I decided to do some christmas shopping today. And so did the rest of Malta I think! I took the bus to Valletta and stayed there for several hours looking for christmas decorations and christmas gifts.

In the afternoon I went to Sliema to buy some clothes and more gifts. when I was done I had 3 big shopping bags in each hand. After spending 20 min waiting for the bus I gave up and found and started looking for a taxi that could take me to St Julians. By then I was really tired.

10 min and €12 later – candy heaven!

I just couldn’t resist! I try not to eat candy, but when I left the store I had bought at almost 1 kilo of Malaco smågodis (pick n mix), OLW chips and ostbågar. Yammy!

Candynavia

Swedish candy!

My new slippers

I’ve been looking for slippers to wear at home for quite some time now. I didn’t want slippers with covered toes, ’cause then I feel to warm after a while. 99% of all cheap shoes they sell at the souvernir/stationary shops are flip-flops or similar, with a toe-thing… I like flip-flops but it’s impossible to wear both flip-flops and socks…

I found these slippers at the same place where I bought the ball for Gizmo’s birthday a month ago.

The stone floors are very cold now. And we use the heaters frequently. We had 17°c in the study this morning.

My favourite hair styling products!

I’ve had some big problems with my tangled hair the last few months. Usually a hair cut solves the problem, but not this time. It takes me 10, sometimes 15 minutes to comb through the hair after a shower, and it looks like half my hair ends up on the comb every time.

Before I moved here I bought some shampoo from my hairdresser and my hair has never looked or felt that good. So now I ordered some bottles from a Swedish web site (www.lyko.se) and they arrived a few days ago.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hope this will work!

This is an overview for normal letter, max weight 20g in Sweden/50g in Malta.

Local mail
Malta €0.19 (approx. 2.00 SEK)
Sweden 6.00 SEK (approx. €0.56)

Within Europe
Malta €0.37 (approx. 4.00 SEK)
Sweden 12.00 SEK (approx. €1.12)

Outside Europe
Malta €0.51 (approx. 5.50 SEK)
Sweden 12.00 SEK (approx. €1.12)

I must say that it felt very wierd to post the Christmas cards wearing t-shirt, in 18°C!

When we came to Paceville we saw a lot of people out in the street outside Eden Cinemas and the police had closed the road down to Bay street. We thought it was the Maltese movie “Maltageddon” that had premiere, but I read on Times of Malta that the cinemas had been evacuated because of something that might have been a bomb.

Eden cinemas briefly evacuated in bomb scare

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Eden Cinemas in Paceville this evening because of what informed sources said was a bomb scare.

Policemen and soldiers from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit were seen going in as people were pushed back from the street that runs between the cinemas.

The situation was described by people on the scene as being calm.

Patrons started being allowed back in after some 20 minutes.

Read article on Times of Malta

Evacuated people outside Eden Cinemas on Bay street

This is something I’ve seen in a lot of places here in Malta and I hope they’ll do something about it.

Facing life in a wheelchair

On any given day, I can hop into my car, drive to work, find a parking space, alight and rush up the stairs to the street and then onto the office.

I had never noticed the scheme of events in detail; it’s usually just one rushed blur, which I loosely called a “commute”, until I tried to spend a workday in the life of a wheelchair-bound person – specifically, wheelchair-bound me.

Read full article on Times of Malta

Stars are shining in our windows now

We didn't buy anything in the first shop.

Here they had a lot of stuff and we bought 2 Moravian stars

I think the maltese people like Christmas lights a lot. The more they blink the better it is. 

Flashing stars... not my type of Moravian star

Sweet memories!

In one of the stores I found porcelain figures just like the figures that me and my sister got when we were children. I still have mine, but it is broken and glued together again.

Mixed peel

We also went to Pavi’s for grocery shopping, and I bought ingredients for ginger bread and mulled wine (glögg). But we didn’t find all the spices for glögg. I think we spent 40 minutes trying to find bitter orange peels (pomerans-skal). The only peels they had was a box of diced and coloured mixed peels. I bought it of pure frustration, but I think I will use the peel from fresh oranges instead.

I really do like Christmas and all the shopping and everything. I just didn’t realize that first Sunday in Advent is less then a week away. In my mind I would say it’s still 4 or 5 weeks left until first Sunday in Advent. Yeah, no need to hurry.

But OK. I was wrong. So I do need to hurry.

Blev det fel i huvudet nu?

…as Kalle usually ask me when things don’t turn out the way I want it to and I get upset. I can be a control freak sometimes, I admit.

I’ve made a list.

• Advent wreath. It’s a must.
• Moravian star. Also a must.
• I would also like electric advent wreaths to put in the windows.
• Recipe for mulled wine (glögg). I’ve never made it myself. Only bought the ready-to-drink-bottles…
• Gingerbread would be nice.
• …and saffron buns!
• Red table cloths
• Lots of candles
• I want Julmust badly, but I guess I have to do without that this year.
• Some kind of Christmas decorations… maybe a small artificial Christmas tree?
• Christmas gifts for our guests and gifts to send to family and friends
• Christmas cards and stamps (I need to send them soon I guess…)
• Find out more about the local Christmas traditions
• Send my Christmas wish-list to Santa

Kalle asked me earlier today what I wanted to do this coming weekend. Now I know. Shopping!

Is there anyone who can help me with recipe for homemade Glögg?

New gas heater

It’s already chilly inside some days, so Kalle bought a gas heater at Pavi today.