Malta in the care of a good friend

And here i am...Malta (for those of you who don't know, it's a small island south of Italy :)

i left home on the 29th of December after 20+ inches of blowing snow (thats about 51 cm of snow, i'm slowly learning to convert to metric...) and a wonderfully laid back Christmas with my family. Gifts were far to many and ridiculously appropriate for the my northward destination - two nice base layer shirts, a clever hat/scarf combo from the ever wonderful Aunt Connie, and a total of 7 pairs of warm socks (most wool), as well as a new hiking pack (an Osprey, i almost can't believe i actully own one! **thank you brother of mine!!!

i'm fairly certain i've packed far too much, packing warm just seems to take up lots of space, and based on the airlines, i'm still not sure if i can get all my luggage all the way to Bodø. Apparently the rules differ for flying about Europe and for flying internationally. Yet more i have learned!

Mom, my sister, and Megan dropped me off at the airport and i began a 21 hour journey to the Mediterranean. Two notes: running through O'Hare can get stressful and Frankfurt is huge! Allow time...

En and her family picked me up in the 60˚ (Farenheit...i am only getting used to this whole Celcius thing) Maltese weather, and i proceeded to stare at the palm trees, pretty churches, and ground terraced with picturesque stone walls. It was 1PM in Malta and 6AM at home by the time i landed.

En's family has been so gracious and lovely. En and her boyfriend Neal have dashed me all over the island too. i've seen so much and pictures will go up soon after this post, and on facebook too i suppose. The night of the day i got in was finished with a gorgeous sunset along the cliffs on Malta's west coast.

New Year's Eve was spent at a party in an honest-to-goodness fort from 1657, the kind that dots Malta's coast. This Nebraska girl wore a black dress and mingled in the mix of Maltese and English conversation. Though i was rather out of place among such people, i hope everyone's New Year's was just as lovely.

This has turned into a rather long post, i will have more soon. Hopefully this will be an interesting thing to read if you care to follow me from sunny Malta to a six month stint in the arctic circle in Norway.