Winter Saturday in London

During winter months, frankly speaking, it's tough to get out and about and want to enjoy blustery UK weather. The cold here just doesn't feel the same as in other places where we have lived--it chills you to the bone, especially if the weather is cloudy and windy.

One of such Saturdays at the end of February we got to spend in London. The weather forecast was promising, but when we arrived at 10 am to King's Cross, we were blown away by how cold it was...brrr... The reason why we came to London to begin with was for Katya to meet with all her "sisters" from the movie she was involved in back in December. The girls have become good friends, but because most of them live in different parts of the country, it's logistically difficult for them to meet up. London is probably the easiest place. But we didn't have to meet at the restaurant till noon, so for a couple of hours we decided to explore Chinatown as it was the weekend of the Chinese New Year.

Chinatown is within walking distance of Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden area. It was all decorated for celebrations, but unfortunately, nothing really was open at 10:30 am.

You can see a number of trucks on the street unloading their goodies. I am sure it would be a hopping place at night. 

We found a quick bite to eat at one of the cafes. It was yummy sweet buns. But the boys were not satisfied. They were convinced that there has to be a place that sells balls made of octopus--TAKOYAKI. It was their favorite treat to get at many Japanese festivals back in the day. We searched and searched all the open shops and vendors and finally found a stand where a girl made them for us as we waited. Yum! (but not as fantastic as in Japan). Katya just had seaweed.

It was almost noon, so Katya and I walked over to Jamie Oliver's restaurant where we were meeting the girls. Robert and the boys headed over to Kensington area to explore the Science Museum which is free. 

Fast forward three hours (nothing special happened:)).

Katya and I headed to King's Cross planning to meet the rest of the family to take the 16:40 train back home as we had a friends' dinner to attend. We got to the train station shortly before 16:30, found the train, found seats for us, happy to know that we'd be sitting down this time all the way home (sometimes the trains are too crowded and we have to stand on the way back from London). Well...we had three minutes before the train was supposed to depart and still no boys in sight. I had been texting Robert to tell him where the train was, where we were sitting, etc....but got no response. When the train was about to leave, Katya and I decided to hop off the train rather than go home on our own (with no car keys..and actually no train tickets). It was not until 16:45 that Robert and the boys came running into the station huffing and puffing. Apparently, some regular tube entrances at Kensington were closed because of overcrowding, so they had to walk extra distance to find one that was open. PLUS waiting for the train and 20 minute ride...basically they didn't expect getting to King's Cross to last that long. And of course, the whole time they couldn't receive my texts as they were underground. So yeah..we had to wait an extra 40 minutes for our next rain at17:30, but at least we were together.

Here you go! Post about semi-regular life (minus the fact that we got to go to London).

Lyana.

Malta: Last Rays Of Sunshine, Carnaval And Colorful Feast At Marsaxlokk.

We had one last day left in Malta and we were going to use it to the fullest. Originally, we were going to go straight to Valetta in the morning, but as we woke up and saw sunny skies, we rearranged our plan and ran to the bus to go to the beach again. As we were walking to the bus, the skies suddenly got gloomy, the wind started blowing and it started to sprinkle. During our 25 minute bus ride, the rain stopped and we saw sunny skies with a few big clouds. We held our fingers crossed and were lucky enough for the sun to come back when we arrived to the beach. 

Katya was determined to throw Mark in the water. But he squealed enough for her to change her mind. 

We only spent an hour at the beach, got back to the bus, rode it to the apartment, got changed ate a bit of an early lunch of leftovers and caught a bus to Valetta. As we got to the city, we knew everything was different this time! It was Carnival time! Fancy dressed up people walking around, big floats getting ready for the parade, music, treats and a lot of children all around. 

Awesome toreador costume. 

Costumes very different from the Venetian Carnival, maybe because it's warmer here.

With Queen Victoria looking over the festivities.

I was looking for the special place for cannoli that our friends recommended, but it turned out to be closed, unfortunately. Instead we found the same pastry stand as from a couple of days before. This time I was much more careful about watching the scale as they weighed the sweets. And only because I noticed how much the scale showed, I called them out when they told me the price that was 4 euros higher than it was supposed to be. At first the guys said, "Oh, let me reweigh it", and then lowered the price. Anyway, not fair, but that's how they get you there on a very touristy street. 

We walked over the to one of the streets and heard loud booming music--that's where the parade was. But my mom started feeling really sick and horrible in her head, so we had to quickly leave that area for a much quieter street. 

Walking here was much more pleasant. 

After not finding yummy cannoli, and not finding the carnival all that exciting, just a crowded and loud place, we made a decision to take the bus to a small fishing village of Marsaxlokk. It was about a 40 min ride from Valetta, but oh so worth it! 

Just imagine a painting of colorful boats with a beautiful sky as a background. This is real Marsaxlokk. 

It was around three in the afternoon when we got there so their Sunday market was closing down and so were some of the places to eat. You could tell that it was a busy place during the day here, especially in good weather. I had read about this tiny place right next to the fishing market called "The Rising Sun". It had a very family-owned sort of atmosphere with specialty in local fish. We sat outside as the weather was lovely and calm.

And this is how Mark felt waiting for food. 

Mark ordered octopus pasta, but I don't think he realized it was going to have so much octopus in it. He ate quite a bit of it though. 

Robert and my mom both had some sort of local fish. It was yummy, healthy but still had bones in it.  

I had octopus that was delicious, nothing like fried calamari (I do like those as well though).

After dinner, we still had time to take a beautiful walk along in the harbor. The sun setting, the clouds, the sea, the boats--everything looked magical and almost surreal. 

The only wish I had was that Malta were warmer... But that's what you get for coming here in the dead of winter.

A couple more pictures of this beautiful village.

Oh, what a day! What a trip!! Hours and hours spent on the bus, touring this island from North to South and crossing it from West to East. The kids were such troopers and enjoyed our little adventures with patience. 

It was great for everyone to see my mom too. 

Now we just need to make time to plan more holidays...the next one coming up is a big one, biggest one of the year and maybe the biggest one of our whole assignment in England (maybe only second to our trip to India). So stay tuned for more stories after Easter. 

Cheers, 

Lyana.

Malta: Gozo Or Go Home

Welcome to Gozo!!  The northern island of Malta.  Gozo planning was left to me for the day, and I had everything all planned out to a tee.  We were going to rent a car in Bugibba, drive to the ferry, and then drive around the island stopping at various preplanned spots.

In the morning I went to the car rental place.  They had a car for me, but it was only big enough for 5 people (we had six on account of my mother-in-law was with us).  There was a glitch in the reservation system (yeah, let's blame technology), so in the end we did not get the car.  I ran back to the hotel to tell everyone the news and we decided we had no other option than to take the bus to the ferry terminal.

We just missed the ferry when we arrived, so after buying tickets, I went out for a walk with the boys and Babushka.  We had plenty of time or so I thought.  Still 30 minutes before the ferry was due to depart, Lyana came out shouting for us to run back.  Turns out the ferry started loading and it was FULL!!  Lyana told me they weren't letting anyone else on, but then she asked (or begged) them to please just let the six of us on.  That did the trick.  They let us run on and we made it!    

You can see already how this day seems to be going.  We were still smiles though as we traveled to Gozo with excitement mounting.  

I think Mark was planning to swim to Gozo if we didn't get on the ferry.

We could easily see Gozo from the ferry terminal.

A bit chilly and windy but we decided to sit outside on the deck during the ride over.

Imgarr, where our Gozo journey truly begins (because not getting our rental car and then almost missing the ferry doesn't count).

If you just glance from the previous picture to this one of Alex at the horse stables, you'd think all was well and we just went straight there and no worries, right?  Wrong.  Very wrong.  Remember, I was the one who planned this Gozo day (I just realized that you might be thinking this is Lyana typing but it's actually Robert, the less-experienced travel planner).  

We got off the ferry and went straight out of the terminal to see what rental car options were available.  There was only one car we could find that would accommodate our group and it was a jeep safari truck which basically means picture a pickup truck from the 90s (manual of course), put a couple of benches in the back and a rain tarp over the top.  Yup, that's exactly what it was.  We said no thanks.  There was a taxi minivan out there, but no one was around and when we asked the other taxi drivers they said they didn't know anything, but they did offer to take us around the island in two of their smaller cars for 80 euros.  Nope.  And with that we were resigned to find our own way.  Then as we walked away the van taxi driver ran up to us and 10 minutes later we had a taxi driver for 60 euros to take us where we wanted to go for three hours.  His name was Ron and he talked too much, but he was generally pleasant (though all business) and we were happy to have some transportation.  

He said he knew Charlie who owned the horse stables, so he took us to where the stable sign was, dropped us off and said we would find the stables down the alleyway.  And he left.  Turns out, the stables moved 3 years ago, and I kept texting the stables guy where we were waiting, albeit 40 minutes early, in the rain and he said he would be coming to get us.  So we waited and waited and as you can see by the pictures below, we eventually made it.  But not after we questioned if we should even bother with it in the end.

I admit we had spent a lot of the day just to get here and only the kids were really looking forward to the horses by this time.

The kids were great sports.  Thankfully it stopped raining too.  Things were really starting to look up.  Maybe "my" day planning would work out after all.  :)

Let's just say everyone laughed at my helmet.  All in the name of safety.  I had to hold these two horses while the rest of the horses were saddled and readied.  These two were stubborn and I swear the one on my left kept trying to bite my hand off.

You can't even tell that Lyana is terrified.  Not so much for herself, but for the kids who she was just finding out were to each have their own horse.

This is proof that all was well.  This is a picture of Mark after the riding.  He was all smiles.  Same with Katya and Alex too.  Mama Olia didn't want to go riding, so before the horse riding, she was driven back to the village center to wait until we came to find her.  As for the horse riding, it was okay I guess.  I couldn't take any pictures as I was too busy holding the reins, hoping I didn't accidentally lead my horse off the mountain. The views were nice, but mostly it was just riding up a dirt road, then turning around and going back.  Probably not worth the money in the end and I could do horse riding right here in England anytime I want.  It was probably shorter than normal too because we had little kids.  I don't think we'll ever do tourist horse riding ever again.

We called the taxi to come get us (had to have the stable guy talk to the taxi driver in Maltese to explain where to find us) and he got here relatively quickly.  I was sure the day was just going to get better.  We went to the village center and no Babushka.  Lyana and I ran from cafe to cafe and found her, then ran to the taxi so he could drive us to our next destination:  Ggantija Temples.  In short: Neolithic temples, built 3600-2500 BC, older than the Egyptian pyramids.  Sounds pretty cool right?  Well I thought so.  But then just to get in we paid 28 euros!!  And that's not including Babushka because she said she would rather spend the admission fee at the cafe. 

The kids were great sports and even though they thought it was boring, they didn't complain and we had a good time.

Yeah, those stones are the temples.

The view from the temples was impressive at least.

At least here we could go inside the temple structure.  At Stonehenge we couldn't even approach the stones.  

There it is again.  Stone temple on the left.  Unless you're an archeology junkie, maybe don't go.

Taxi driver waited for us (only took about 40 minutes) and he drove  us to the view of Ramlan Bay, which is near Calypso Cave (which we couldn't see anyway but it's from the Odyssey book which I guess makes this cool).  The view was beautiful anyway and I'm glad taxi driver Ron made this 2.5 minute stop so we could enjoy it.

Victorija city was our next stop and Ron dropped us off near the citadel where first we stopped at a pastry shop to pick up some 25 cent pastries filled with cheese or mashed peas.  I liked the cheese ones, but the kids strangely preferred the peas. 

And then off to the citadel.  We only had a short time, which was enough to walk up the street, almost take the wrong turn, climb us another narrow street, dodge construction traffic, step in wet cement and find this impressive church.

Yeah, that's Mark's footprint in the wet cement.  And of course he stepped in it with BOTH feet!  At least there was a restroom nearby and I rinsed the shoes off in the sink (I don't want to think about the pipes).

Back to the taxi (I picked up a few more pastries on the way) and Ron took us to see the Azure window, probably the most popular destination in Gozo.  When we got there, Ron parked the taxi and walked us down to the Inland Sea, which is small lake connected to the Mediterranean through a hole in the rock (see it in the picture here).

That boat guy was very kind and for 4 euro each, we had a private boat tour (about 20 minutes) of the Azure window.  We got in the boat and he drove (quite speedily) straight through that narrow hole in the wall.  I was impressed how well he navigated the boat, but he (of course) did it flawlessly.

On the other side he took us along the water, going in and out several sea caves.  We were amazed at the color of the water, it was so deep, and the kids especially loved spotting the little jellyfish drifting all around.

The main attraction of course was me.  No, it was the Azure window!!  A beautifully naturally crafted arch.  We were fortunate because we were the only boat around so we had an unspoiled view of this spectacular landmark.  You may have seen this rock formation in Game of Thrones, or Clash of the Titans, or even The Count of Monte Cristo.  Or maybe not.  We saw it on our unforgettable trip to Gozo.

Best family photo from the whole trip!

Happy kids mean happy me.  I knew the children loved the whole day.  And Lyana and Babushka loved the boat ride especially.

This is as we are coming back through the cave into the Inland Sea.

The boat houses, built from locally quarried stone (when I say locally, I mean it came from 200 yards away).

We had a few minutes left (Ron seemed impatient to leave) so we quickly ran to get a few more pictures from the land side of the view of the arch. 

Selfie.

And another happy family picture.  I'm glad my family likes tolerates family photos so well.

The last photo of the day of course is Alex in his element:  puddles of water.  At least he didn't get wet this time.

We got back in the taxi for our crazy ride back across Gozo over terrible roads and tight streets.  In the end I was very glad I didn't rent a car because after seeing the roads, hills, rocks, traffic (in Victorija), parking, then the ferry and eventually having to fill up with gas, and all the while worrying about damaging the vehicle, I know it would not have been a fun trip.

But hey, it all worked out in the end: at least I know Lyana won't be asking me to plan any more parts of our vacations again.  :)

Rob