Interlude #5: Hamrun Festa

I was in Malta, but without a doubt, one of the main highlights was the Hamrun Festa (Hamrun is a town). I am still not exactly sure what it represents, but it is held in August, on the 'Feast of St Gaetan'. Broadly speaking, the citizens of Hamrun support either the red band or blue band and they are huge rivals of each other. Once again I do not know what these bands represent, however I got the impression they were might have been political groups. I did ask multiple times but no one gave a clear answer...

Pictured: politics in Malta. You can just see the blue band in the background.

Either way, early in the morning everyone on Hamrun starts drinking, they march around with marching bands, yell at each other sing songs, and then drink some more! All in all it is considered the most exciting of the Maltese festas due to the massive rivalry between the bands and the vast quantities of alcohol consumed. Fights are not uncommon and I was warned by many locals not to go.

A marching band

So why did I go? I hear you ask. Well, it is simple really - my father was born in Hamrun, so I had to represent the family; I was invited by a resident of Hamrun (JJ - an awesome fire-twirler we used for EF events); and JJ's partner is HUGE and he vowed to protect me.

My newest friends, I was safe as long as I did not lose the vodka. You can see the densely packed crowd. It was like that for whole streets, everyone drunk and it was about 11am.

The day started at about 10 am where I met JJ's friends. They handed me a bottle of vodka and a cup and we were off. Before I knew it I was surrounded by hundreds of people decked in red marching and singing and waving flags. I clutched onto the vodka for dear life, knowing that as long as I had that my new found friends would never leave me. Eventually we ran into a police line. Across the square the Blue band were similarly held back and then the insults and chanting started. It was all in Maltese but I was taught a few sounds to make so I obliged. At one stage some fisticuffs started out near me and we got involved (it was fun).

Damn straight we won the fight - admittedly I spent most the time hiding behind this guy...

After a some time the police let us through and the Red band invaded the square and proceeded to scream at a building for ages (I do not know why). I was hefted onto some guys shoulders and continued to wave my arms and sing in a foreign language. The I was put down and hefted some strange lady onto my shoulders.

So, to make things clear, a very large mass of people yelled at this building for a loooong time.

This was followed by marching through the streets of Hamrun with the band. Everywhere we went red confetti was been thrown from the upper story windows of the houses making a weird red/snow screen on the street. Families opened portable bars on the street (I swear I was served by, like, 10 year olds) and we drank more - the vodka was long gone by this time. Finally we made back to where we started and entered some outdoor bar for more vodka/whiskey/beer.

Two things made this event super awesome, both, not surprisingly, revolved around JJ.

1. At one stage JJ came and grabbed me from the crowd of revellers and took me the house where my father was born!!!
2. After the event was done and I had managed to get lost I wandered back to JJ's house to say good bye and was fed the best roast I have ever had. Yup, sorry mum and nan, that crown is gone.

Dad's home!

To think this day could not get better when I finally returned to the EF hotel after drinking for hours and hours in the extremely hot Maltese sun I was invited by Clint and Marco to a wine tasting festival in Valletta. for 12 euro you get entry and a glass ad then you wander around the area (in this case the lovely Upper Barracka Gardens) tasting all the wine. Whilst there we ran into more and more people and out little group  grew and grew into a pretty good EF party. 

Before we indulged in wine...

Also, on the way home - for some reason I walked - I found a pub with a pool table and a bunch of old timers having some very competitive games. So I indulged in some more beer and a few games of pool. I think they were surprised someone as sloshed as me nearly won a few times (they were quite good).

...after we had indulged in wine.

All in all a pretty solid Sunday.

 As usual I have to bail Baiky out of trouble.

Education First Malta

While in Malta I worked for about three months with Education First as an Activities Manager. Before applying for the job I had never heard of the company, but apparently they run programs in Brisbane too. In a nutshell, over summer Education First run a fully supervised English teaching program for school aged students wishing to improve their English. Each week day they spend a couple of hours in English lessons, for the rest of the time they participate in organised activities. 

A cruise to Comino island with Philip (local leader), Charlie (Scandinavian international leader), and Matt (fellow activity manager and all round awesome bloke). And yes, we had to wear pink.

Each group of students has one local leader to show them around and one leader from their country to assist with language and cultural issues. My job was to book all their activities, and to organise and manage the evening and weekend activities. It was cool.

Intensely booking events in the office - nah, probably checking the Ashes scores.

The two most awesome things for me was that I had moved to a new country and BAM! Instant friends. The other awesome thing was the amount of friends I made from all over Europe. I have already visited a couple in my travels and I hope to be able to visit more. I was put up in a hotel with all the other managers and the international leaders, so it was kinda like Fenner all of again, except more intense.  Some idea of the nationalities I worked with – Maltese (obviously), Italians, French, Spanish, Swiss, Austrian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, German, Danish, Canadian, Irish, English, + more.

Six People (includng the photographer), and six nationalities. This was my first night out.

The events I organised consisted of parties and discos all over Malta (including an old movie set for Popeye -  apparently it’s a terrible movie), 

I got to be the foam guy at one of the foam parties! I also had to DJ a couple of times - I don't think I was all that good, but a couple students wanted my playlist.

cruises to the different islands (see Gozo and Comino in previous post), visits to cultural and historical sites, and activities like Go-Karting and sporting events (my AFL ball came out at these as there was nowhere else I could kick. I’m pretty certain that the students thought I was an idiot literally running around by myself, throwing dummies, and kicking to nobody).

Baiky and I do a line of coke at the first disco.

It was hard work, generally 8-10 hours a day five days a week plus another five or so on either Saturday or Sunday. But, pretty much every night was a party if you were so inclined. As I was also applying for jobs while I was there I spent some nights in, but other times…well…other times there was cheap beer, cheap shots, cheap whiskey, cheap vodka, and cheap hangovers. Luckily water was cheap too. It was fun, anyone from Fenner who has SR or FRC experience I recommend giving it a go. Head up to Brisbane and lead a group for a week or two, it is a good way to get a paid holiday. 

Yup, we worked waaaaaay too hard. Staff members chillin' by the pool in the aftenoon.

Also, there is currently an Activity Manager job in Malta for next year – three months, free accom, free food, and, taking the cost of living into account, the pay is decent enough. 

 The activities team at the Summer after-party

Malta

This post has been really hard to write, Malta is so small yet there is heaps of cool stuff there. I also lived there for four months so that is a lot of stuff to cram into a small article.

Of course I added cannons. What you see ahead is are the fortifications built around the coastal towns. I lot of Maltese cities and building look just like this. Also, if you have seen WWZ and remember the scenes in 'Israel' - yup, that was shot in Malta.

Malta is made up of three small islands, Malta, Comino, and Gozo. I worked on Malta, (unsurprisingly) the largest of the three and lived in Sliema, which is essentially where all tourists work and live over the summer. Luckily for me as my job was a essentially a tourist events manager I got to visit all islands multiple times. The weather was great all sunshine and hotness, which, coming from Australia, was nothing new. A few of my colleagues and most tourists who had travelled from Europe found it somewhat more difficult to handle. I laughed at the many counts of heat stroke I witnessed. In hindsight I probably should have assisted.

Azure Window on the island of Gozo.

Malta is known for many things - great swimming in their beaches, the summer nightlife, its amazing history, and churches (dear god are there a lot of churches). Oh yes, and Festas - particularly the Hamrun Festa - but more on that later.

There will be plenty of Hamrun Festa photos later, for now feast your eyes on Gozo, taken from the Citadella in Victoria (the capital of Gozo).

The beaches are funny, pretty much all of them are rock beaches. I mentioned this in my Odessa post, but I did not realise this was the usual form that beaches take and how lucky we are in Australia. Well, maybe not lucky, you see, rock beaches have many awesome advantages. Firstly, without any sand/grit/dirt, the water is super clear, and secondly, you can happily walk/swim/lay on the beach without getting every crevice of your body filled with sand.

The Blue Lagoon on Comino. Great water and awesome caves. Baiky spent many a time here.

Drinking in Malta is also funny. You see, as much as responsible service of alcohol is shitty when all you want is another beer, I have since found that having a sober professional taking responsibility for the amount of alcohol ingested preferable to leaving me to my own devices. Similarly, it always sucks when a pub closes at 4am and all you want is another beer. However, I have now learnt that it can be really hard to keep track of time when inebriated in a nightclub and if it doesn't close how am I to know when to go home? 

It can also be hard not to wander off the massive cliffs of Malta. This was taken on Comino.

So, the party area of Malta, Paceville, is more disgusting than the Gold Coast, with people throwing up in the streets early in the evening. Very young people seem to hang around the area as ID checking is also optional. The sun came up before most nightclubs closed. I preferred the Sliema scene, but maybe I'm just getting old. Oh, and a pint costs about $3 (and can be found cheaper) and a bottle of vodka about $35.

I have decided not to incriminate myself here - instead here is a photo of a massive fountain at the entrance to Valletta.

Malta's history is really interesting due to its strategic location in the Mediterranean. It has been ruled by a crapload of different nations including Phoneticians, Romans, Normans, French, and the British. It was also ruled for two centuries by the Knights of St John after the Spanish didn't know what to do with it in the 16th century. It was involved in two great sieges, one in the 16th century when 40 000 Ottomans attacked 7000 Maltese and during WWII when they refused to surrender to the Axis despite been starved for two years. King George awarded the entire country the George Cross after the war.

The George Cross. They have two on display, the real one and a replica. One is in their war museum and the other in the Lascaris war rooms - the rooms from which the Allies rallied the defence of Malta and planned the invasion of Italy.

The final aspect of Malta is its rich religious heritage. Starting with having multiple prehistoric, megalithic temples (one of which is the oldest known underground temple c.3000 BC) of which I believe seven are world heritage listed. 

Inside the catacombs if St Paul in Mdina. St Paul was shipwrecked in Malta. The catacombs were originally developed as tombs but I think they were also used during in WWII as protection from the Axis bombing raids.

Also, as the Knights of St John enjoyed many years of prosperity and non-fighting (after scaring the rest of the world by defeating the Ottomans before upgrading the islands fortifications) they spent most if their wealth on churches and cathedrals. I believe I read or heard somewhere that Malta has the either the most churches capita or per country size. Either way just walking around any town you will be amazed by the impressive and opulent places of worship.

Inside St Johns Co-Cathedral in Valletta. Not only is it beautiful but it is home to many paintings by Caravaggio who fled to Malta after being exiled from Italy or Naples or something. He painted many works in Malta, but was imprisoned in Malta for been a bad person.

I have since left, although I wanted to stay until summer but could not find work, I can not wait to get back. Still so much to do and friends to catch up with. 

 Started with cannons and ending with knights - it was my kinda place. This is from the Armory in Valletta - thus far the best armory I have visited in my travels.

 Not quite a knight, but here I am preparing for a run around Comino. It was about 40 degrees - yay Malta.

Interlude #4 ANZAC Day Ceremony

ANZAC Day at ANZAC cove. This was, without a doubt, one of the most amazing things I have ever done and it came as an afterthought simply because my VodkaTrain tour finished in mid-April. ANZAC cove was a four hour bus ride from Istanbul, and we were regaled with Turkish history and the movie Anchorman. We stopped off at a nearby town for lunch and to wait for the gates to the cove to. There were tons of buses full of excited Aussies and Kiwis, so, not surprisingly, an international cricket match started off.

Still has larger boundaries than the West Indies grounds.

We turned up to the Cove entrance to discover a massive line of people waiting to get. We met many a bogane kicking footies and wearing national flags like capes. A few people were even wearing Collingwood tops - I vowed to stay away from them the following day so I could watch the ANZAC day footy match (Essendon vs Collingwood) without the result been spoiled.

This line went around TWO corners - and we were in the middle. 

As the dawn service start at...well...dawn the event actually begins on the evening of the 24th. There are large grassy areas in which people can lay down and sleep until the service starts. However, the large grassy areas are not quite large enough for everyone. Those who don't fit end up having to spend the night on plastic chairs, hence the line of people waiting to get in (we waited for a couple of hours).

I was separated from the rest of my tour group in a bid to find somewhere to sleep. Unfortunately I found a Collingwood supporter to sleep next to instead.

Throughout the night they had speeches, a military orchestra playing songs, and documentaries on the wars on massive screens. They also played live footage of speeches from Julia Gillard and the NZ Prime Minister from their respective Dawn Services. This would have been about 11pm or midnight given the 6 or 7 hour time difference. Ms Gillard was at Townsville and I enjoyed her address. I can't remember the details but she essentially thanked all the Australians for putting in the effort to go to go Turkey  to honour our soldiers - made me feel special for being there. I only got a few hours sleep but was never really all that bored.

ANZAC Cove the next morning. Baiky flirts with danger by sitting on the fence to the 'forbidden zone''.

With the rising sun the service began. Most was pretty standard of a usual dawn service with a few notable exceptions:

1. When they said the soldiers had to advance upon cliff faces manned by Turkish machine gunners you could turn around and see the cliffs. Due to my stolen iPad I do not have those photos, but yup, it was an unlikely assault (note the Australian penchant for understatement).
2. Three high school students gave speeches - I can't remember if they were Aussie, Kiwi, or a combination - but they had won public speaking competitions. They did well, I would have pooed myself in fear if I had to speak at such an occasion.
3. Their was a speech given by a Turkish official - this was pretty much the first time I heard the Turkish side of the story. I won't ruin it for you much, but I recommend you read up on the Turks in WWI, especially General Attaturk...who later became the countries leader...and reformed said country...all after pretty much being the reason behind Turkey holding off the Allies. He also instigated the current friendly relation between Australia and Turkey. The photo below is the communique (or an excerpt of) he gave to to the nations involved in the Turkish invasion. He the let us visit the cove every year to commemorate our soldiers.

The talk by the Turkish representative also quoted this. Very moving. I might have cried but I was too busy wondering of Essendon had won or not.

After the dawn service at ANZAC cove there were two more services, one for Aussies and one for Kiwis, at different locations I went to the Aussie one. It was a bit of a hike, but we got to experience the terrain the Allies were trying to capture - except we had roads and there was a distinct lack of imminent death.

Many cemeteries for Allied soldiers were on route. One of them had Simpson (but not his donkey). I never saw the grave, but I imagine there were too mnay people crowded around it anyway.

As I didn't sleep too well the night before I spent most of the Aussie service trying to not fall asleep. I remember that the MC was hilarious. He had a tough job keeping the thousands of Aussies entertained for an hour or so before the ceremony began. The ceremony was more speeches and the tradiotional laying of the wreaths. It was cool to see that even some schools and universities had sent representatives. I should have told ANU I would be there so I could have scored a seat in the VIP section. Oh, and I think the bloke who won the most recent VC was there too. They had some war heros up front either giving awards or laying wreaths (it was a long time ago, I have forgotten some details) was HUGE and I recognised the name.

The location of the Aussie Ceremony.

Afterwards I made my up to the NZ ceremony, but I didn't get there in time. On the way my tour buddies and I went bush to follow the trenches (yes, they were still there -  and they were shallow. Scary stuff). Baiky took brief refuge in a bunker. It was quite hard finding one without a thousand tourists, but we went pretty far bush in the end.

We also fond some bunkers that were prepared for WWII. They were never used though as this area was not involved. Alas, these photos are also lost to a thief who will never appreciate them.

After the NZ service we waited for a bus, which was one of the last to leave the site. It was at about this time that I suspected that Essendon had won the ANZAC day game. You see, the previous day waiting in line I saw a lot of Collingwood jumpers. These were conspicuously absent after the dawn service. What I did see though were a few Essendon jumpers. Aha, I said - another game ruined in advance.

From the NZ ceremony site - It was a long hike up a big hill. 

Our tour guide had ice creams or iceypoles for us I believe, which was cool because it was very hot by this stage. Then we bussed back to Instanbul and hit the piss, again. Oh, and guess what movie we watched in the way back - Gallipoli.

Click on the photo and have a quick gander at this. When the Allies arrived and the Turks saw they were outnumbered Attaturk (at the time his name was Kamal) rallied the troops with these famous words. He was one of the only few to survive but the actions of him and his troops kept us out of Turkey.

Istanbul, Turkey

Sorry this took so long. Someone stole my ipad and it took me a week to replace it with something non-(rotten) apple.
Funny story about Istanbul - sitting on the bus traveling to ANZAC cove with Top Deck tours (worth every penny) and our local guide was rabbiting on about Constantinople. I had never actually put two and two together and realised they were the same city. 

Constantinople...or Istanbul. Dammit, I can never tell the two apart

It had just never come up in my history experience. I have either read books on ancient history, which is Constantinople cool and Constantinople is razed, etc, or learnt modern history (i.e. watched Bond movies), which is all nuclear submarines and oil pipelines. Now I think about it, that's not all that funny, but I guess I never really did understand 'humour'.

Is this humour? I was told its funny, but it seems awfully factual.

Arrival in Turkey was kind of reminiscent of Bali. As soon as I approached the baggage carousel am overly friendly local came over and kindly offered to assist me with my baggage. All the while he pretended only having limited English as I told him I was perfectly capable of pushing a trolley by myself. He remarkably remembered his English when I told him to go ahead, but under no circumstance would I tip him for his services. 

The Mosque. It is blue.

Upon exiting the airport another man came up to me as I was hailing an taxi. He proceeded to hail it for me also and carry my bags. I said no twice, but he just smiled and took my bags anyway. The look on his face was priceless when I refused to tip him as I explained I told him to leave me alone multiple times. At least the taxi had a meter. I arrived at the hotel early so I found the nearest pub grabbed some beers and learnt a few Turkish words from the (cute) barmaid. This was followed by check-in through my tour group, meeting my roomie, and a few more beers. That evening, I met the tour group.

Baiky, jumps in for first drink.

Suddenly he is the life of the party.

There were lots of cool people, all from New Zealand and Australia of course as we were all there for ANZAC day. Most of them lived in the UK. In fact, only my roommate and I had traveled from Australia. The evening finished with the group heading for dinner and many drinks, but it was kept pretty tame as we had an early start the next day for our trip to ANZAC cove. 

We met another mascot from the tour group. These two paired up in Hagia Sophia...and now Baiky has more friend's than me.

ANZAC eve and day were awesome! I will go into more detail in a later post, but if you get the opportunity I highly recommend it! In a nutshell you spend the night of the 24th crammed into the small space at ANZAC cove other aussies and kiwis alternating between trying to sleep and watching the provided entertainment. His included documentaries of Gallopoli, speeches by the many officials, and music from a military band (this year was the Australian Navy, but I assume this honour changes every year). As dawn breaks the service begins. There were talks from representatives from the Turkish, Aussie, and Kiwi governments, a few speeches from school students that won various essay competitions, and some random bloke causing trouble. After the dawn service the group hikes to either the Aussie or the New Zealand specific memorials for a few more speeches and laying of the wreaths. The Aussie MC was hilarious, and kudos for performing so well! After all this excitement we returned to Istanbul before smashing both dinner and drinks with wanton abandon. We woke early for the final day of the tour, a half day guided tour through some of the more famous sites of Istanbul. We visited the Blue Mosque, St Sophia's cathedral (Hagia Sophia), and the cisterns.

The cisterns were pretty cool, photos don't really show much.

The Mosque and cathedral were amazing and it was nigh on impossible to get a photo that does them justice and the cisterns were really quite beautiful as well. That afternoon I wandered around the city and some gardens before settling into a relaxing night of rest before catching my planets Malta. By that I mean traveling to the nightclub district, smashing beer and raki in equal amounts, getting into a physical altercation with a local, and getting back to my hotel minutes before my airport transfer arrived to pick me up!

In the gardens with Baiky, finally he is not causing a drunken scene.

Odessa, Ukraine

I caught another overnight train to Odessa and stayed in a hostel that is owned by a family friend of my uncle's (mother's side) wife. I liked Odessa more than Kiev, but I'm not sure why. I did have more fun going to restaurants here as it was the first time I was in a place without someone to translate for me.

Baiky lost an eye whilst watching the AFL with me, now his a one-eyed supporter. This photo encompasses a lot of what I liked about Odessa, it is from a restaurant overlooking one of their many gardens/squares that is a popular meeting place for locals. Most importantly, in the background you can see a fountain!

Most places had at least one employee who spoke rudimentary English, but on occasion I had to rely on my basic Russian to get by. I went on two tours of the city here like I did in Kiev. This time the focus was on the development of Odessa as a trading port by the Duc de Richelieu - governor of Odessa from 1803 until 1814 (I think) and the shenanigans of Tolstoy. This is opposed to in Kiev, which focussed on liberation from various countries and its amazing architecture/cathedrals.

This avenue is in a large park that borders Black Sea. The park includes numerous statues, a sporting stadium, a war memorial complete with an eternal flame (pictured), and an amusement park.

Like most of the places I visited Odessa has a fascinating history. If I remember correctly, due to its location on the Black Sea Odessa has been occupied by many different cultures. There is a huge Greek influence, and this is reflected in some of the large structures throughout the city and also documented in an archaeological museum filled with Greek artefacts including sculptures, weapons, and armour. Also, there was a movie being shot while I was there. One night I even got to watch a comedy scene being shot again, and again...and again. I guess they weren't being very funny (I wasn't laughing).

Y'all seen pictures of buildings, so here is a movie set on the main promenade of Odessa. These are some actors - no doubt super famous. Bit disappointed Bruce Willis couldn't be found.

At one stage I passed the war memorial during a military service. Not sure what was happening (my Russian is not up to scratch), but they laid flowers down, had a parade, handed out medals, and fired their rifles. It was cool! Strangely enough, I later asked a few locals who were not at the service what is about and no one seemed to know.

The marching band. I nearly got caught in the middle of them as at one stage they were walking away, and then suddenly the did a 180 degree turn and came back up the street. One luckless westerner was not as observant as me and got stuck in the middle of them.

Odessa was the first place I saw working fountains. The fountains I had seen for the past month had all frozen over for the winter. Odessa's, however, must have thawed earlier due to the warmer climate. The warmer climate also meant that I got to see a beach, beach volleyball, and dolphins (in a dolphin show). Odessa was also the first place I lost Baiky.

He fell out of my bag during a tour. I quickly backtracked and found him on this ledge. A kind person moved him from the middle of the path to safety! Either that or Baiky is sentient - both outcomes are pretty cool.

Finally, part of Odessa's history includes it criminal underworld and a labyrinth of catacombs under the city. The catacombs are the result of limestone mining and the criminal underworld the predominately the result of a slave trade (I think), mostly because they needed limestone to build stuff and slaves to do the building (and sex, but I didn't learn too much about the criminal history so feel free do your own research). The catacombs apparently have over 1000 entrances, reach a depth of 60 metres, and estimated to be over 2500 kms in length.

An entrance to the catacombs - good thing I'm not claustrophobic.

Not surprisingly people sometimes get lost and die within the tunnels. It is also not considered safe to enter due to the occasional tunnel collapses. So naturally I took a tour with another Aussie from the hostel (extreme tourism, yeah!). During WWII the catacombs were used as a hiding place for soviet partisans (wikipedia). I also seem to remember my guides telling me it was used to hide Jews too.

 Inside the catacombs with one of the two guides. He is explaining the wall markings, which the catacomb guides use to find their way around. If I remember correctly his was the black arrow. The other markings are symbols used by different guides. The guides are fiercely protective of their routes. 

The same photo without the camera flash. It was pitch black inside so we were supplied with two torches each. A smarter me would have realised it might be a week dark inside and brought his head torch along.

There was heaps of cool stuff in Odessa and it is one of the places I would like to go back to. Pretty certain I could woo just about anyone I take to this city so I kinda see it as a cheaper version of Paris (also it does not suffer the reputation of being pretentious). It also has probably one of the funniest sites I have seen thus far (possibly with the exception of the predator hanging around Ulaanbaataar). There is a bridge in town called the "Mother-in Law" bridge, so named because if you jump in the middle of the bridge you can feel it wobble up and down, much like the incessant wagging tongue of one's mother-in-law.

 This is the famous one-walled building. It was built as a movie set for the Three Musketeers. I can't remember if they ran out of money so they didn't complete the building or if they just didn't need a full building for the set, but either way its pretty funny.

 This is the same building two steps to the left.

All to quickly the 23rd of April rolled around and it was time to head to Turkey. Here I could stop focusing on international history and soak up some Aussie patriotism at the 98th anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand troops landing at ANZAC cove in the ANZAC day ceremony of Gallipoli.

I thought I should include at least one building. This is Odessa's famous Opera House. It is a magnificent building (and it has a fountain!). Tickets to see the ballet or the opera cost about $5, but unfortunately the show times seemed to clash with other plans I had.