind determines his operating hours, but I must assume that the fishing is lousy when the wind is blowing.
There are thousands of peices of cultural data like this that you get to wrestle with and learn when you live in a new place. I find it to be one of the great joys of living abroad. Just think how triumphant I’ll feel when I actually get my hands on some fish.
Mind you, then I’ll have to fillet it. I’ve been collecting a few bookmarks on that subject.
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May 7th, 2007, No Comments »
When moving to Gozo, one of our biggest concerns was how hard it would be to get stuff. By stuff I mean everything from mushrooms to office chairs to computer monitors. There are 27,000 people on Gozo, but, Rabat, the main city, apparently only has 7000.
We were dead wrong. There are dozens upon dozens of stores in Rabat. There are, for example, at least five different furniture stores, plus we found a carpenter who builds furniture. A lot of the stores seem to sell odd combinations of things–a lamp store also sells toasters–but you can get everything you need.
When I lived in Dublin, I was shocked by the number of travel agencies. The Irish love their sun holidays, and I guess they weren’t really booking online en masse yet.
In Gozo, there’s a similarly large number of real estate agencies. You can’t throw a dead rabbit braised in red wine sauce (one of the national dishes) without hitting a couple of letting and sales agencies.
The diversity of shops is, I think, due to an almost complete lack of franchises (there’s a couple of McDonalds, but that’s the only franchise I recognize) and plenty of owner-operators. Store owners stock what sells, and are happy to accomodate odd requests.
The only thing I may have to order from abroad is one of those little speaker units that you stick your iPod (Nano, in my case) into. I asked at a stereo (plus toys plus sporting goods) store, and they didn’t have any. Other than that, we’re able to get almost everything we need without even going to the main island.
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