I'll Be Home for Christmas

So let’s talk about the last two days. I was supposed to leave Malta on Saturday so that I could spend a couple nights in London to catch up with some friends and family before I went home on Monday. My plans were quickly changed when Mother Nature decided to dump snow all over London and cause the airports to shut down. It was a snowstorm like no other, ten whole centimetres. I’m only kidding, I’m not sure how much snow they got in the end but by the time I got to London it all seemed like a huge joke, I didn’t really see what all the fuss was about but perhaps that’s the Canadian in me thinking that a lot of snow is anything over a metre. Anyway let me explain how it all went down. On Saturday, 45 minutes before I was supposed to get the taxi to the airport, I got a text message saying that my flight was cancelled. I frantically looked for another easyjet flight to transfer onto but of course the next one on Sunday was completely booked and the following one on Monday landed at 2:00 in London which was no good for me since my flight to Toronto left at 12:00. Thankfully I was able to find a flight with Air Malta on Sunday that left at 7:50 in the morning. So the next day I woke up bright and early at 4:30 to get to the airport for about 6:00 only to find out that my flight was delayed an hour and a half which I thought was better than it being cancelled altogether. Then I found out that Heathrow airport had shut down for the day and probably would not re-open until 8:00 that evening. At around 8:55 I found out that I could switch onto another flight that was going to Gatwick at 9:30 so I had to run through the airport to switch my flight, go through security again and then get on the plane. We left at 9:40 and needless to say I was a very happy camper to be going to London so that I was at least one step close to getting home. 

So thankful that I didn't get stuck in this

Once landed, everything was fine. I navigated the rail and tube system like a true Londoner and was met by my cousin Jeremey and hung out for the afternoon. Although I didn’t get to meet up with everyone that I had originally planned to (since they were also stuck in their respective cities due to the weather), I was very fortunate to meet up with people from my exchange to go for a nice dinner. Of course I was nervous on Sunday night that my flight on Monday to Toronto would be cancelled since I had heard of so many people having spent 2 (some 5) days in the airport waiting for their flights and was thinking of my back-up plan in case I needed to crash in London for a few more days. I was very lucky that my flight was not cancelled and everything went very smoothly. So now I’m back home and looking forward to doing noth.... writing two papers- yay holidays. I’m not that bitter, I’m still gonna chill out as much as I can. I hope everyone got home safely. I’ll be writing more soon.

Grenoble Reunion

So it’s nearly been three months since I’ve been in Malta and I’m really proud of myself for learning the language. Ok that’s obviously a huge lie since I don’t think I’ve learned as much as I could have if I didn’t have a couple degrees to figure out. However, I have taken to pretending I know what people are saying to me when they speak to me in Maltese. For example, on Friday I was looking for a new coat for London since I don’t want to freeze my ass off- yes they sell coats here it’s not always warm- and they didn’t have my size so my roommate kindly went to ask if they could check for another coat and despite the fact that she asked in English, the sales associate promptly returned and immediately spoke to me in Maltese and told me she didn’t have the coat I was looking for. It’s easy enough to tell when someone is saying something positive or negative so I just rolled with it and said, “Oh you don’t have it? That’s okay.” Even yesterday, when I went for my run, I tried to go a different way and I got a little lost- of course I did- and then this sweet man told me to just go back a little bit and take the first right. At least that’s how I decided to translate it and he was right anyway so no complaints there. 

Anyway, I’m very excited to be coming home in a week, although I am slightly nervous about the cold. Of course I’ve grown up in Canada so temperatures below zero don’t scare me but my Mediterranean blood hates the cold. If I think it’s cold when its 10 degrees here how am I going to deal with minus 8? I guess I’ll just have to hibernate and only go out when necessary. Hope most of you have recovered from snow burial and I can’t wait to see everyone, love to all.

Not looking forward to this temperature difference

Well hello December, where the heck did you come from? It never seizes to amaze me how fast time goes. Weeks feel like a couple of days and days a few hours. How have I been abroad for nearly 3 months? It’s crazy. So now that December has arrived I’m pretty content to have a piece of chocolate from my Dora Advent Calendar every day. Sure, I probably should have grown out Advent calendars by now but it’s one of those things along with snail mail that just make me happy. (Here’s a hint if you want to be in my good books and make my day, send me a letter). The other thing that makes me pretty happy is to know that I’m in the home stretch of being done this semester since there are only two weeks left until I will be on a plane home. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and family, if only for a short time but I know that they will help ground me. I think that the intensity of this course sometimes gets me off track and I know that my family will remind me of what I came here to do and get me focused and motivated to come back and finish the last six months of the course. Anyway, I know this is a short post but I wanted to take a second to wish those of you at home about to start exams the best of luck and also to wish Heather a very happy day of birth. Love to all and can’t wait to see you soon.

Turkey Time

 

Back in the beginning of October I was actually a little bit sad that I missed out on Thanksgiving. It is actually my favourite holiday because I love fall (autumn for the Brits who read this) and there is nothing really superficial about the holiday, it’s just about getting together with family and having a really nice meal and having to change your pants halfway through to make room for pumpkin pie. Thankfully there are a lot of American students here doing the dual master’s program who so kindly invited me to celebrate this Thursday. It was obviously the best meal that I’ve had since I’ve been in Malta because there was so much to choose from: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, bean casserole, carrots, stuffing, salad and of course turkey.  On top of all of that there was an amazing dessert spread which included a Nutella cake (chocolate cake with Nutella icing between layers and then completely iced in nutella- hello!), and apple crumble. Basically, I was in heaven and my intelly belly was just lovin’ it.  So overall it was a great night and thank you so much to the hosts for such great company.  Of course the question came up of us trying to determine the difference between Canadian and American Thanksgiving. Essentially the whole idea of the holiday is the same but I thought this chart was cute in trying to explain the differences.

Yumtown, population 15

Let me start by saying that my anxiety about the new module that I started last week was a bit of an overreaction. That’s not to say that the workload is any less than I expected but it has been a rewarding week based on the fact that what we’ve learned, we have also been able to practice through mock facilitations and mediations. Sounds fun right? Maybe fun isn’t the word, but by the end of the week I was exhausted which is probably why I went into a little hibernation this weekend. During the time that I managed to be awake, I found myself at an International Students Dinner. Everyone brought in food from their home country to share; coming up with something Canadian was probably the hardest thing to do. People helped me out by suggesting I bring McDonalds, Timbits, bacon, beef jerky, or maple syrup but I really couldn’t bring those things seeing as a) McDonalds isn’t food  b)timbits were out of the question since the closest Tim Horton’s is in London and c) the latter 3 don’t really make up a meal. Anyway I decided on a smoked salmon/cream cheese/cucumber/bread concoction and pretended first of all that it was Canadian salmon and second of all that it was a typical Canadian dish. 

 

I had to take a day off from work this weekend; I caught up on sleep and more importantly I saw Harry Potter which was, wait for it, wanderful. The whole movie experience was so different than in Canada. First of all I called in advance to reserve my tickets and picked them up when I got there. I realise that’s not so out of the ordinary but what is different is the fact that seats are assigned and halfway through the movie there is an intermission! I was so not prepared for that part but it was a welcomed break since, as I’m sure you recall from my very first blog entry my tiny bladder forces me to have to pee every hour. And for those of you who are wondering, the movie was great but, then again, I’m 100% biased and I  don’t think there’s any way I wouldn’t have liked it.

On another note, before the movie started, Alessia and I wandered around Valletta just to kill time and get a snack. We went to the most disorganized and poorly managed cafe that I’ve ever been to. Actually I’ve been there before but failed to write about it but I think that if my brother’s company was hired to go there, about half of their employees would be fired. Let me explain how it works: you tell the person behind the counter what you would like to order, he or she (usually she) then gives you a piece of paper with your order only for you to literally turn around and walk 2 steps to the lady at the cashier who collects your money and then gives you your receipt. Then you walk 2 steps back to the original person who then gives you what you’ve ordered and who won’t give you what you’ve ordered unless you bring the receipt which she knows you’ve paid for since she can see the cashier and watched you pay not ten seconds before. Who came up with this system? First of all, it is such a waste of time and second of all it’s a waste of paper. Would it not make more sense if the person behind the counter printed off a sticker with the price of what you ordered and you brought that to the cashier along with your purchase? It seems to me an easy solution to eliminate the customer walking in circles and the company wasting unnecessary amounts of paper. Come on people!  Okay, rant complete and I feel better.