My Trip to Malta
(Or: why I’m smarter than Italy.)

By: Lisa Pedersen, age: 30

       

Oooh, Mark’s so clever.  I want a website!  Well, in lieu of that, I’ll tell a story of my own here. When you’re done with it, he’ll rig it up so you can see one of my photos, too.  Yay technology!  Yay Mark!  Anyhoo—here we go.

Call me lame, but after a day of exploring and shopping for crap (4 snow domes in Malta alone!!) what I really love to do is check out the local TV. offerings in my hotel.  (That is when I’ve booked a hotel with a TV. …I’m about 50/50 on that score.)  While our hotel was fairly crap-tastic in Malta (we could here the upstairs neighbors water running in our room so loudly I actually had to ascertain that we weren’t flooding) we did in fact have a TV. …with a surreal variety of channels.  Because Maltese speak two official languages, English and Maltese, We expected plenty of English channels.  What we got instead was one English channel (well, 2 if you count the 24 hour Jesus station, and I didn’t), one German, 3 Maltese (including home shopping), one French and about 850 Italian. Fine.  I have a base in romantic languages—I can do Family Affair in Italian.  Well, OK, truth is I never much cared for Mr. French in English even, so I had to move on.  What I found was that our penchant for slow moving game shows has insidiously crept across the globe.  They do have Who Wants to be a Millionaire in Italy.  (Except they play for more, as 1,000,000 lira equals approximately 40 cents U.S.) I admit it, while I say I can’t stand the show, I was sucked in at once.  Here’s the thing:  You know those total morons they get for the show here?  They seem to draw from the same shallow end of the I.Q. pool in Italy!  It’s amazing!  Mark was busy trying to read on his bed while I found myself passionately pleading with Benito the Brainless to chose “bay!… insetto!…bay!  Insetto!  Insetto!” as he gravely inquired, “estatua?” (The question was what did the protagonist of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis turn into.  As if!  A frickin’ statue???!!!)  Guido finally got it after asking the audience, but still… this is not even my second language and I’m kicking the dude’s ass!  Mark managed to look up only once as if I had lost it during this little tantrum, but could no longer ignore me the next round as I was shouting (gentle pleading tone was all used up) “Il fratelli Gibb!”  Now to appreciate just what I was screaming I’ll give you the phonetic, and I want you to try it a few times.  “Eel frah-tell-ee Jeeb” Say it, it’s fun.  Now scream it.  “Il fratelli Gibb!  Il fratelli Gibb!!  Oh come on you moron, Il fratelli Gibb!!!)  Dumbass had to use his phone a friend to find out the “The brothers Gibb” (more commonly known to you and I as the BeeGees) were responsible for the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. The rest of the story is the same as if I were watching at home.  I had to turn it off.  Sometimes it’s no fun being smarter than your whole; no make that TWO whole countries.

Now you can go look at my picture. It’s a dog in Mdina.