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So farewell Malta..
Apr. 11th, 2006 10:28 pm.. I have to get up for bus to airport for plane at 4.15am - ie less than 6 hours from now - is it really worth going to bed, one thinks?
This week has been almost exactly what I needed, involving 3 massages (Indian, hot stone, and deluxe), 4 pools (two indoors, 2 outdoors, 1 by beach but not actually with any water in it) and 3 quasi cultural expeditions (Mdina - yes that is how they spell it - for dinner, Valletta (the capital)for dinner and shopping, Gozo, the quieter, less touristy annex island to Malta, for lunch, shopping (a pattern emerges) and much traversing of the fortified citadel, which was mini-Carcassonne-like and Jolly Good Fun. (There was also an actual academic conference in there for two days, at which my eBay paper went down rather well, thank you, and I was described as " a rock star" by my RA. Yes she is very young, and yes, this did occur after several hours at an outdoors karaoke bar.)
I bought the Best EVah Quasi-Fannish Tourist Tat in Gozo and I expect to auction it for megabucks at the TAFF auction at Eastercon. Anyone want to guess what it was??:-)
The rest has been something of a haze of sun, water, wine and cake (good) and academic small talk (possibly not so good, but chattily sociable more or less.) I have bought a rather fab black sundress and a hand painted green tee shirt, both for about fourpence and to be on display at Eastercon, had my eyebrows shaped, managed not to eat rabbit despite much encouragement, but tried lots of local spicey goat's cheese and date pasties, and gone a pleasant shade of brown in various extremities. Add the hair appointment for reblonding I have scheduled for Thursday, and I am almost fit for human, (or at least sf fan) consumption by the weekend.
For those who remember Such Long Ago Things, this trip has been very reminiscent of a Jersey Eastercon for me: Proper Conference followed by randomly coming across the same people doing the tourist trail for days after, shabbily unrecognisable in tourist mufti. It doesn't hurt that these people are IT Law people and therefore almost entirely like fans. My dinner conversations lately have revolved around Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Rocky Horror fandom, globalisation, wine tasting, the futility of union action in "female" professions like teaching, German post war politics, being a lesbian and still worrying about your weight, cheese and its goodness, cats, travel, China, the new Dr Who and when we will all meet up again at the next con in China/Hamburg/Rotterdam/Edinburgh/Southampton/Hertfordshire. So far, so Eastercon/Worldcon.
Meanwhile in the sort of real world, I've been asked to write an intermittent column on IT law for the Law Society Gazette, my (only) bright PhD student has definitely decided to follow me to Southampton and three different people have asked me to tender to the EC for a particular bit of research on ISP liability. All this kinda pleases me.
Next: home, Glasgow, Edwards Scissorhands, Pasech belated con la famiglia*, and intermixed Eastercon. Oh and seeing my cats. Mmrrrrowr! (UM, V, can you feed them at the weekend coming too! Aggg!!)
*Unlike after most my foreign holidays, I am NOT going to come back talking pidgeon Maltese. It's a mixture of Arabic, Italian and medieval French. You try it!
This week has been almost exactly what I needed, involving 3 massages (Indian, hot stone, and deluxe), 4 pools (two indoors, 2 outdoors, 1 by beach but not actually with any water in it) and 3 quasi cultural expeditions (Mdina - yes that is how they spell it - for dinner, Valletta (the capital)for dinner and shopping, Gozo, the quieter, less touristy annex island to Malta, for lunch, shopping (a pattern emerges) and much traversing of the fortified citadel, which was mini-Carcassonne-like and Jolly Good Fun. (There was also an actual academic conference in there for two days, at which my eBay paper went down rather well, thank you, and I was described as " a rock star" by my RA. Yes she is very young, and yes, this did occur after several hours at an outdoors karaoke bar.)
I bought the Best EVah Quasi-Fannish Tourist Tat in Gozo and I expect to auction it for megabucks at the TAFF auction at Eastercon. Anyone want to guess what it was??:-)
The rest has been something of a haze of sun, water, wine and cake (good) and academic small talk (possibly not so good, but chattily sociable more or less.) I have bought a rather fab black sundress and a hand painted green tee shirt, both for about fourpence and to be on display at Eastercon, had my eyebrows shaped, managed not to eat rabbit despite much encouragement, but tried lots of local spicey goat's cheese and date pasties, and gone a pleasant shade of brown in various extremities. Add the hair appointment for reblonding I have scheduled for Thursday, and I am almost fit for human, (or at least sf fan) consumption by the weekend.
For those who remember Such Long Ago Things, this trip has been very reminiscent of a Jersey Eastercon for me: Proper Conference followed by randomly coming across the same people doing the tourist trail for days after, shabbily unrecognisable in tourist mufti. It doesn't hurt that these people are IT Law people and therefore almost entirely like fans. My dinner conversations lately have revolved around Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Rocky Horror fandom, globalisation, wine tasting, the futility of union action in "female" professions like teaching, German post war politics, being a lesbian and still worrying about your weight, cheese and its goodness, cats, travel, China, the new Dr Who and when we will all meet up again at the next con in China/Hamburg/Rotterdam/Edinburgh/Southampton/Hertfordshire. So far, so Eastercon/Worldcon.
Meanwhile in the sort of real world, I've been asked to write an intermittent column on IT law for the Law Society Gazette, my (only) bright PhD student has definitely decided to follow me to Southampton and three different people have asked me to tender to the EC for a particular bit of research on ISP liability. All this kinda pleases me.
Next: home, Glasgow, Edwards Scissorhands, Pasech belated con la famiglia*, and intermixed Eastercon. Oh and seeing my cats. Mmrrrrowr! (UM, V, can you feed them at the weekend coming too! Aggg!!)
*Unlike after most my foreign holidays, I am NOT going to come back talking pidgeon Maltese. It's a mixture of Arabic, Italian and medieval French. You try it!
