May 22, 2012
Today was the second act of our HR Celebration Week, as we recognized the anniversary of Dwight’s birth. Dwight is the ‘baby’ of the team, and we wanted to ensure we took care of him on this birthday. At the same time, it was a very busy day which is one of the reasons we had scheduled the dinner the night before at Tuscan. But I knew that I really wanted to get off the ship to buy a small gift for him. The question was going to be how.
My morning and early afternoon were packed with classes to teach, so I knew I had a very limited window, maybe an hour-and-a-half to get into Valetta, Malta, and back. Rosie took a tour of Malta in the morning and we agreed to meet and leave by 2:30pm. I had only been to Malta once but I was sure that I could easily find my way to the old city to make my desired purchase. After all, you could see the city directly up the hill from the port and finding the ship by going back down the hill appeared obvious.
Yet it is the simplest paths that can be the trickiest. I knew we had to walk down the street in front of the port and then double-back up the next street that started to head up the hill. It would take us 20 to 25 minutes to reach Valetta providing us with just over a half an hour of shopping for Dwight. That would have been the case if I clearly knew where I was going. We set out at a brisk pace and quickly reached the point where we double-backed up the next street. Five minutes into the walk it began to seem not quite right. The buildings and pitch of the road didn’t feel right. However, since having been there only once I did not trust my memory and was sure we would come across the stairs that provide the shortcut to Valletta at any moment. But we didn’t. As is no doubt clear to you but wasn’t for me until we had walked for almost 15 minutes, we were on the wrong street and there was no path to take to get up to the old city. Apologizing profusely to Rosie we made a 180 degree turn and hurried back along the street to the point where our misdirection occurred. We walked two blocks further and lo and behold we found the proper street on which to turn. A few minutes’ walk up the steep incline and we saw the sign for the stairs that are the shortcut to Valetta. We headed up the stairs and quickly made it to the old city, but only after having taken 50 minutes when 25 should have sufficed.
We entered the city with only about 20 minutes to accomplish our tasks. Anyone who has shopped with me knows that this isn’t necessarily a challenge as I once bought six Christmas gifts in half an hour. Since we were only looking for memories of Malta to bring to Dwight, the first large tourist souvenir shop was our goal. I was in and out in less than ten minutes, which left us now with ten minutes to spare. We took off down a side alley and Rosie recognized the next street from the tour she took in the morning as leading to the government offices. We proceeded to the overlook over the port and marveled at our very modern ship amidst the ancient structures of the port city. We figured that there had to be a way down from this vantage point only to be disappointed. We quick-marched back up to the city center and then retraced our steps down the staircase finding the proper streets on which to return this time. We arrived exactly on time, amazed how we had done that even after losing the time at the beginning of the excursion.
On the way down the stairs, though, we met the Cat Lady of Malta. There is a local who I believe may work at the hospital that you pass at the bottom of the staircase, who is known as the Cat Lady of Malta. She has taken it upon herself to feed that stray cats in the area of the staircase. When we passed her the area was thick with cats. Not only did she feed them, she had built and put in place a series of small shelters back in the trees off the path to keep them dry if the weather turned inclement. St. Francis had nothing on her.
And the adventure continues . . .
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