During the week from 30 May to 6 June the class 6B was on a language trip to Malta. With us 17 was our teacher and great leader Mr. Sachatonicsek and our form teacher Mrs. Baumgartner.
After our arrival at Malta International Airport (about 1pm), we were taken by taxis to our host families in Sliema. Our host daddy – as I prefer to call him – took us around, showed us the way to the school etc. In the afternoon, we met our teachers at a place called “Sliema Ferries” and walked to a rocky beach with salty deposits from the dried sea water.
On the second day – Tuesday – we saw the school (AM Language) from the inside for the first time. The classes were about half the size of a GRG3 room, our group numbered 8 students. Instead of a blackboard there was a Touch Panel PC on the wall, on which we played kahoot and got topics to discuss in pairs. Fun fact: The toilets of the school were small but very tidy – as seen in the photo (unlike toilets from another unspecified school…).
But to be fair, the AM Language is privately funded, so there’s a much larger budget for school equipment as our (kind) teacher Philip told me.
At noon, we took the bus (bye bye 1.50€ 😢) to the Golden Bay Beach, at which we noticed that one of us – Falco – turned out to be a “jellyfishmagnet”, as which he involuntarily kept us the animals from the body…
On Wednesday we visited the former capital city of Malta, Mdina and Rabat. Mdina is built like a fortress and was used as a shelter for the civilian population in case of an attack by an enemy country – Malta has been under control by several foreign powers such as the Romans, the British, the French and the Arabs. Mdina is called the “Silent City” because only a few people live there and even less work there. However, we ate incredible delicious types of chocolate cake at “Fontanella Tea Garden”.
The next day after school, our leader took us to a destination called “Beach Club”. There was a seawater pool with connection to the sea, where we also got visited by jellyfish quite often. After watching one of the lifeguards trying to catch all the jellyfishes, another student – Robin – took the catcher and basically stole the lifeguards’ job (“always those damn Austrians, taking our jobs”).
On Friday, we spent most of the day in the capital city of Malta, Valletta (which some of us might have visited earlier during our free afternoons to drink some nice lemon juice and nothing except that). Valletta is also built like a fortress and has been the nations capital since the 16th century. After our tour of the city, we watched a brief history show about Valletta in a 5d cinema.
On our penultimate day we visited the islands Gozo and Comino. We spent the first few hours walking through the capital city of Gozo (Victoria), eating delicious ice-cream and Pastizzi (maltese food) by a very competent and funny salesman, and of course viewing some sights in Victoria (like the Basilika San Ġorġ).
Later, we were taken to the smaller island Comino, where we had some free time. On the return trip with the speedboats, the captain begrudged us extra time on the boat, which our leader used to show us some dance moves.
Our departure back to Austria began on Sunday at 3:45am, a quite lovely time. After saying goodbye to our hostfamily, we were taken back to the airport where we entered our plane back home at around 7am.
Some of us might have drunk 2 liters of cold and fresh “Österreichisches Hochquellwasser” after our arrival in Austria.
By
Daniel Apel
With help from
Markus Boules
