I’ve been here for 2 days and it seems that the Maltese people cannot comprehend how I can be Maltese but not speak the language. Yes it’s true I am technically Maltese since X-Ray was born here many moons ago but I never learned the language at home. My vocabulary is limited to a bunch of food words, as well as words like ‘car,’ ‘boy/girl’ ‘money’ and ‘listen’ tossed with a few swear words here and there. When I hear people speaking Maltese around me I can recognize words but I can’t understand complete sentences. Based on what I said that I know, the only sentence I am likely to understand is “Listen girl, if you eat pizza in my car again, I’m going to make you pay me 50 euro to get it cleaned you little piece of s***...” That really doesn’t seem likely so I need to make it a personal mission to learn a bit of Maltese everyday. It can’t hurt. With that said, I went out today and bought a book to help me figure out this crazy language.
Remember last post when I said you can’t sacrifice fashion? I’ve changed my mind. I brought 13 pairs of shoes. I thought I owned 5 pairs of shoes max. Guess not. I have never considered myself a shoe lover... that’s my mom. She’s the one who strategically parks at the shoe department of the mall and hopes that I won’t notice her sneaky move (I always do). Anyway, it’s no wonder why my arms and back hurt so much from lugging all my crap around. Whenever I pack I feel like I need to shove everything I own into two suitcases. When I was packing the twelfth and thirteenth pairs of shoes into my bags, I should have been packing a screwdriver instead since I already managed to break my closet door - my bad. Instead of complaining that I had to have 5 pairs of jeans, I should have been investigating that Malta uses English-style plugs, not European like everyone else in the EU which has forced me to use two voltage converters instead of one. Oh well. For those of you who are curious to know, this is what my flat looks like
So in my room, I am supposed to have another roommate but she hasn't shown up yet. I am secretly hoping that she doesn't show up so I can spread out all of my stuff but I know that is not being realistic. In total there will be 5 people living in the flat, and as you can see we have a common area with 2 fridges and a small kitchenette. That's Caroline, my French flatmate in the bottom pic. We've been exploring today, trying to get our bearings and avoid getting killed by maniac Maltese drivers. Tomorrow is my first day of orientation so hopefully I will start to meet people from my program and find out what will happen for the next 13 months. So that's it for now, Happy Birthday to Mouton! Happy 50th and here's to 50 more, love you xo
Even though I grew up with Maltese speaking parents and was surrounded by many Maltese speaking people, I'm surprised at how much Maltese I actually don't know.
ReplyDeleteLast time I was there I had a hard time keeping up. Why does every foreign language have to be spoken at lightening speed?
Anyway, my parents speak Malt-ish. So I blame them.
Haha I love the book title. It's like "come on, learn maltese, what else do you have to do?"
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