Malta Trip #3 – Day 1 – Landing in Malta

 

 

We left at 0725, our flight was only 3 hours long but we still landed there at 1125, how?

 

It’s simple really Europe time zone is one hour ahead of UK time so when you travel East  you lose that time. Coming back you gain that much time. We were two of the first few passengers out so we got to the immigration desk quickly. Then we waited near the top of the queue while we could see immigration officers in their little glass cages, also waiting. After about twenty-five minutes one guy came around and handed each of the officers a print-out. Then they were ready for business. Paperwork even before our paperwork. Fun, right?

 

I have this weird habit of wishing “Good morning” or “Hello” to the immigration officers. I want to see their reaction, if they acknowledge with a smile or say it back or just ignore it. This lady gave a slight smile so that started my impression of Maltese people on a positive note. The paperwork didn’t take time. One benefit of Brexit that Roberta pointed out later is that you get stamps on your passport.

 

There are two things you should always look for when you arrive at an airport – where the toilets are and is there public wifi. After collecting our suitcases we went on search for both. The toilets were clean enough and the wifi was free. Score on both points. I use a VPN when connecting to public networks like that so I fired up my SurfShark mobile app and found that they don’t have a server in Malta. But they had a server in France and in Italy. The app connected through the Paris server and I checked the speed – 25 Mbps. I could live with that.

 

In case you are curious why I use Surfshark
when there are so many choices of VPN providers, consider this a lazy choice. I have tried several before and this is the one that’s the cheapest, keeps no logs, works on PC, tablet and smartphone and basically is totally hassle-free. If you decide to check them out, use my referral link, this will get us both free time on the Surfshark account.

 

https://surfshark.club/friend/uHhT78zz

 

Once I had the VPN connected my first task was to search for an electronics store. I usually have a project when I go on a trip. Last time the project was to find a spanner in Copenhagen (long story, another time.) This time the project was to buy a keyboard in Malta. Recently I have started fancying myself as a kind of writer and I wanted to keep doing some writing while in Malta. I had my Samsung tablet with me and I planned to buy a keyboard to use with it just while I was in Malta and then discard it before going home. I found a few stores online, one of them had a good selection of keyboards as well.

 

But we first took time to feed ourselves. Thanks to the KFC and Burger King in the basement of the airport that part was easy to accomplish. I remember my food was about 8 Euros for a burger, soft drink and a bottle of water. Not bad for airport prices. Generally, we found the prices normal in Malta. Good restaurants had London-equivalent pries or sometimes cheaper.

 

Roberta had done a lot of research and even made a call while we were in the Immigration queue to find out how to buy a travel card. By the way, our UK phones worked in Malta, both of us had mobile plans that gave us free roaming in Malta and 12GB of data roaming. It sufficed for our stay and we had WIFI in most indoor locations. There was a Public Transport counter in the airport so we stopped there to buy a travel card. There were many options and we chose the one that gave us full access to all buses and ferries. I had read online that in Malta buses you need to have either the travel card or exact change in cash, you can’t pay by bank card on the bus. It did not prove to be true. The buses now have contactless readers and you can pay how you want.

 

I am sorry to we did not get our money’s worth from the travel card for which we paid 21 Euros each. We found that the buses were a little too crowded and we did not enjoy standing for long journeys. So, we often ended up using the Bolt taxi app for such journeys. But at that time, we wanted to have the travel cards to have the freedom of choice and 21 Euros was not a bad price to pay for that.

 

The card were fast and easy to acquire on the spot. We paid with contactless payment and went out into the sun to find how to get to the electronics store I had found.