Way of life...

The house takes some getting used to, as do Maltese habits. Our landlord gave us a quick tour around the house whilst explaining stuff, but some of the devices he obviously hadn't used himself. Showing us the washing machine he looked at Elisabeth and supposed she would know how to operate it. For the microwave and oven he referred us to the manual.

 

During the tour he had opened some cupboards to show us the content. Along the way we discovered some more cupboards and drawers with all kinds of stuff. First off there appeared to be very few cutlery, not a single spoon even so we bought a couple. Some days later we discovered a drawer stuffed with........all kinds of cutlery.

 

We gave the washing machine a test run and the first time of course we managed to put the detergent in the wrong compartment, but hey, the wash ended up clean and waving in a friendly breeze under a blue sky, drying in no time.

 

As for the furnace, it's different from what we're used to and therefore supper was somewhat burnt sometimes. Both our landlord and the real estate agent were quite surprised that we intend to cook dinner for ourselves instead of eating out in the first place. 

 

One thing this place doesn't contain is a coffee machine. Not so strange if you consider that the Maltese tend to drink coffee at the local coffee bars.

 

Furniture and appliances are built for shorter people; the Maltese on average are significantly shorter than the Dutch, so we need to bend a lot to reach things. Luckily our bed is large enough for our lengths.

 

Furthermore we're experimenting with the airconditioners in the house which will come in quite handy when temperatures start to rise. We must also remember to water the plants on a regular basis. We thought these to be artificial until they almost started to die.

 

Another thing to find out is on what day which kind of garbage is collected. Ask a few people and you'll get different answers. And there are more day to day things to discover. For example when the gas delivery comes by. Contrary to the Dutch extended gasnet the Maltese are using twelve or eighteen kilo gascontainers which are delivered in every street by a truck. 

 

Easily settled was acquiring a new internet/television connection. There was a fair one in place, but it only featured Maltese and Italian channels which for now is a little too much for us. The previous blog tells a part of this story, but not the part that we didn't know we had to pay for the connection in cash to the engineer, who was friendly enough to drive me to the nearest ATM. Unfortunately during the cash withdrawal this started to reboot.

 

Taking the advice of the engineer, I entered the bank building to find a long queue of people each with their own question. The cashier answered them all patiently and when it was my turn I explained that my withdrawal had gone astray. He shrugged and explained that this happens, the mechanic was on his way and he took out a mobile device. After several failed attempts (in retrospective the link between the BOV and the foreign banks must have been out of order) my creditcard did work.

 

So after some 45 minutes I returned to the engineer who was still patiently waiting and even drove me home again. That's service for you! He also told me that in the event your banking pass gets swallowed by the ATM, you can reclaim it the next day at the bank's office. We are prepared......