Time for some more updates as it’s been a while…
I’ve been in Malta for about 4 weeks now, and what can I say except:
I LOVE MALTA!
This place is very cool, food is so fresh I don’t think I ever had it so good except when we grew our own back in the UK… Tonight I bought some more shopping and the colours and flavours are so good I had to take some photos to show you. As you can see, the chillis are not the 100% perfect size and shape like Woolworths seem to think is required, nor are the vegetables completely blemish free.. Instead what you get is the freshest, organic food I have ever tasted, the vegetables are crisp, and putting them in the fridge they last for 2 weeks instead of the Cole’s carrots that turned black within 24 hours…!
The strawberries OMG! This “punnet” was but one of many, as you can see plenty in it. No bruised fruit at all! Talk about sweet, they are delicious, and unlike Aussie strawberries, these actually taste like strawberries.. and the best news of the lot… all for E1.50 .. yes folks, a large punnet of strawberries for less than three bucks!
Oh, in case you are wondering, the photos are as they came out of the camera except for cropping, I haven’t played with the colours, and on my screen (my Mac) the colours look the same as I see here in real life!
Food quality aside the other fantastic part is the food shops. On the island there are large chain supermarkets, well one.. LIDL and it seems that whilst they do “OK” it’s not like they do in other countries. People here don’t get in the car to go to the supermarket, they’d rather go to the local store… That said the local store is no more than 10 minutes walk away, and they are like mini a Coles. The variety of food is amazing, how they get it all in the shop is… magic… These stores look like the lounge of someone’s house covered in shelves, and filled with everything imaginable to man! In my local store, they have 7 types of HP sauce.. 7!! They have asian raw food stuffs (eg Coconut Milk, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, water chestnuts etc). Every store has a cheese counter that rivels any deli I have seen in Australia with cheeses of the world (eg nearly every store has New Zealand cheddar!) Hams, bacons, salamis etc.. you name it they have it.. I even have alcohol free vanilla essense (for 60c!).. that’s not the vanilla flavour crap that you get in Australia, it’s the real deal, real vanilla, with no alcohol!
The only down side of these stores, they only have 2 or 3 items on the shelf, so if they run out, they run out. In my mind though, if you can get such a wide variety of food of such good quality, I’m prepared to live with not being able to get what I want because its been popular “today”. So far, there has only been one store that I couldn’t get what I wanted in it, and 5 minutes walk away there was another store, which hadn’t run out of stock… 😉
Now enough of food, more shopping!
Here’s me at home after a day at work, no makeup, but in some of my new clothes… New jacket, new jeans (yes I’m still a size 10!) and a new top..
The choice of shops is amazing, they seem to have everything. It doesn’t matter whether you are looking for UK high street shops like Boots and Evans, to world wide fashion chains like Next and Esprit they’ve got it all. They even have shops selling some of the most exclusive Italian designer wear (and this is the real deal, not a cheap Thailand imitation.)
Esprit is here! Yes they have my favourite girly shop, and I now have a new business suit with option of both trousers (pants) and a skirt. Jane Norman, what can I say.. I love the clothes in the photo just another one of my purchases…
I now have a new watch (finally), not cheap but then it is a Roberto Cavalli (Women’s watches, number 15 in the gallery).
My main worry coming over here was my prescriptions and being transgender getting the medications… So much so when I came over I brought 3 months supply with me, knowing that I could get more from the UK or Online if there was a problem. Well it seems the pharmacies are just like the shopping, they have *everything*, even better, if you already have the box, they (in most cases) will just give you more of the same! As it happens in my case there is one item that is not stocked normally, and that is Ralovera. The company who I work for has their own doctor on retainer (available to all staff) so I spoke to him and after a small amount of investigation he’s arranged me a hospital prescription. It seems it’s a restricted distribution medication that can be ordered through the hospital, even better because it has to be ordered it’s free! My standard scripts are about half the price of those in Australia, and they were cheap there…
This place is AMAZING!