REUNION Meeting

Just to let you all know, the Reunion meeting has not been forgotten. I think it's about to be finalized...and I will let you know AS SOON AS I KNOW. It's looking like it will be September 10th...

more information to follow!

Day 20...Going home

It was an early morning. Our plane was due to take off at 8:30 a.m. I took a last look at Malta out the balcony of our hotel room.

We loaded up, went to the airport, and checked in. We didn't have a lot of time to spare...a few last postcards...another cappucino...not much else. We said our goodbyes to Karina and headed through check in. It would be a long day, but I think most everyone was ready to go home.

Our first flight was from Malta to London. Air Malta is the airline we flew on and it was VERY nice...leather seats with plenty of leg room and great coffee! In London, we had to go through customs, which took a LONG time. We had a 3 1/2 hour layover but after it was all said and done, we only had 35 minutes of free time before we boarded the next plane.

The next flight was close to 11 hours. This went from London to Dallas. Again we had to go through customs...again we had an hour and a half layover and there was absolutely NO time to spare.


From Dallas, it was 3 1/2 hours to SFO. What a greeting we had at the airport...lots of happy parents, friends...and delegates.

We were home, in our own beds, dreaming of a wonderful 3 weeks in Europe...at the end of Day 20!

Day 19 - Our Last Full Day

We said good-bye to our wonderful host families...hopefully regular and email addresses were exchanged. I know Maria and I promised to keep in touch - which we have!
We all met at the GAIA Foundation to do volunteer work on an environmental service project. We also had a tour of some indigenous plants. It was HOT by now...but most of us survived pretty well.



As you can see from this photo, Shaylin and Emily were two of the cooks who helped prepare our organic lunch. We sat out on covered picnic tables overlooking the Mediterranean. Afterwards, we were able to walk down to the sandy beach of Golden Sands and taking one last swim in the Mediterranean. Some of us didn't go, but stayed up in a restaurant and had some of our last gelato...played some cards...checked some email...and just visited. It was SO HOT...and there was NO SHADE at all at the beach. This beach was absolutely beautiful.

Something I had been looking forward to seeing in Malta were their buses. The traditional city buses look so retro! They are classic buses from the 1950's, 60's and 70's. They are painted bright yellow,white,and orange.


Our next stop was the town of Mosta and the Parish Church of Santa Maria...commonly called the Mosta Dome. This church is fairly new...built between 1833 - 1860. It has a beautiful blue, gold, and white interior...but it's famous for a bomb that fell through the dome in 1942. On June 9, 1942, during World War II, three enemy bombs hit the Mosta Dome while it had people inside (about 300) waiting for mass to begin. Two of these bombs bounced off and landed without exploding and the third went through the dome, smashed off a wall, and rolled across the floor of the church! It is a miracle that it did not detonate and no one was hurt!



Remember the limbo???

From the Mosta Dome, we headed to our last stop of the day...Badger Karting. Here, everyone that wanted to, had a 6 minute practice run to get use to the go-kart and the track. After every group had done this, then we raced again for the qualifying session. From this, the top 8 times raced in the final race. Some were quite competitive...some not so competitive! I think a LOT of fun was had by everyone.





The winners were: 1st-Omar 2nd-Twiggy 3rd-Jason


By the time we got to our hotel, there wasn't much time until dinner. Our last dinner was our 'formal affair.' Not truly FORMAL, but most people put on something a little nicer. It was our last meal all together...


One last good-bye from your leaders....I think we all felt the same, that we couldn't have asked for a better group of high school delegates to travel on the "Heart of the Mediterranean" with.

Wow, the end of our trip is here...one that we planned for so long! It's hard to believe it is the end of Day 19!

Day 18 - Malta - Comino and the Blue Lagoon

This morning we met at the dock in Sliema to catch the 'Captain Morgan' ferry to the island of Comino. Comino is a very small island (2.5km by 1.5km) between the islands of Malta and Gozo.

On the way there, we passed a movie set for an old Robin Williams movie. I didn't hear what the movie was...so if anyone heard...or knows, please let me know!

THE attraction there is the Blue Lagoon...and 'blue' doesn't even describe it. I would call it turquoise...it's beautiful.

Malta is a very conservative country. Divorce, abortion, and same sex marriage are all illegal and look to stay that way. Much of their culture revolves around the Catholic church - remember there are 331 Catholic Churches and only 400,000 people on the islands! In the Bible in Acts 27-28, it tells of St. Paul being shipwrecked here on his journey to Rome. This was probably in about 60 A.D. Many of the islanders were converted to Christianity during his 3 month stay, making the Maltese people one of the oldest Christian peoples in the world.
The photo on the right is the island where Paul shipwrecked in 60 AD

We had finally been swimming in the Mediterranean and hopefully there weren't too many sunburns being nursed at the end of Day 18.

Day 17 - Malta - Valletta, Mdina, Rabat

Minivans picked us up at our homes and we met for a tour of Valletta, Mdina, and Rabat.

A little history: Valletta was built in the 16th century by the Knights of St. John. The Knights of St. John had their beginnings in the Christian Crusades of the 11th and 12th centuries. A hospital for poor pilgrims was established in 1070 by some Italian merchants. A group of monks operated the hospital and it earned the protection of the papacy in 1113. At this time it became an independent religious order known as the Hospitallers. Knights who had been healed showed their gratitude by granting funds and property to this growing order. Other knights gave protection to pilgrims. Because of these two things, the Knights double role of healing the sick and waging war on enemies of Christ began to form. The official name of the Knights of St. John is 'The Sovereign and Military Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem.' The Order was ruled over by the Supreme Council, and was led by the Grand Master.

The Maltese Cross has eight points. It is said that the eight points represent the eight virtues which the Knights were to uphold: to live in truth, to have faith, to repent of sins, to give proof of humility, to love justice, to be merciful, to be sincere and whole-hearted, and to endure persecution.
Back to our day: We met in Valletta and started our tour. We visited the gardens which overlooked the Grand Harbor. We also walked the streets and saw decorations for one of the many Feast days. There are 331 Catholic churches on Malta, and each one has their own feast. The feast usually starts on Thursday and goes until Sunday night...with decorations, fireworks, street vendors....

Mdina, the Silent City, is an old walled city. The Phoenicians first built a protective wall around it in 1000 BC and called it Malet, which means 'place of shelter.' It got the name Mdina in the 9th century when Arabs arrived. They built strong walls and a dug a deep moat between Mdina and its suburbs - Rabat.

There are not many cars in Mdina. Joseph told us only cars of people who live there and emergency vehicles are allowed in. I asked him what about when you have people over? Well, you park outside the city and either walk in or the people who live in Mdina come pick you up. There is no room for extra cars anyway!

We went to St. Paul's Square in Mdina. That's where St. Paul's church is.
We had time to explore this little city and also had another 'Riddle Rally', like we had done in Rome.




You can see the knights against the wall in this photo on the right. Well, Claire, the Cassar's 16 year old daughter, has a knight that she BUILT! It's in their living room right next to the knight Joseph built when he was young! We equated it with how many fourth graders build a California Mission. The knights, both Claire's and Joseph's, were built out of tin. Wish I had taken a photo of it!

Some of our delegates were getting homesick by the end of Day 17.