Wedding Day and Malta

*I'm not much of a blogger, so bear with me through this*

Simon and I were married at the Leicester Registry Office on Saturday, March 20. Everything was fine, except for the fact that all of the pictures that were taken didn't come out good at all. We had originally planned on taping the ceremony, but the only person who could have done so had to stand next to Simon as a witness. When we looked at the pictures taken later on, they were pretty bad. It also didn't help that (as I found out later) part of the heel on my left shoe was broken, so my feet were killing me the entire time. Kind of hard to smile and look happy when you can barely stand. Long story short, we will be going to a professional studio soon and having pictures done that way.

Back home to change and then we were off to Luton airport. Traffic was light, which is more than I can say for the drive back home, but I'll get to that later. Checked in and sat around taking goofy pictures of ourselves while waiting for the plane.



The flight was okay, just boring. Got some nice shots of clouds with Simons phone that I'm sure will get posted sometime within the next 3 years. My phone was in my carry on bag, and I didn't think to grab it until it was too late. Which was a pity, because when we were directly over Malta it was amazing to see as it was dark and the islands were all lit up. The areas that I now know are the islands of Comino and Gozo looked like an illuminated spiderweb.

Got in a few minutes early, went through customs and got our suitcase pretty much right away. It was nice not having to wait 10 years for the luggage to be unloaded, which is usually the case in airports like O'Hare, Newark and Birmingham. Our shuttle from the hotel was waiting for us and off we went to the Hotel Juliani. Couldn't see very much of the area at night, but there were a few churches and things lit up and those were really something.

Checked into the hotel and were given a free drink of Kinnie while we were. Kinnie is a local soda that is flavored with bitter orange and herbs. We thought it was an alcohalic drink until I asked the bartender the next day what it was. Very tasty stuff.

Got into the room and the first thing we did was go to the balcony (we got a junior sea-view suite). Omg, the view was fantastic and the pictures don't do it justice.

The room itself was very attractive as well:

After we tore ourselves away from the balcony, we decided to eat. There are 2 restaurants in the hotel. The cafe, however, stops serving anything outside of snacks at 3, so that left Zest which is kind of an asian restaurant. There was a guide to Malta restaurants in our room, so I looked up Zest to see what it said.

Now, this guide says the the average prices listed are based on a soup starter, main of beef fillet and half bottle of local wine. Zests price was listed at €17.46, so we figured 'perfect'. Took the elevator down (it comprises the entire 1st floor) and got seated. One look at the menu told us the guide was WAY off. The average cost of a main, without any starters or drinks, was about €20. Simon had a noodle dish that was just under that and I had sushi. When we got the bill, we noticed there was also a €3 cover charge, which is also not mentioned in the guide. I will say the food was good and the place itself was very nice looking. But the overall cost of the meal pretty much killed it for us. I wrote a review of it yesterday on Tripadvisor.com and said to be sure to check the menus posted outside the restaurants instead of trusting the in room guide. Like most of Europe, the restaurants have their menus posted outside. Zest did as well, but we didn't bother going outside to check as we believed the guide.

Back to the room and we simply collapsed as it had been a very long day.