March 2015

1st March

Well this day another month began and the spring time is coming – which I was really waiting for. I hope it will be warmer soon and not so much rain, so I can dry my laundry more than once a week on the roof. By the way this month was starting good with nice weather and I hoped the following days will be the same because I not necessarily have to wash my clothes on a Sunday.

I hade a half of the pork medallion for dinner, I bought the day before. As a side dish I hade Asian wok vegetables in coconut milk as well as my last couscous, but I bought new one the day before – even it was whole wheat couscous. I have to see, what it tastes next time I have this side dish.

Back to work again around 3pm. I was not really in the mood this day for going to Besedo and it felt worth during the afternoon. Furthermore I feel not good, that I cannot make the volume at all when I worked with less complicated cases.

 

2nd March

I used my time for the laundry, dishes and put on clean bed-clothes. I also were sending two new job applications I have had prepared already, but was waiting for the answer of my HR-agent about my notice period, because my contract is definite for 12 month. She wrote, that I only have two weeks notice period as before, what I am happy about, of course.

D.C. told me that I can install Windows by my own on the side of my Linux system. By installing the system again, it would ask for the directory. He asked me for to try by my own otherwise he will help me.

After lunch I was going to work again as usual on a Monday. Anyway I am feed up of my work. Actually it is not the kind of work or the working hours, it is the management I do not really agree with and it has to do with the team leader and specialist we have had before. Now the specialist became our team leader and we have a new specialist. This specialist is really good, but they do not consider how some situations were handled before. I do not like that we have to “pay” for the mistakes of the management.

 

3rd March

The weather was really nice this day, but quite windy. It was perfect weather for drying my laundry, so I did even I awake late, that means around 10:30am, which is really late even for me. The time until going to work I just made my household and was for a few minutes on the Internet.

I am happy about my lunch because I made an easy, but own creation of a tomato soup. It was tasting very well and I enjoyed to use the left over tomato cream from the Sunday’s meat sauce.

I am thinking about to try to install Windows on the side of Linux this week, but I am still not sure, that I can make it, so I will find both the systems on my laptop and will be able to switch between them.

In the evening I found a letter under my door from the DRV (German pension authority). It was a confirmation of the 50% pension I have had until now and for this year.

 

4th March

I awoke early this morning – at 7:30am something. I did take my rubbish out, had my medicine and made my breakfast around half an hour later. During my breakfast I already was on the Internet again. This time I checked the flights from Copenhagen to Malta, because my son Daniel will come this spring and visit me. I know it is only Norwegian airlines offering direct flights from Copenhagen. Unfortunately I read about the protest and the difficulties they face, therefore I will wait some days before I decide to book a flight for my son or not at the Norwegian. He is comfortable with the first week in May and I look forward to welcome him here.

By the way, the weather is great even it is only around 16 degrees yet. I still stayed in bed for feeling warm and saving costs of the electricity, even my last bill was not so very high. I paid around 50 EUR each of the last three months for water and electricity together. That is not much more than I was used to in Hamburg, but the heating.

I was also waiting for the appointment of the second interview at Wirt Artna as a custodian and guide. I do not know how they use to do here, but the appointment for the first interview I have got so quickly, therefore I am surprised that it takes such a long time for the invitation for the second one. I am wondering if there will be a second interview for me. Last night there were another job offer fitting my education, experiences and wishes on the ETC and I applied for that, too.

 

5th March

This day was a day with only grey clouds, that means an unusual day. Anyway I spent most of the time outside my home. Around 10am I was going to Senglea to the secondhand shop D.F. ist volunteering for. He is there only on Thursdays between 10am and 12 o’clock. I am looking for a back pack in the size of around 60 l. He told me that they have a lot of things in that shop, but I did not find any in the size i need. I am not in a hurry to buy one, because I think I will use it the first time in May when I am traveling the Iberian Island by bus. Sometimes it is easier with a back pack and I am also looking for such one with wheels, so I can roll it behind me, when I am too tired, to have it on my back. I think I will not have it on my back all the day either, but anyway. I was going back to Valletta, bought a kind of bun, which surprised me, because it was very clingy. I think it was brushed with sugar-water or honey. I had to go and wash my hands after I have eaten it. The taste was ok, but it was not such a bun I am enthusiastic about. The next time, I will try another kind of buns.

I was continuing to Mosta, because I found a shop on the Internet, which sales really camping and hiking gear and similar stuff. I also need a new pair of hiking shoes. I was not happy in Ticino without them. I left the bus at the Rotunda i Mosta because I thought, that shop will be somewhere in the city of Mosta, but it was at the outskirt. That does not matter, because I found it easily by an explanation of a shop owner close to the Rotunda. It was only around 10 minutes to go. Easily I found the back packs – but no one with wheels – and also the hiking shoes at the same place. I was picking the one and another and was waiting for a shop assistant, but he only came when he switched off the lights, because he was going to closing down the shop for the siesta. He was kind enough to help me and I was leaving the shop with a new pair of hiking shoes with Gore Tex. For the back pack I have to go back at the end of March or in April because they will get a stock of new ones including some with wheels. I was very happy about this shop.

On my way into the centre of Mosta I saw from the bus also a shop, which sales cartridges and I thought, I may ask there for the cartridges for my printer. It was a little longer out of the centre than the shop, I just had been. I walked there, but it was closed. Fortunately this shop has not such a long siesta and will open in 20 minutes again. Therefore I was looking for a cheap restaurant or something like that and also found two. The first one only had pastizzi and that kind of stuff, the next one served warm sandwiches of different kinds, from 5pm they also would sell pizza. I took a warm sandwich and a coffee, because there blow a cold wind at that time. Afterwards I was going to that cartridge shop. Unfortunately they did not have my cartridges in stock, therefore the clerk called a shop of the same brand in San Gwann and there my cartridges where in stock. I went home by bus leaving my new shoes and continued after that to San Gwann. The shop was easy to find, not far away from a bus stop. The bus stop for the way back was not so easy to find, because I did not know that the bus is a “ring-line”, that means I have to go to the same bus stop for continuing to my home, which I left for going to the shop. When I was looking for the bus stop I saw a lot of nice shops. One catch my eyes especially and I was entering and bought a birthday present for my grand child. I was thinking about before, what to buy. That is not so easy, because I do not know what he exactly has already, what he will get of the other relatives and what size he will need. Though I bought something he can use for years and he can never have enough of.

Coming home it was getting dark quickly. I warmed my half medallion – the left over – fried some croquettes and also a banana in slices. It was a delicious meal! The evening I used for writing my block and checking some interesting things on the internet, because I have got the idea to be in New Zealand during next winter. I do not know if it will be possible, but anyway I have to check it up as January and February is horrible here, but in New Zealand it will be summer.

 

6th March

The weather report changed for this day and I was calling Denis F. for meeting at Zurrieq for a walk. We met at 11am. When I was leaving the bus, the female bus driver told me, that she is my neighbor – I really did not see it, she looked so different in her uniform.

Denis F. and me took the Windmill Walk. I had a leaflet from the tourist office with a map and a description of the route. Even the route were described clearly, it was not so easy to find the streets and where we had to continue, because most the streets were not straight. Furthermore we did not know that the numbers on the map were for the poles on the side of the route. We got to know that by some very kind Maltese people, we had ask for the direction. Even knowing that we did not find all of these poles.

As long as we were in the city of Zurrieq we had to ask several times for the direction and unfortunately we did not find one of the windmills, but at the end of the walk. Half of the walk was in the city of Zurrieq as well as Safi, the other half were on the country site, walking between the fields. We have seen culture as well as nature on this trip and became satisfied at the end, even Denis F. was a lite angry, when we did not find the way without asking people – also he became hungry. We were eating our packed lunch as soon as we come to the country site and found a wall, low enough to sit on it.

 

 

Denis F. was giving me a ride to Paola, where I easily could catch one of the many buses going to Valletta. As usual I changed route at Bombi and I was lucky I soon catched another one. I had one and a half hour before I had to go to the Mater Dei hospital for a sonography. I was tired, because I could not sleep well the night before and was up early in the morning, therefore I was to bed for a short while.

I left my apartment 45 minutes before I had to be at the hospital, because I worried not to be in time. The walk to the hospital (because it is not easy to go from my place to the hospital by bus) was about 25 minutes, I need another 10 in the hospital to come to the right place, but I did it in time. I had to wait for some more minutes than my appointment was, but not for a very long time even it was already 5pm. The sonography was made different, than I was used to, because I had to lay on a plank bed only with the upper half of my body and my neck was backwards tilt. I felt the doctor very competent and the result were surprising, because she found a little lump on the right hand side of the thyroid. She also found the lump on the left hand side – the one I know, but she told me, that there is no problem with that lump, but the one on the other side and I have to come back in 3 month, because she has to take another check and if possible to take a bit with a needle for examining it, because it might be a tumor.

This evening I decided to try indeed to go to New Zealand during the first month of next year, following by another warm country in March until May and continuing to Canada after that. I really hope I can make it.

 

7th March

I am a little depressed because the sonography the day before and the grey sky. I stayed in bed surfing the internet for the lump in my thyroid and autoimmune diseases. When I have read the most about it, I started to answer some emails, wrote my blog, sent a job application and in the late evening I was watching movies.

This day I did not cook a meal for me. I was just to tired even the weather became better and very sunny in the early afternoon.

 

8th March

I have got an email from my Japanese CS-friend Ayaka. Unfortunately it is hard for her to find a job even she is very well-educated, young and has been traveling. I was on the Internet again and in the afternoon I had to go to work again, because it was Sunday and my pass of four days of work started. I count every day I work until the next days off. I am not longer happy about my job, I only do it for the money.

 

9th March

I woke up early, between 7 and 8am. I was dreaming about my planned travels before I woke up. I was so surprised about that.

I have got the acknowledgement of receipt of my last job application. I have to wait and see if they will invite me to an interview. Furthermore I mailed with Denis F. about a new walk. We planned for the upcoming Friday. If the weather will be like in the forecast it will become a lovely day and we will go to Bahrija – close to Rabat. That walk will be mostly at the country side, but we will cross a very little village. I look forward to it and I will prepare my new hiking shoes in time.

Before going to work I was surfing a lot about New Zealand and Australia as well as about freighter travels. It seems interesting, but it is not really cheap and also I am not sure that I can make such one, because it seems there are lots of stairs to climb outside the boat-house. In addition to that, the gangway can become a problem for me, because there are not the same way like for cruise ships.

 

10th March

I awoke early again and it is raining. The sky is so grey, that I am in need of artificial light and put it on. I am longing for my next vacation and I am very excited about Hungary. Anikò wrote the days before, that she will treat me like a queen. I decided to take a nice present with me, when I am going to meet her. I will buy it in the beginning of next month.

I was continuing with my blog again – updating the page “Ready for the Island” into English. D.F. confirmed the details for the upcoming Friday. We will meet at the Rabat Interchange and go further by car to the start point of the “Bahrija”-walk.

At work I felt, I have got a cold and it was not really easy to stay there all the eight hours, but I did it, even I felt feverish. People around are all sneezing and because we are around 40 people in the same room, one cannot stay healthy all the time. I was surprised, that I have not got it earlier.

 

11th March

My health was not worse than yesterday when I awake and I think I will make this day at work, too.  I can recover the following days, because I am off again.

I read about Budapest, Kecskmèt and Szeged in Hungary for being prepared, when I will go there. I look forward to the trip and cannot await it. there is still more than a month left, but I would like, it would be tomorrow. I am also checking my financial situation in my head, because I checked the currency exchange rate and what some tourist attractions will cost. I make plans to pay for some events when meeting Anikò even she wrote me, that she will pay for all together.

 

12th March

I was in my bed the whole day long because I try to get ride off my cold. Fortunately I can use my tablet and also my laptop easily in bed. It is still cold in the apartment, therefore it is more cosy in bed. The sun was shining into my bedroom :-).

 

13th March

This day was a great day even it was Friday, the 13th. It started not the best because I was still very tired when my alarm clock rang. I had to take out my rubbish and also eat breakfast and get dressed early because I will meet D. F. at 10am in Rabat. We will make the Bahrjia walk. It is for almost 10 km, but can be more if we follow the sideways, too.

My bus was in Rabat some minutes past 10 and I was looking for D. F. Some minutes later the horn of his car sounded and he picked me up. We were going for il-Fiddien. There is a bus stop, too. But the bus is only going once an hour to this area. First we drove a little to far because D. F. was relied on me for the way we have to go. I though, he would look it up, where to go by car. Anyway with the help of my table and the folder for the Bahrija walk we soon found our first destination: The bus stop il-Fiddien. There was also some space to park the car. In the beginning we went only uphill, but it is no matter at the start of a walk. I gave the folder for the walk to D. F. because I will not hear again, that we got lost because I did not follow the description in the folder ;-).

This time it was easy to follow the route because it was really country side and not as before in Zurrieq to find a lot of streets. We also took a detour to the area il-Kuncizzjoni with an amazing view of the northern seaside including Mosta and Mellieha as well as Gozo.

 

 

At high noon we were in Bahrija, but no restaurant was open for getting a cup of coffee. The weather was nice and there is a little park in the middle of the village. Therefore we enjoyed our picnic in this park. When we left Bahrija, we came on the best way of the walk. It was really nature and something so unusual as a stream.

After crossing the stream we had to go uphill again, looked for the rests of a bronze age village and continued to a great, not writable view. It is called the il-Qlejgha rocky outcrop. This walk became my favorite walk by the formation of the hills around here.

 

 

Coming back to the country road later on we could see farmers planting spring onion. I thought they will grow from the first beginning on the fields, but the farmer have had lots of plants in a container and put them into the fields – and all is handmade, no machine but a little, hand managed cultivator. We took one more rest and continued afterwards with an old Roman quarry on our left. From here we also could see the Dingle Telecom station and Siggiewi Parish Church. Some km further we saw the church of Mtahleb. It seems not to be any village around, but that is wrong. However more interesting was the view around the church.

 

 

When we were going downhill we meet two tourists, who had taken the same walk as we. I think sometimes destiny is on my side, because the woman in my age was from Toronto, Canada. She will be on Malta for around 6 month and answered my questions about that big country. The other, a young woman in her twenties was from the USA and will leave Malta soon for Amsterdam. Three days later she will continue to Scotland. She is a couch surfer as well, but will work in Scotland by “workaway”, a similar site like “helpx”, which I am also a member of. We made the rest of the walk together and ended up in a coffee shop, where we exchanged our email-addresses. D. F. was taking us by car to Bombi resp. Valletta.

At home again I put my fresh memories on my blog with the photographs I have taken. The result you can see above. I also continued with the migration of my report about my first travel to Vienna. Actually I have put in the text on “dorotheeineurope.wordpress.com” already, but I have to translate it and I have not done more than a quarter of it yet. Also the photographs are still missing.

 

14th March

I emailed Jane and Sabrina in the morning and got an answer of Jane the same day. I also continued the translation about my first visit in Vienna. I have been at Gala again and bought foods and more with home delivery.

 

15th March

I did my dishes, the cleaning and took a shower. Afterwards it was time for work. I am not happy anymore in it and I hope I will find something else. Also I am afraid, they will fire me, if I do not work fast enough, because now I have to do a lot of research and cannot work as fast as before. Anyway we have to do as much as before.

 

16th March

I am still updating my file about my first visit in Vienna and answered Aniko’s email from the day before. She was asking me, when I will leave, because she has to plan if I need one more night in Budapest or not. She is thinking about to book a room in a hotel for us, but I asked her if she cannot find a host.

 

17th March

This day I also was updating my file about my first visit in Vienna, it will take some days more before I have transmitted all in English. I count the days, when I am working, longing for my days off.

 

18th March

Working with my blog “dorotheeineurope” – Vienna – My first visit in Vienna – as usual. It is Wednesday and I am happy that I will be off the following three days. If I did not need the money I would start my travel around the world. My colleague C. is sitting on the computer next to my and an hour before the end of our shift we are talking about our Thyroid-disease, because she also has it, but worth than me.

 

19th March

It is a public holiday again on Malta. I am preparing my special meat sauce pay and afterwards I make humus. I should have a lemon, but the shops are closed, so I make it without the lemon and it works anyway.

Brian, an Irish couch surfer is arriving. He has an interesting story to tell, because he tries to find his father by his dna. Though he is travelling to find out what dna is matching the half part of him, the other half – his mother’s – he already knows.

 

20th March

I am going to the Mater Dei hospital for leaving a blood prove. I have to be there 8 o’clock without having eaten or drunk anything. At the hospital there is a security guard taking the invitations and holding the door for the department close. There are empty seats inside, but none is allowed to take one of them. We have to wait in another area and we will be called. It takes until 8:45 before I am called. Inside I get some test tubes and have to go into another room. There I have to wait a little moment, than it is my turn. I takes no time to fill four different test tubes and afterwards I am allowed to go home. I took a bottle of water with me and my thyroid medicine. I take it now and drink all the half liter of the bottle, than continuing to try to get an appointment at an audiologist, but they tell me I need a prescription from a doctor for that.

The weather is great, it seems to be spring! It is sunny and warm outside. I have to take off both my jackets and I am in need of my sun glasses. Actually it is the first day of the spring.

Walking home, buying some bread and cheese. I took a coffee, so did Brian, but he did not accompany me for the breakfast. We chatted a lot before we took a walk to Sliema, because I liked to come out in the lovely weather and also to show him something of the island, we continuing from there by ferry to Valletta and after have been walk around a lot in Valletta including the Bakkara gardens we took a bus home.

 

I cooked a soup for us and Brian has done his laundry, together we put it on the roof. We took his clothes inside before we were going to meet CS-people in St. Julian’s. There were lots of people at the CS-meeting. We had a good chat with a few of them and were going home to me before midnight, because one need extra and more expensive tickets for the night-bus.

 

21st March

Even it is spring, it is windy and in-house it is still cold, but it was a great day to dry Brian’s clothes. We put them outside again after breakfast, which we, because I had not to go anywhere, took together.

Before noon I was to the post office, our stationary and sent away the birthday present for Leon, my grand child. I hope all we be well with the parcel. I also bought paper for the printer. I hope Brian will manage my laptop soon, so I can use my printer. If he is really good (he studied maths and computer science), he can also show me how I can print from my tablet (by WiFi).

On the way home from the stationary I bought Maltese sausage at the super market for our late lunch. We ate them with spaghetti and vegetables. The dishes were done soon and I took down Brian’s clothes from the roof. They were all dry. Brian installed WhatsApp for me. We were on the Internet the rest of the day.

 

22nd March

I have to go to work again and I am not happy in it anymore, but I gave me the goal to be here for one more summer. I decided to quit the job at the end of October for really starting my trip around the world. I planned to go home to Sweden for a month before I will go to New Zealand. I have to fix some things in Sweden like registering and I also need a new passport. Even my excisting one is for May 2016, but I think I will be on travel at that time and it is better to take out the new one before. Maybe I also will visit Germany on my way home. I hope I can sell my furniture to my landlord, even I cannot expect a lot for it. If he will not buy them maybe I have to leave them anyway, but I will try to sell them to some of my colleagues at Besedo or on the Internet. I think and hope there will only be two boxes to send to Sweden. If I have to many clothes, I will give away them, here on the island. There are charity places which will love to take them.

It is getting warmer now and I confirmed for Jane, the Canadian woman I met during a walk at the countryside, the appointment for the movie at the Embassy Cinema in Valletta next Thursday.

 

23rd March

We hade a meeting for all of our assignment at Besedo. The manager was talking about the new contracts, they already filled out for all of us. Different levels will be introduced and the levels will have some better payment as now. Anyway I will stay on my first level, I think, because one have to work for a while before one can come to another level and there is not a high percentage of us, who can come to a higher level. At the end of the meeting we all get our new contracts for signing it. We have to leave them to the HR-department.

 

24th March

I am on the Internet before work as usual and I signed up for Guinness World Records. Maybe I can find a sponsor for my trip around the world by hitchhiking and couch surfing all the time. Actually I could not save my profile there, I have to try it later on again. Also I signed up for “Trustroots” (a site for hitchhikers) and “travelgirls”, but I think “travelgirls” are nothing for me, because as a woman I only can choose men and that is not why I am couch surfing.

Furthermore I was looking at helpx again and find out, that it is possible to volunteer in Australia on a tourist visa as well as there are lots of people who likes to have volunteers – especially homestays are interesting for me because one usually will get a nice room and often meals, too. I could not find out if it is allowed to volunteer in Canada as a tourist, I have to go to an Canadian embassy and will make that, when I am in Stockholm at the end of the year.

 

25th March

Just before I have to go to work Airmalta called me and told me, that they have canceled my flights in April. They offered me to fly on the 18th and 25th instead. I told them, that I have to make my flights the booked dates because my vacation leave and all arrangements already have been done in Budapest. I asked them for sending an email with the new departure and arrival times, because I could nearly not hear, what she was telling me, because it sounded like she was in a big room and the voice had a kind of echo. She sent me an email, but only, that my booked flight no longer was confirmed.

I signed and left my new contract to my employer, because there are no hourly payment in that contract anymore – as I have now as a part timer. Also the contract is from 1st April for another year. It would give me the choice to stay here until the 31st March 2016 if I want and I am not fired by bad performance.

I had put my laundry on the roof this day. When I tried to take it down around 8:30pm, I could not go out on the roof, because the key for the door was taken away. For the late hour I could not ring somewhere to ask for the key. I hoped, the key will be there the following day.

 

26th March

This day I pampered myself. After a lazy morning with a shower and doing my dishes as well as trying to fetch my laundry from the roof – the key was still not there – I went to the airport for trying to change my flight to a confirmed one. There was no problem, but I have to change flights and it takes of course almost twice as long as the direct one I had booked from the beginning. Anyway I was happy I booked my flights so early, because I did not have to pay more for these flights now and I have had a good price for the others. Anyway I am not so happy anymore to go by Airmalta as I have been before. Furthermore I do not like flights, were I have to change plane for coming to my destination. I have had trouble before with my luggage when changing planes.

At the airport I also used the ATM and was to the pharmacy and one more time I have got to know that my usual pharmacist maybe is not a real one, because he is not writing down on the receipt, when he sells the medicine. For me it has been good, of course, because I did not need ask for another receipt, but the appointment at the doctor was far away, when I have got my receipt. This pharmacist at the airport was wondering why I used the receipt for the first time, because it is nearly half a year old. He told me, that the doctor next time has to write on the receipt, the last date for taking out the medicine. I promised him to tell the doctor ;-).

Leaving the airport a bus was waiting for me and I was going to Valletta. I have to meet someone I know from the couch surfing site “BeWelcome” at the Grand Harbour. She asked me for that, because she is coming to Valletta by a cruise liner at the 1st April. I left the bus to early, already at Bombi, trying to find the Valletta Waterfront. With the help of the google map and the additional gps I did it after a while and I was surprised, when I finally was there. Before I reached that area I found a kiosk of the harbour authority where I could asked for the place, where the cruise liners will land.

I walked the whole waterfront, because I really liked what I saw and I understood, that it is a good point to start for people coming with the cruise line. It was already more than 3pm and I decided to eat something in one of all the restaurants, placed here. I chose “Browns” and ordered a pizza. I had to left a third of it, because the size. It tasted good and it was generous decorated. Before I left I booked a table for three at 1st April 10am – that is the time we will meet. I also took a lot of photographs of the area including one of the door of “Browns” and will sent one or two to my new “BeWelcome”-friend, so she will easily find her way.

 

 

I also had an appointment for the cinema with the Jane, the Canadian woman I met on the latest walk with D.F. We were up for meeting at 6:30pm and I have had time to stroll around in Valletta. I was window shopping for a while, but then I entered “Dorothy Perkins”. I was only interested into seeing, what they offer. The most of the clothes I did not like especially for the pattern of the fabrics, but I finally found a nice white cardigan, I was looking for a while. It was for 25 EUR, that is not an unusual amount, though I bought it. With my little “Dorothy Perkins” shopping back, I think, people were expecting I am used to buy expensive clothes and other expensive items.

I was looking for some jewellery I will have with me as a present for Anikò in Hungary, because she will pay nearly all my expenses there. I was first thinking about something similar I bought for me last year during the summer, when I was in the crafts village of Qala, that means a necklace, bracelet and a ring – all in this amazing filigree, but I found a brooch instead. It is a butterfly in filegree and very beautiful. I hope Anikò will like it.

I was also caught by an assistant of a beauty shop. He tried to sell me “natural” cosmetics, but I denied.

Afterwards I was walking to the cinema. I arrived there half an hour early and waited for Jane, who was just in time. For the early movies at the cinema 60+ people can come in cheaper than others. I showed my Id-card and my price was 4,15 EUR instead for original around 7 EUR. Jane told the ticket clerk, that she has forgotten her card at home and also got the lower price. Actually she cannot have one, because she is not a resident. She will only stay for some month as a tourist.

The movie “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” was a good movie. The scene was somewhere in India and a lot of the stars where in Jane’s and my age. The owner, a young Indian, was opening another hotel because the first one had no space enough for newcomers, but when one of the guests died. The guests did like it there so much, that they are staying for the last years of their lives. We smiled a lot during the film. Btw: We were the only customers for screen 6, where this movie was shown. The only annoying thing was, that at the most exciting moment of the movie, there were a break for advertisement, but I think by that way the Maltese cinemas can hold the prices so low.

After the film we were walking together to the bus stop, because Jane had a cold and would not stay longer in Valletta. Jane took a walk home from there and I was going by route 13 to my place. It has been a wonderful day even the weather was not nice. It was mostly grey in grey and sometimes drizzling.

 

27th March

I was writing my blog all of the day and checked my emails. The new pay-slip arrived and it is a little more than 1000 EUR I have net this month. I am satisfied with it. I will try to make as much as possible of these amount.

 

28th March

This day I also was writing my blog. I finished the site “First Visit of Vienna”. I am happy about that, but there is a lot of work left and I have to continue asap, because there will be more to write soon, because my vacation in Hungary. My host Anikò is already writing a lot to me and also talked about the program. There will be some concerts, a visit at a spa and more. I look forward to it and count the days.

 

29th March

I tried to be more concentrated on what I am doing, because I have to go to work today again. After breakfast and shower I made my dishes and changed my bed-clothes. I have to buy some bread, cheese and yoghurt for breakfast and do that on my way to my job – at the convenience shop, which is open even on Sundays. I also checked my three accounts and it is all going into the right direction. I would actually love to be quit my debts a little faster, but I will live, too. In June I will get back money from the housing company in Hamburg-Finkenwerder and that will be the month I will be of with my debts in Germany, I hope. After that I have to concentrate on my savings for my trip around the world.

 

30th March

I have got an answer from my friend on New Zealand, she will welcome me in January, though I have to look for other hosts before arriving at her home. I still have splendid of time to plan.

I was on the Internet, of course, posting some questions in a forum of BeWelcome, looking for flights from New Zealand to the islands around – asking for what would be the best choice. Now I found out, the best choice (price) would by Australia. I checked out the climate and found that the South of Australia has warm weather during March to May, anyway Australia is an expensive country and I have to save money for Canada, on the other side, in Australia it is allowed to volunteer, for e.g. as a homestay with a tourist visa. That would hold the costs very low.

I made my laundry, because the day before sunshine was promised for this day, but the sky had lots of grey clouds, so I waited for the following day for hanging it on the lines of the roof. I was at the convenience shop at the corner, bought some items, but no cheese, because I will try if it helps against my itching to avoid cheese, too. Worked as usual.

 

31st March

It is a public holiday. The sun is shining and I put my laundry on the roof. It also is a little windy, so it dried very fast. I could take my clothes down before leaving for work.