Day 15 - BA5 takes the lead

Malta….

Dghajsa…a Maltese water taxi…

7/6/22. Wednesday Day 7 on Cruise

Although I’m on vacation, I have TWO 6-week, accelerated, online summer classes at College No. 2 that went live, yesterday. Due to the upgraded WiFi package Mom kindly purchased, as well as L.’s laptop, I was able to post content without incident, which was a relief. From this point forward, I have to check my Canvas shells daily to ensure that I’m responding to any emails and/or questions from the students within 24 hours. This is the standard time frame for DE [Distance Education] classes and meets Admin expectations. Waiting two days to respond is really pushing it.

6:00-8:15 - Meeting times for our remaining excursions are between 8:00 and 10:00 am for the remainder of the cruise. This morning, we’re going to Malta and we’re meeting at the Escape Theater at 8:30. I’m up at 6:00 so I can get ready and still have time for my “protein” breakfast prior to our excursion. L. doesn’t bother having breakfast, but I need coffee, bacon, and eggs before any type of physical activity - carbs will give me a sugar crash.

I’m back at our stateroom by 7:30; Mom has breakfast in her cabin again. She said she played Bingo yesterday. I was poolside most of the time, before switching to the stone beds in the spa, and L. was with Colin. Where S&M were is anybody’s guess.

8:15-4:00 - All of us meet outside our staterooms and walk to Escape Theater. Once we arrive, it is packed, but by Day 7, us passengers are pros at excursion assembly and it’s very orderly…everyone’s just sitting around, waiting for their name to be called so they know which bus to get on.

Here’s the terrifying part: many of the passengers appear to be sick. At the meeting place for our first excursion, there were infrequent, isolated coughs coming from passengers in unspecified areas of the room. Now, it’s been seven days and the coughing, initially, seems to be concentrated on the right side of the theatre…but, while we’re waiting, it starts to move…you know…like a wave at a football game when fans abruptly stand up and sit down? The coughing is making it’s way from right to left, like an animal, winding through the Escape Theater in a circular fashion. This coughing chorus is so disconcerting that I point it out to L. and she puts her mask on immediately; mine was on before we even entered the Theater. We’re finally provided with our bus number and, once on the bus, L. and I mask up. People throughout the bus are coughing uncontrollably, but the windows don’t open and we can’t breathe in any fresh air - it’s like being on a sealed airplane. I pray our masks hold, but I doubt they can keep Covid at bay. Nobody else seems to care.

The name of this excursion is Three Cities and a Boat Ride and I have to say, it’s one of the worst. I started referring to the tour as Three Cities and a Funeral [get it? after that movie Three Weddings and a Funeral? - whatever]. The island of Malta contains three cities - Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua - and the majority of the buildings are constructed from a strange type of yellow stone (we learn that it’s limestone). If you want to be charitable, you can refer to it as having a “golden hue”; in photo-shopped pictures of the island, the buildings shimmer. Up close, however, the color resembles baby diarrhea - it’s ugly - and the city looks old, poor, and tired. Nothing like the grandeur of Athens and the Acropolis.

This excursion involves bussing the passengers from one city to another, parking the bus where there is not one iota of shade, and then leading us on a guided walking tour through alleys between apartment buildings, where laundry hangs from makeshift clotheslines three to four floors up. Cables and wires are also hanging, strung horizontally in a jumble between the alleys, and they take away from the beauty of the architecture. None of this matters, though, because it is so hot, I can’t even see straight. I don’t know where we’re going…we seem to be traipsing through alley after alley with no real explanation of what we’re seeing. In fact, I think we’re actually walking through Maltese slums, but I can’t be certain of it. The sun is beating down on us and there’s no shade to speak of anywhere. M. thinks of everything and brought parasols for her and my brother and bandanas soaked in ice water, that are now dry as a bone.

Lest you think I’m exaggerating, it is so hot that my right shoe disintegrates - it actually falls apart! I pull the rubber band from my hair and wrap it around my shoe, in an attempt to keep it together, but it’s not effective and my shoe makes a slapping sound with every step. The bottom of my foot is exposed to the dirty cobblestones because a rubber band is incapable of holding an entire shoe together, so I excuse myself to go to a public restroom and stuff the bottom of my shoe with toilet paper. The bathroom is filthy and filled with flies and two old men who are sitting on the floor, trying to escape the heat - its disgusting. Unfortunately, in order to access the toilet, you need a quarter to insert in the door of the stall. My Mom actually has a quarter! - I can’t believe it - and gives it to me. I stuff handfuls of toilet paper in the bottom of my shoe. When I exit the bathroom, everyone has gone ahead - the tour guide didn’t bother to wait for me - and are waiting in line to board a…canoe?…it can hardly be called a boat. Remember - the name of this excursion is called Three Cities and a Boat Ride.

Here’s the description from our Shore Excursion ticket:

Dghajsas [traditional water taxi from Malta] can hold up to 6 passengers per boat and are not covered. During summer months, expect high temperatures. We recommend that you drink a lot of water and use suitable sun protection.

What an understatement.

The best part of the excursion is this unsafe boat ride. All of us are sitting in a rickety canoe, NO life jackets, manned by an unskilled laborer. We could easily capsize and drown - there is no lifesaving equipment anywhere - but it is sooo nice and cool on the boat and rowing around on the water provides instant relief from the relentless heat. Plus, we get to sit down. If the tour goes any longer, I’ll be barefoot, walking on scalding cobblestones.

The boat ride is way too short. It’s time to get back on the bus, but I can’t figure out where we’re going. We drive…somewhere…which city are we in now?…and end up parked on a huge expanse of concrete with absolutely no shade and no place to sit down. Apparently, there are incredible views here??? I can’t figure it out. Finally, mercifully, the bus takes us back to the ship. When I ask L. for her first impression of this excursion, she replies, “Everything seemed old and poor.” LOL

6:30 - 8:30 - After I recuperate, we meet around 6:30 and walk to Savor? Taste? At this point, they’re interchangeable. At dinner, my Mom makes the first of several attempts, over the next couple of days, to try and convince S&M to call A. [their son / my nephew], just to say “Hi”, while he is away at Microsoft camp. Each time, S&M politely refuse, saying they’re sure he’s fine and doing well. My Mom thinks S&M’s refusal may have something to do with their 250-minute allotment and even offers to let them use the phone in her cabin, on her dime. Nope…nada. They still won’t make the call. It’s a mystery why they don’t.

As dinner unfolds, I have choice words for my cousin, C., who promised to “check in” on my Dad while we’re on vacation. She doesn’t. We’re currently on the 10th day and she has yet to call my Dad, much less look in on him, although C. is diligently feeding S&M’s cat regularly. So, okay, because of this, I refer to my cousin as a “f—king b—ch”, much to the horror of the table. The family seems shocked at this label and when I explain that my Dad is “very sick” and C. reneged on her promise, the table responds that my Dad is, in fact, NOT very sick and give C. a pass on her shitty behavior. Shouldn’t my Dad be more important than S&M’s cat?!

Spoiler Alert: In November, my parents will casually be told by a doctor, who happens to be filling in for my Dad’s regular doctor, that his chart shows a diagnosis of Myelofibrosis, “an uncommon type of bone marrow cancer…similar to chronic leukemia.” It appears this diagnosis may have been delivered over a year ago…except nobody bothered to tell my parents. Can we say “negligence?” A lawsuit should be filed against these assholes! In December, my Dad will be diagnosed with a Mitral Valve Prolapse. He is 82-years-old.

I should note that M. is coughing at dinner…this is a concern. She coughs into her napkin at all times.

8:30-9:00 - L. and I go back to our cabin. She leaves immediately and doesn’t return until around 1:00 a.m., having largely ignored my texts. Lest you think I’m some crazy, neurotic mother, bombarding her adult daughter with texts like “WHERE ARE YOU!”, I sent THREE over the course of four hours. L. responds once…vaguely.

Today was a long day, but I have difficulty sleeping because L. is on the ship with a strange man whom I’ve never met and know nothing about. I don’t even know where they are. I stay awake, watching crappy CNN news, until L. finally decides to return to the cabin.