My mixed feelings on Malta

As I return from my eight night trip in St Julian’s, Malta I’m struck by the disparate nature of my thought on it.

Which is a wanky way of saying Malta was a mixed bag.

Regardless, I’ve split this up into two reviews, daytime and nighttime.

Daytime

GOD, I HATE MALTA.

This island is sooooo hot. This is where hot sauce goes to get a sweat on. This is where fire goes to work on a tan.

It’s unbearable. And the excuses the locals come up with aren’t much better.

“Its fine, all you have to do is buy air conditioning, drink 80 gallons of water an hour, and dart around in the shade whenever you’re forced to go outside”. Yeah, or you could just not live on this barren, melting, desert rock.

This lump of oppressive heat situated between Italy and Africa has been largely abandoned throughout it's history. The only people who were stupid enough to live here have been the Romans (whose empire promptly collapsed), the Knights of St John (whose empire promptly collapsed) and the British (whose empire... oh you get it).

All that's left on this heap of moltan despair are 60,000 stubborn locals and 180,000 tourist who don't know what they've got themselves in for. With the local people too distracted by their hair catching fire to develop anything, the local culture is just stolen bits from other nations.

"Our national language will be English, but we'll build our housing in a Morrocan style and our best dish will be... what's that thing up there? Italy? Great. Our national dish will pizza".

Malta only exports three things, heat, complaining about the heat and a soft drink called Kinnie. AND KINNIE IS AWFUL.

The annoying thing is, there’s a lot of great stuff to look at in Malta.

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Valletta, the capital is pretty. Mdina has a stunning view of the whole country. Even the Torture Museum is kinda fun. By the way, the Torture Museum has an intolerable air of smugness about it. Every sign reeks of “look how petty, stupid and senseless it was back then”.

Except you’re the only country left in Europe where blasphemy is still illegal. Yeah, it’s probably never enforced. But if your politicians are too lazy to spend the 20 minutes it would take to remove this outdated law, you don’t get to brag about how far you’ve come.

Still, despite all the beautiful, interesting sites, you can never quite fully enjoy yourself because of the constant, searing, inhuman heat. It’s like a free all you can eat buffet where the waiter is constantly kicking you in the balls.

There’s no escape from the heat. Sure you can go swimming in the beautifully clear water. But I’m not a fish, I have to leave sometime. Sure, you can stick to the shade, but you’ll leak more water than a snowman on the stove.

There is no escape. There is no hope. You can only pray for a death the gods will never be kind enough to grant you. You’d cry if you still had the moisture left to produce tears.

Malta is like hell. In fact, Malta is Hell.

Actually, Malta is worse than Hell. At least in Hell there’s lave lakes to cool down in. And you could probably make some religion jokes without the devil getting all pissy.

Night-time

GOD, I LOVE MALTA.

Once the sun sets, Malta is incredible. In the evening the temperature drops to t-shirt and shorts weather, rather than silently hating everyone and everything dealing with the heat better than you. Screw you Cactus, we weren’t all supposed to thrive in these conditions.

The beautiful bays are perfect to stare out over.You can swim in the clear, warm waters without worrying that the second you stick your body out of it, Malta will greet it with a healthy dose of sunburn.

You can eat on the patios of the charming seafood restaurants that have popped up all over the beachfront. Or if you want a more intense time, I saw a bar doing 60 shots for 22 Euros.

The island lights up at night. Its all just so unbelievably pleasant.

Forget everything I said about you Malta, I love you. All is forgiven.

Wait, is that the Sun I see rising over there? GOD, I HATE MALTA.

My mixed feelings on Malta

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