Author: Isaac

It has come to my attention that some people that read this blog still think that Yemen is “dangerous.” This came up in some conversations in Malta with a certain cousin, and I get the ocaisional hint about it in my emails. I’m going to spell this out very clearly so that there can be no misunderstanding. The places that I have gone (and lived) in Yemen are one of the safer areas that I have ever been. There is no fear of mugging, there is no fear of robbery. The people are friendly and generally low key. I am more comfortable living here than in Northern Virginia as far as overall “vibe” goes. Yemen does suffer in comparison to the more upscale places as far shopping, food, and tourist services. I think that it is a facinating place and I encourage everyone to come over and see it. Not just because I’d like the company, but I think that this unfounded fear about the place really is symptomatic of American’s views on the middle east in general. If I can change one person’s mind about how “dangerous” and unhospitible this place is, I’d consider it a success. Plus, when’s the next chance you will get to see a place like this with a guide?

I wouldn’t have come over here if there was any danger and I certainly wouldn’t stay if there was any danger. This place is not dangerous, yes even if you are a woman. Keep in mind that men are forbidden to touch women here. That isn’t just some sort of law passed by the government, it is how they are raised and part of their religion. I’m not saying there aren’t any jerks here or that groping couldn’t possibly happen, but I think it would be less likely here than any city in the US.

So come over and visit!

Isaac

I had a fair amount of trouble with my right foot in Malta. It seems as though my shoes were too small which in turn aggrivated a tendon in my leg and made me gimp around for a while. I got some new shoes in Malta that fit just fine and the pain and other symptoms went away. The shoes are equivilent to a size 13! I really don’t understand this, I was wearing 11 1/2 to 12 every day at Penn, and that’s with the same shoe company. The shoes that I brought to Malta had fit just fine, they had been a little tight recently, but nothing that I noticed before, now they are hopelessly small. When I got back to Yemen, I tried on the shoes I had bought for the trip, they’re a 12 1/2 and they now feel a little too tight… What’s going on, my feet seem to fine now, no swelling, blisters, etc, but they have gotten larger it seems…

Isaac

As Kelly so elequently put it, I got visited by the snot fairy last night. Just a head cold, I blame the guy on the plane but it could have come from any of the snifflers in the Dubai airport. My class starts again on sat. Turns out that I caught everyone by surprise when I came back. That surprised me since I had told them when I would be coming. When my ride didn’t show up at the airport, I got a cab, no biggie… I haven’t been studying much, either I’m hacking or the cold medicine makes me a bit stoned, either option isn’t real good for studying. Think I’ll go hit the juice stand for my vit. c for the day, get something to eat, then go back to bed…

Isaac

I’m taking advantage of the free wifi in the airport and trying to stay awake. It’s about 2:15 AM here and I need to catch my flight at 7AM. Seems like there are a lot of people hacking and coughing, the guy next to me on the last flight was complaining about a sore throat. Isn’t fatigue supposed to depress your immune system? I’m doomed….

Just a follow up on my last post, not everything was doom and gloom in Malta, there were exceptions of course. I did manage to find one shoe place (the first one I went to) that was both helpful and had my size. There was a lady that ran a tour service that came outside and put some brochures in my hand. Her and a taxi driver were the only decent salespeople I ran into. The taxi driver was especially good. His English wasn’t great, but he persisted when I blew him off. He explained that the next bus wouldn’t be by for more than a half hour and he could drive us to a stop with more frequent busses. Since Beth and I were wiped out by our longer than expected walk, I took him up on the offer. Good thing I did too, we would have gotten to Dingli cliffs in the dark… So there were some bright spots, but they were def. exceptions. I got the distinct feeling that I could become rich selling just about anything there, I didn’t see much competition… I picked up a Maltese newspaper and nearly died laughing. There was a big op-ed piece on how 3 star hotels need the government’s help with advertising and price supports. I think I’ll write a piece for them entitled “The Maltese need to get of off their asses.” Seems like a more practical piece of advice than pleading to the government….

I’m glad I went, I had a good time, and it was great seeing Beth. To me, that makes for a successful vacation:-)

Isaac

Tonight’s my last night in Malta. I’ve come to enjoy my nights at the internet cafe after eating some decent pasta… Oh well, time to go back to a place that isn’t nearly as expensive, but def. more educational. I’ll probably post something or other tomorrow from the airport, I’ll have about 6 hours to kill in the middle of the night. I decided not to bother Dean this time around since the hours are really weird. It was a nice trip, one that I had been anticipating for a long time, time to get back to work…

Isaac

Here’s my wrap up of Malta. It’s a little long, but you can read the whole thing

We went for a bit of a walk yesterday. I figured we could check out the parish church in siggewli and then walk to the dingli cliffs. Well, the church was closed so we started out on our walk. Saw a lot of nice countryside and ended up at some nice cliffs. We had to stop there though, there didn’t appear to be a way to walk all the way to the dingli cliffs. We did see a sign for the blue grotto, and since we were rather hungry at that point, we decided to go eat at the restaurant that we remembered seeing there. 2 to 2 1/2 miles later we were there. It was a lovely walk, perfect weather and beautiful Mediterranean landscape but we were really hungry and thirsty. We figure we walked 5-6 miles that day…

Today we decided to go up and visit the shrine that evaded us the day we spent in St. Paul’s bay. It was quite nice, the icon is supposed to have been painted by the apostle Luke… We then headed back to Valetta to see the Paul’s shipwreck church again. It is one of our favorite churches here. Saw that, went to a rather nice set of gardens up on the SW corner of the fort. From there we could see some other fortifications that were a little off the beaten path. It took some doing, but we got down to them and saw some stuff that most tourists do not. Another good day…

Beth leaves tomorrow, SIGH. I’ll miss you sweetie, good luck in school!!! I leave the day after tomorrow. No sleeping at Dean’s place this time, My flight doesn’t arrive in Dubai until 12:30 in the morning and I leave at 7 that morning. I figured that it would be easier to just spend the night. I’ll be a little bleary eyed when I get back to Yemen, but at least it’ll just be me, not the both of us (Dean and I). Oh well… I guess I should refresh my Arabic since I did almost none of it over this vacation… Tomorrow I’ll work on updating all of the descriptions of my Malta pictures and post my final thoughts on Malta.

Isaac

We went back to Valetta to see a film about Malta and to see the cathedral. Also took some time for general sightseeing. A good time to be sure… New pictures are up. We have to figure out what we’ll be up to the next couple of days, starting on that right now…

Isaac

We hopped on a bus and went back to the “craft village”. Beth wanted to get a few more souvenirs. I gotta say, I’m a bit disappointed. There is one place that does pretty nice glass work, everything else wasn’t much to look at. The filigree stuff in particular was a disappointment. One thing that did live up to the hype was the lace from Gozo. I’m not much of a lace fan, but this was pretty amazing. I put up a few pictures of tatting (that is what lace making is called) in action up with my pictures.

Our plan was to go over to Rabat and see some catacombs and just look at the various churches over there. The St. Paul’s catacombs are the largest open to the public. It was amazing to be able to wander around the labyrinths down there. St. Agatha’s was smaller, but better in some ways. There are frescoes down there that are really old, and they have left the bones in the graves. This freaked Beth out a bit, but you really felt that you were in the catacombs instead of a tourist place….

We were foiled in our church tour, all of the places we found were closed. We did stumble onto a Dominican priory that was really nice. It’s huge with a fruit grove in the middle of it. It was also eerily deserted. Hopped back onto the bus and went back to our place. Tomorrow we are going to attempt to see all the churches in Valetta.

Isaac

We decided to go see a sanctuary up towards the northern end of the island. I figured out the bus route we’d have to take, one bus to St. John’s bay and then catch another one to the place we wanted. Well, the first bus let us off in a place that was not serviced by the other. We wandered around for a long time (hours) seeing the town of St. John’s and trying to find the damn bus terminal. We finally found it, but the guys running it didn’t seem to know if the bus was still running or weather we’d be able to get back. So we caught a bus back to our place (even that wasn’t as easy as it should have been), gorged ourselves on Chinese food, and bought some chocolate. So it ended well, and we did see a rather nice place, but we’re both cursing the Maltese bus system… Pics are up if you want to see the place, there was some rather dramatic lighting today,,

Isaac