Nary a Falcon

So, I probably would have posted an update a little while ago, but on our trip to Malta, my fucking camera got stolen out of my luggage. Thank you Roman baggage handlers. So, this means, along with losing my pretty little camera, I also lost our Venice Biennale pictures -- which primarily consisted of shots of myself wearing too few clothes/shivering, but also had some nice shots of Venice (turns out it's still pretty) and of me climbing things.

So, we'll have to skip ahead in the narrative of our European Odessy, to the time in November when S. was asked to come down and give a lecture/reading at the University of Malta as part of American Culture Week.

Malta is a large piece of limestone, just north of Africa, in the Mediteranean. Malta is probably best know for the bombardment it withstood during WWII and for the Knights of Malta.

The tiny island had more bombs dropped on it than London. This forced the people to tunnel into their limestone home and live what was basically a troglodyte existence. This is chronicled in Pynchon's V. Acutally, for such a small place, Malta crops up in a lot of literature.

The Knights of Malta were started in the 16th century, as sort of an educated/wealthy gentleman's Catholic Marines. The idea was that wealthy European families would send a son to Malta to ensure that Catholicism didn't lose any ground to the Muslims. They were hard core, and had lots of cool symbols. The sort of white Iron Cross on a red background symbol is everywhere.

The other cool/weird thing about Malta is that they speak a pigeonized Arabic, that's written with Latin letters. As different cultures have occupied the island, they've added a bit to the language. So it's Arabic + Portugese + English + Italian + ... Only it's written out with our letters instead of Arabic script. The signs reminded me of the Celtic signs in Ireland.

We stayed in Valletta, right next to the Prim Minister's office, and right around the corner from where the Queen (of England) was holding her 60th wedding anniversary. -- She had originally met and been courted by Edward when he was stationed in Malta. She invited a handful of couples who were also celebrating their 60th Maltese wedding anniversary to the ceremony. Much to S.'s chagrin, we did not see the Queen.

Everything in Malta is made out of limestone. They excavate and stack it to make buildings, they dig tunnels, they make sculpture out of it, etc. And, what's more, they've been doing it for a long long time. Malta is home to the oldest free-standing structure in the world (older than Stonehenge) and the thrid and forth largest free-standing domes.

Anyway, as I said, our hosts were both the U of M and the American Embassy. At the U of M, Dr. Ivan Callus was really wonderful. He and Dr. James Corby took us around and gave us great restaurant recommendations.

S. and I were did a lot of consulting on how to make a good writing program and what the students and professors might expect from such a program. The delightful Abigail Zammit will be leading the new program and we're excited to see how it goes. We're hoping to be in close contact with them as it develops.

We're thinking it'll be pretty smooth as they're dealing with an exceptional bunch of students. The students, chiefly Theodore, Katrina, Charis, and James helped coordinate our entire stay and set up the reading. We were consistently impressed with these four and several other students whom we met. In addition to the great conversations and hang-out time, they led us around Valletta on our final full day. The students then made a hand-off to Dr Stella Borg Barthet, who was kind enough to drive us around, and act as tour guide.

One of the funny things we noticed was that whenever we asked someone if they were from "here", they would reply, "no, I'm from a twon that's nearly 30 minutes away."

Items of note:
the day S. was to give her lecture on Influence and Innovation, she got food poisoning and swelled up like a beet. (see below for pictures) The hotel called a doctor, but it was going to take a half hour for him to get to us. So I said, call the hospital. And they said, well, the hospital just moved this week, so they're not very reliable right now. So I said, Well, what do you do if someone has a heart attack? and they said, well, we call an ambulance, but it takes them a half hour. 911 is a joke. When the doctor finally got there and treated S., as she was getting better he said, there, now you've got your healthy pallor back.

There was a large Carravagio exhibit while we were there. Did you know that C. was a Knight of Malta before starting a brawl and being kicked out of The Knights?