My New Life in Malta

We received a postcard from Maltapost a few weeks back. It wished us a Happy Christmas and informed us that we now have a new postcode. Up until now, Maltese postcodes have consisted of three letters which indicate the city or village, and two numbers. For example
Valletta residents could have VLT03 or a Birkirkara address might have BKR12. But under the new system, there will be three letters and four numbers. This brings the total to seven characters. SEVEN.

The city of Lima, with approximately two-and-a-half times the surface are of the Republic of Malta and roughly 16 times its population, manages to deliver mail with a two digit code. Big and wide Australia gets by with four digits. The highly populated USA has a pretty reliable postal service using five digits. And Canada with its huge size uses a six letter-and-number combination. So somebody please tell me why MaltaPost feels the need to use SEVEN letters and numbers. According to the postcard, the new code identifies addresses down to a specific building on a street. If that is the case, we should be able to leave out the rest of the address! For example: Mr. Joe Borg, VLT01, Malta. I am so often baffled by bureaucracy’s attempts at “simplifying” things.

Moving on. Yesterday we had a nice family lunch at M’s parents’ house to celebrate M’s birthday. As I think I mentioned before, the Maltese take their politics very seriously, and it even influences which newspaper they read and which TV station they support. Interestingly, M’s father is of one party, and M’s brother-in-law is of another party, so when the conversation turned to politics yesterday, things got a bit… lively. I was amused to watch it all, as the Maltese can have very passionate and loud discussions. I did, FINALLY, manage to convince them to go at each other in Maltese instead of switching to English for my supposed benefit. And so I took it as a language lesson and quietly enjoyed my baked salmon while everyone else was too busy talking to actually eat. At one point they wanted to know my opinion. I was most amused when M’s father asked which party I supported. I have only been here for a few months! I am not even Maltese! Not to mention my disdain for politics and politicians. I watched it all as great entertainment and a cultural experience. Italians and others also talk loudly, but in a very different way. There is a particularly Maltese way of speaking loudly and passionately.

In other news, we renewed our gym membership. In fact, it expired a month ago but nobody seemed to have noticed. From the looks of it, we could have continued going indefinitely without anyone noticing, but both of our consciences were beginning to poke a finger. I went back to the gym today after a couple of weeks of laziness. Let us just say that halfway through the workout I had to admit defeat. How quickly one’s body loses its fitness!