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Today was the day of a so much looked forward and early planned event. This was a football match between the best 7 players of my work against friends of the husband of Kristin Ciantar who works with us as a receptionist. We had to play this match in December but it was too cold for many of us. Today, was also quite cold and some played with long trousers.

The match was a 5-aside game at Melita football ground. Our team was composed of 8 players (2 reserves) who where John Sammut, Stephen Borg, Emmanuel Schembri, Martin Sheenan, Kurt Dimech, a guest goalkeeper and myself Stephen "il-Bugi". We also had a good and very active indeed supporters, being Simon Camilleri, Arlene Galea, Kristin Ciantar, David Aquilina, and David Sammut (who also filmed a bit of the game).

The opponent team were well trained and the game was more or less one-sided, especially in the first half. Goals were getting in like selling cheesecakes. At the second half we improve and probably the opponent team lost a bit of motivation and freshness and we started to reach them. I scored first goal and 5 more goals between Martin, Emmanuel and myself followed. The final score was something like 14-6 in an hour match, but the score was not important - we really had fun and was still an exciting game. The supporters really did their best to encourage our poor team and we love you all.

Below are some un-edited movie clips from the match, including some goals and fun of the match. We look forward to make another such match. After the game it started to rain. Some of us went to have a beer at the football ground bar and there we decided that we are going to make a tournament of pool some day in May when Malin returns to Malta.

Here are the movie clips in low resolution to reduce filesize (approx 1Mb each). Since it was late evening when we played, the clips are a bit dark. Please increase the brightness and add little contrast on your movie player to make the movies look fine.

Today my girlfriend had to come from Finland, after spending 1 month with her parents, especially to take care of her mother. It was really hard for both of us to stay apart for so long, especially the last week or so. She had to arrive at 15:45 so at about 15:20 I was at the airport to meet and welcome her back. When I arrived I found out that the plane was delayed to 16:04 and so I went resting on a chair on which I was going to fall asleep. At about 16:00 I went up to the viewing gallery and watched the plane landing. Although the plane was distant, I could identify Malin getting down from the plane to the coach.

Well then I went to the arrivals area and finally I saw Malin coming down the stairs - she saw me and waved to each other. After some 5-10 minutes more she finally came out from the door and there was an undescribable hug of intense love. It could be seen by everyone how much we missed each other and were happy to be together again. I felt she was 100 time more beautiful from when she left, but she insisted that she was the same! I was so much happy that she was back together with me!

We then came home and I told her that she can take her things in her bedroom. When she opened the door she got really excited with happiness when she saw the bedroom decoration I prepared for her arrival. I made 2 balloons with lots of kisses and hearts painted on them and 4 other pink balloons with her name. Then I made 2 (pot 1 pic / pot 2 pic) large pots with oasis flower arrangements, and a vase with a magnificent apricot / cream colour rose and 2 crimson ones. Finally I wrote I LOVE U - each letter sized up to an A4 page and covered with poppy petals glued to the letter. The I LOVE U message was placed on her bed, and underneath each page I placed several sweets, chocolates and toffees. It came very well and the work involved was well paid off becasue Malin was really happy with all this surprise. She was euphoric and lovely. she just hugged me and kissed me and said repeatedly "I love you" and I remember at a particular time where nearly crying with each other's love. We stayed in her bedroom for an hour or more just kissing, hugging, talking, caressing and looking in each other's eyes. It was really a wonderful experience that I would not easily forget.

A month ago, when Malin left to Finland, we made a bet , that is I have to swim in some beach when she arrives back at end of April. The bet seems to be an easy one but for me, who hate cold water as much as fire, is not that easy. Although it will be fine weather in May, the sea water is still around 16C.

So on Friday 30th April we went to Qrendi, to swim at a place below the Mnajdra temple cliffs. We knew that there is a a very beautiful place to swim from a previous walk we made in this area about 2 months ago. However today it was very windy and cloudy and we reached the sea side we did not dare to swim in the rough seas. So instead we went up again, had a nice rest in the warm sun and then went to eat in one of our favourite restaurants, that is, Hagar Qim Restaurant. The mushrooms in cream starter was superb. After we went to the panoramic view at Dingli cliffs for erm... a peaceful nap inside the car.

Next day, the weather was sunny and less windy so we decided to find another beach and see if I will manage to swim for few minutes. We went to Paradise Bay, since usually it is too crowded with people in Summer, and today would be nice stay there with lots of space. On the way we stopped bear Popeye Village where there was some activity (some kids reciting Popeye's story). The sea here was a bit dirty and not inviting to swim, so we continued our way to Paradise Bay.

Once arrived, we could notice that the beach was quite empty (about 30 persons max), but also only one woman was swimming in the wavy sea - indicating that it was not much inviting to swim. The wind was a bit cold too. Well, we set our things on the sand and the moment of truth arrived. I approached the sea and when I touched the water with my toes, I got a brutal freezing sensation. I will never do it I said to myself - but Malin was smiling sort of "Ha Ha Haaa!!! - you will not do it! " and so I just shouted like a commando and sprinted into the green water and jumped into it quickly.

It was f***ing cold and was getting internal conflicts between my skin and muscles and my brain as if they were saying to the brain "how did you commanded us to go to this torture, we never expect this from you, Mr. Brain!" I had my head and another part of the body which was a bit aching with the extreme cold! I do not know how in certain parts of the world (such as Finland), people dig a hole in the ice a jump in the freezing water around 4C.

Well, once I managed to swim a bit, then I could smile back to Malin "Ha Ha Haaaa!! - I did it!!!" She was following me and was walking slowly in the water to swim near me. I do not know how she can do it slowly and gradually in this type of cold water. She (and to remind you she is from Finland) also agreed that the sea was very cold and so we did not stayed more than 5 mins in the sea and went back to the sandy beach.

Fortunately, the sun (my loving warm smiling sun) warmed us quickly while we lied on the sand. It was a very romantic moment here as well, lying drowsy on the beach near each other. The sun warming the skin, and Malin warming the heart I soon got back to normal living body temperature. I soon fall asleep and got a nice nap accompanied by the sounds of the rhythmic waves. At about 17:20 we left back to home because it was getting colder and once arrived we had a nice hot coffee. I am sorry that I did not take the camere with me for some photos of Popeye Village and Paradise Bay!

Since tomorrow, 1st May 2004, Malta is going to join the EU Community today was organised a national event to celebrate this event which takes place on midnight at the Grand Harbour of Valletta. Although not much motivated or interested in the celebrations, I and Malin still decided to go there so as to be there in this one-time event.

I soon realised that there is going to be lot of people. The buses where full up with people, and I could see people walking towards Valletta from Hamrun (about 3km away). I could not find parking from a distance of 2km away of the event and finally I found a place to park at limits of Guarda Mangia / Blata l-Bajda near the hospital main road, about 3km away. There were lots of people walking at Floriana, and streets full of cars.

Finally we arrived near the grand Harbour and the crowd was immense from near Boffa Hospital all down to the harbour and the harbour street. I and Malin stayed a bit here observing the crowd and the atmosphere of of celebrations that there was. The lit up fortifications where really nice. Then we decided to enter the harbour where the event did really took place. It was very difficult to get in, and eventually we had to squeeze ourselves through the gets with lots of people trying to enter and exit the gate at the same time. It was really disorganized - since there where 2 gates they could made one as entrance and the other as exit!

Well once inside the harbour there where more and more people roaming around. At the ends of the harbour there where 2 concert stages with live music from many local and probably foreign bands. There was also several stands to buy food and drinks. They prices where very expensive. A local beer and small bottle of water cost Lm1.15 and no VAT receipt (and we were supposed join EU). There were so much people buying food that it was quite impossible to get served, unless you want to stay some 20 minutes or so in the queue, however a stand of pizza was quite efficient in serving people, and so we bought 2 pizza to eat.

I and Malin found a good place which was not much overcrowded and waited for about 90 minutes until the event had to start - hence at 23:30. The harbour is very beautiful by night with the lights reflecting on the calm sea. We were more near to the right side concert stage which was playing lot of rock music from local bands and singers. I could not stop repeating myself but the number of people was impressive. I could imagine that there were crowds of people along all the coast of the harbour, especially from the Fort of St. Elmo (Valletta) to Marsa. I took several photos during this waiting time, since it was not a good idea to walk away since we were in a quite good place.

At 23:38, the show started. There was a massive colourful video projection (Pic1 - Pic2 - Pic3 - sorry pics are not so good ) on one of the fortification walls of the cities of Cottonera (I believe it was the one of the city of Kalkara). The projection was more or less about the history of Malta scrolling up on the fortifications. There was also boats with large sails each of which had a flag of the countries who are in the EU community. If I followed well, there wasn't a boat with the flag of Malta with these boats, however a national Maltese boat came from the other side of the harbour a slowly joined the other ships, as liek Malta joined the other EU countries.

Then there was a count down, hence the number of seconds to reach midnight and so the exact second that Malta is part of the Eu Community. As the counter turned 0, there was lots of shouting and applause and there was a wonderful display of light, fireworks and smoke synchronised with music. This lasted for about 20 minutes or so and it was beautiful but not astonishing - maybe because I seen so much fireworks displays in Malta that I seen better from this one tonight. But as an overall it was exciting and was a nice experience and was happy to be part of the crowd. Unfortunately I don't have much photos of the display because instead I filmed it on video.

At the end, the crowd began to leave the harbour. As usual there were loads of bottles, food containers, cans and rubbish on the ground - as dirty as the usual Maltese culture. Joining the EU Community did not make a difference to our mentality, but with time we may (I hope) learn to respect more our country and nature. The worse part was that we had to walk back about 3km to reach our car, but it was not that bad to walk in the fresh air at the middle of the night.

Another thing that I do not like is that when they say that "Malta joined Europe". I even heard Romano Prodi stating "Welcome to Europe" as if Malta was not part of Europe before, and other countries like Norway, Switzerland, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, etc are also not part of Europe. we joined the European Community (which is an organization) not Europe which is one of the 6 continents in the World.

Since I was in Finland visiting my parents on the important date 5th April (Stephen's 30th birthday), I wanted to make up for it and treat him with a nice dinner now when I am back with him here in Malta. Unfortunately my cooking skills are far from brilliant, so for Stephen's sake I decided that we better go to a restaurant.

I remembered that Stephen has several times mentioned that once he went with his university friends to a buffet dinner at Malta Hilton, and that it was superb. I contacted the restaurant and it was no problem to book a table for us on Friday evening for the Mediterranean buffet. We normally prefer to go out on Saturday evening, but then the restaurant offers a Seafood buffet, and I think Stephen prefers a more varied menu (and actually my choice was a bit egoistic as well, because I am not really a seafood fan). As I suspected Stephen asked: "can't we go on Saturday instead?", but luckily he believed in my excuse that I want to stay at home watching the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday.

So after a hard day's work today I arrived home at around 6 pm. Stephen was busy washing the car, and I helped him with the last part. Before I came he had also managed to fix the car stereo, which has not been working for almost two months, so it was a very nice surprise! Cleaning is much more fun accompanied by music, and I love listening to music in the car.

When the car was clean we had to hurry up to take a bath and get dressed for the meal. Stephen was very curious about which restaurant we were going to, I think he was afraid I would choose some crappy burger joint :-) When we finally arrived to Hilton (we had quite a long walk from the parking lot), Stephen looked very surprised but also very happy. His only concern was that he ate quite a lot for lunch, and that he would not be able to eat much from the buffet.

The restaurant is high-class, and we felt like royalties with all the attention from the waiters. We got a nice table by the window, and after some arrangements of our chairs we were very happy about it. We were both fascinated by the large variety of starters, and we filled our plates three times with the starters! Actually I was not able to eat much of the main course, because I wanted to leave some space for the cheese and desserts as well. We did not hurry up at all, we enjoyed the atmosphere and said to each that we eat slowly and can stay for hours at the restaurant. But when we had finished the main course the waiter very politely told us that the restaurant normally closes around 10:30 pm, and as a matter of fact it was already 10:35! But he also told us there is no hurry, so luckily enough we were able to try the many cheeses and enjoy some lovely cakes.

Now we were extremely full, and we were not really looking forward to the long walk back to the car. In addition, Stephen felt very cold when we came out in the fresh sea-air. Luckily I had brought a sweater that he borrowed. We felt very tired, so we headed straight home with the car.

Today I decided to give a shampoo to Foxy, our cute fox Terrier dog. I know he does not like it at all, but he was quite dirty and he needed to be washed. As expected he moaned and cried quite a lot so as an extra 'reward' I decided to take him with me and Malin for a walk at Dingli in the afternoon. After the wash he was so white, shiny and nice-scented with the shampoo.

So at about 3pm I, Malin and Foxy drove to Dingli cliffs, and parked near Bobbyland restaurant so that when we are back we would take a coffee from here and have our car parked nearby. It was an ideal day for walking, bright day with little clouds and not too hot. Foxy was very excited as he stepped down from the car - as usual. The first thing we noted were some parachute gliders flying above Dingli cliffs. Malin was interested to experience such an activity, but I was skeptical to try it. I know she wanted to tell me "coward" but then she know that she would get some punishement (eg: Tickle-attack) !!! We started to walk towards 'tas-Simblija' a place along the cliffs that we went for 3 or 4 times before. It happened that we came near a T-junction and instead of going further to Simblija, we decided to adventure a bit and take this other lane towards another place which I did not ever go before. I believed that it will also lead to Simblija finally but....

So we started walking along this small street in the middle of the countryside and see where it would lead. We came accross to a very small chapel (or large room?) which had a statue on the top which was badly eroded with many holes and cracks. Here the street spitted to either left or right, and we decided to take the left way. It was a very peaceful, and just countryside. It was surprising that there was nobody walking here - there where many people along the cliffs but nobody dared to take a deviation and try to walk to different places.

We walked and walked until we came to a magnificent view that it is impossible to describe. Unfortunately, I did not take the camera with me because I thought that it was going to be a normal walk. Anyway, it was a panoramic view from Dingli centre (church) towards the West coast with a large area of fields. farm houses, small hills and countryside. This large area was more or less like a wide and large valley. We were at a very high point and we could see Mtarfa at the end and Mtahleb at the other end. The air was fresh and there where many birds singing.

We decided to sit here and enjoy the view while reading our books. I did not manage to read anything, I kept observing the view. After some few minutes, I felt very sleepy with the warm sunshine, cool breeze and countryside atmosphere. So I an Malin found an ideal place few metres away to rest on. It was a piece of land with many low trees which provided shadow and a carpet of soft leaves - ideal for a nap!. We found a good spot and I easily got a sweet nap. Initially, Malin was reading but then she joined in the nap beside me. We kissed and cuddled a lot here, in a place that can be described as heaven. Foxy was a bit of a bugger, becasue he has the habit to sit over us (literally on our body as if we were a cushion) or between us while trying to guard us from any intruders. Sometimes he sees a stupid moving object, such as a paper bag, and starts barking loudly. But anyway, he is trying to guard us.

At about 5:30 pm we left this cosy place and decided to return back, even if we were tempted to walk further down the way along this large valley-like place. While walking back I met a friend of mine who had his farm house very near and also owned many fields in the area. He told me that this place was known as tal-"Qattara" coming from the word "Qatra" which means drop of water, and Qattara refers to an area where there is lots of water dropping down along the rocks. We also came across memorial stone on a room in the fields saying that in 1963 here died an 18yr old girl by the name Mananni. The father of my friend (who was also there with some other family members) explained that this girl and her boyfriend came to shelter in this room from heavy rain. When it was over, by mistake the boyfriend hit the trigger of his rifle (used to hunt birds) and the shot killed the innocent girl.

We walked back to our car and unfortunately Bobbyland cafeteria and restaurant was already closed. So we went back home and took coffee there. It was really a fantastic walk, and we will go again soon and that time I will definitely take the camera with me!

Wonderful summer weather today, so my answer was obvious when Stephen asked me if I wanted to come with him to Buskett gardens in the morning. Normally it is quite a lot of people in Buskett on Saturdays, but apparently (to our luck) everyone stayed long in bed this morning. We went to a field where Stephen a few days ago found a lot of plants of the species "Bear's breech", because he wanted to take some more photos of them. We stayed in this field for almost two hours I think: Stephen busy photographing, and I comfortably laid back in the grass reading a book (I know you think that I am very lazy, so I want to point out that I was actually reading a textbook in Maltese!).

We went back home at lunchtime, and in the afternoon we did not do anything special.

In the evening it was finally time to do something that both Stephen and I have been looking forward to for quite a long time, namely go to a festa. This week's fiest took place in Zebbug, quite near to where we live. We had almost reached Zebbug when Stephen realized that he forgot his video camera at home (although I reminded him to bring it two minutes before we left from home!), so we had to turn around to fetch it. Back in Zebbug we parked and walked to the centre to buy some pastizzi, because we were quite hungry. Then we hurried away to find a good place where to watch the fireworks. They started quite early, so we missed a bit of the beginning, but these fireworks were one of the longest I have ever experienced, so it did not matter. We found a perfect place on a wall near the fields, or at least nearly perfect, because Stephen did not really like the fact that there was a large horse on the other side of the wall, because he feared the horse would get scared by the fireworks and attack us. Luckily enough it was a very friendly and peaceful horse.

The fireworks were really beautiful, and lasted for more than an hour. Stephen experimented with his camera and took lots of photos. The only negative part was that some sparks started a small fire in a nearby grass field, and the smoke was a bit disturbing. The fire engine came quite quickly, but the fire fighters were not very efficient, so it took quite a while for them to put out the fire.

When the fireworks were finished we walked back to the centre to see the ground fireworks (cikcifogu). They were a bit of a disappointment, because it was very disorganized and there was a lot of smoke. But despite this, we really enjoyed our first festa for this year.

Gozo is Stephen's and mine favorite destination in Malta, going there always feels like going for a holiday trip. Initially we planned this trip since Stephen was supposed to go for a two-week course in Belgium following weekend, and we wanted to spend our last weekend before the course in the best possible way. A few days ago Stephen was informed that the course had been cancelled, but that was not reason enough for us to cancel the trip to Gozo.

We took it easy in the morning (correction: I took it easy, Stephen worked on the computer) and left with the car towards the harbour in Cirkewwa around 11 am. We just missed a ferry, and had to wait for half an hour for the next one. When we arrived to Gozo we drove straight to Ghajnsielem, to meet our friends Simone and Piotr. They showed us the nearby flat they had arranged for us to rent for one night, a large flat with a nice view.

Stephen and I were hungry and anxious to visit our favorite restaurant ic-Cima again, so we drove off to Xlendi. Despite our high expectations we were not disappointed. To our delight we discovered that they have tables outdoors near the sea. We found a table with a wonderful view, where we enjoyed our pizzas.

After the meal we went back to the flat to change and then headed off to Ramla Bay, where Simone and Piotr were waiting for us. They had already taken a short swim, and did not want to join us again, because they said the water was cold. For me, who is used to the constantly cold sea water in Finland, the sea temperature was perfect. Stephen, however, is more spoiled, so he complained that it was cold, but he still deared to jump into the water and stayed there with me for quite a while. After the refreshing swim we laid down in the sand and talked for a while.

The sun made us sleepy, so we went to the flat for a rest before Stephen and I went to Marsalforn in the evening. We bought some chocolate balls from Jessica's Delight and ate them at a bench by the sea. Stephen also planned to take an icecream, but unfortunately I forgot to remind him about it, so they closed before we remembered to go there. We went quite early to bed, since we had to wake up early next morning in order to go to Comino.

Today I, Malin, and two of my work mates (Simone Camilleri and David Aquilina) decided to spend a day at the marvellous sea of Comino. I and Malin went to Gozo a day befor and slept there at a very nice residence in GhajnSielem. Simone lives in Victoria - Gozo and David came by ferry on Sunday early morning. At 8am, all four of us where at mgarr and there we met the sailor of the ferry who had to take us to Comino. With us there where 3 or 4 woman with about 8 children which I assume were theirs. When we arrived there were very few people and we easily found place on a sandy area just beside the beach.

Here the sea is wonderful. It has an incredible bright aquamarine / green colour and is crystal clear, something that it is not found easily around Malta. There is also plenty of different fish and fauna. The nice part is to swim about 50metres to reach the island ahead called Cominotto. When we jumped into the water, i hada little personal shock - the water was very cold (for some it was just refreshing!). Despite this we still decided to swim to the opposite island of cominotto. Once you start swimming it does not feel very cold as the initial part. We sat on the beach of cominotto and spend half an hour or so talking and getting some warm sun (for some it was hot!) and dry up. SOme of us started to feel hungry so we swam back to Comino. It was again not a pleasure to enter cold water after being warmed up by the sun for lomg.

Again I stayed in teh sun, which now can be defined quite hot and remained there. The others went for once or twice again in the sea but I prefered not to. In the meantime more people, especially tourists, started to come over and practically filled all the small bay. There was no space for more and people settled their things on the rocks above the bay. One thing which disturbed me and others was the numerous boats and cabin cruisers that came in the swimmers area and iy was literally like a jungle of all sorts of boats.

At 2:20pm the return feryy arrived and so we left back to Gozo. David went back to Malta while I, Malin, Simone went to her boyfriend residence at Ghajnsielem. Then we went to a beach at Ghajnsielem known as ix-Xatt l-ahmar. There where few jellyfish in the sea and we where not fond of swimming again except Simone's boyfriend ( Piotr) who spent the whole day working on his dissertation and so he went for a short swim.

At about 5pm I and Malin took the ferry back to Malta and since of the huge quea at the port we arrived Malta around 8pm. Unfortunately I did not take teh photocamera with me so there are no photos available for this event.

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