5 very good reasons to move to Malta

Here's the list of the 5 best reasons to move to Malta:

300 Days of sun
Malta (and soon I will too) enjoys 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. That's double the amount of the UK, and it beats the warmest parts of Italy too by 500 hours. I will be gladly swapping the brolly with sunscreen, and see if I can get as brown as Donatella Versace, minus the skin ageing.
In winter, the average lowest temperature is 11°C by night. That means no central heating required, cheap & green. Nice.

Life is going to be a beach
Good thing about living on a tiny island: you are never too far from the sea, and a very pretty sea at that. Though I am not really the beach type, I'm kind of looking forward a change of environment, especially one with never ending blue waters that go easy on the eyes, and on the mind as well.

Better quality of life
True, professionally speaking leaving a nice job in London to move to Malta, does make a lot of people cringe (especially my mum). However when one takes into account the hours of work and the hours to commute, the wages compared to the costs of living, and other things like the quality of the food, the environment, it becomes apparent that Malta is a better choice. Malta might not be the country you move to for your career, but is the country to move to if you want a healthier balance in your life.  After all, what is the point of spending the best of my time working and commuting, living in a student-like accommodation to be able to save sufficient funds to buy a small hole far away from central London?

Affordable housing
Very shortly: I might actually be able to own a property here, people. I've been looking forward my own house since a very long time. I have ten thousands boards on Pinterest I have been waiting to put to good use!

Love is in the maltese air
I haven't spent a long time in Malta yet, but my first impression was that it was a very happy little island. Without being lame, maltese people are the friendliest and warmest people i ever met. The whole island is welcoming, and also very family oriented. I'm a bit of a 'northerner' when it comes to family, which means that I tend care a lot about the closest one and rarely see distant ones (Joey thought that was a bit cold at the beginning, but he had to admit that both ways have their pro and cons). I think in Malta the concept of distant family only applies to family that actually lives abroad.
The criminality rate is very low, and you feel safe pretty much every where.

(6th unofficial reason: Maltese puppies, because... c'mon! do you need a reason?)

The Old and The New

Have you ever had to decorate a room from scratch, and find that you can't make your mind up on how you would like it to be? My dilemma usually is that from one side I like vintage things, old looking relics saved from dumpsters or charity shops - and on the other side, I want the practicality and the comfort of more modern furniture. Vintage things seem to have more soul than new looking things, but if you over do it you are left with the feeling that you are stuck in a time capsule and resilient to change. Modernity, with its clean lines an immaculate appeal, on the other hand is only a fleeting state as whatever is modern now is doomed to become obsolete in a short while. The perfect solution for that is mixing the two, and luckily for us indecisive types, it seems to be quite the popular style at the moment.

London managed this extremely well. The old goes with the new, the flamboyant with the tame and the rich with the common, nothing is out of place here because there is a place for everything.  When I visit my friends back home, for a night out in Milan I really struggle to choose what to wear, as it does matter. You feel you need to fit in. It doesn't mean that you always have to be polished, but you better know where you are going and dress appropriately. Mixing doesn't feel right there. Mixing in London instead is expected. It goes beyond the architecture, you will find different menus in restaurant with different types of cuisine under the same roof, different stlye of clothing, of music, of everything. And it reflects a lot on yourself too, you suddenly feel more at ease, you will try new outfits, visit new places, talk to people you wouldn't talk to normally, and you are safe in the knowledge that is going to be really hard to get it wrong.

TFL and A to Z

Finally, the movers came over the weekend to pick up 14 years worth of stuff and things. The flat now positively looks like a Muji catalogue, besides the original vintage burgundy fitted carpet. Was it burgundy in the seventies? I guess we'll never know.

So, back to us and the thing I will be missing from London: let's hear it for TFL! wohoo!
Yes, I know, it is weird to sing the praise of TFL. Well, that only means that you clearly never had to live in a place where rail strikes are a weekly occurrences, where no one knows what goes where (including the staff)and the only people using public transport are the elderly, the underage or the people that can't afford a car. A place where buses are usually late but you are so used to it you won't even get mad, but on the opposite, you just feel exhilarated when you manage to spot the bus silhouette forming at the horizon like a strange mirage of hope. Night transport is something that basically doesn't exists, because after all, the elderly, the underage and the slightly poor people shouldn't go out at night anyway, either because they can't or because they can't afford it.

Before mobiles became the extensions of our limbs, people used to rely on tube maps and A to Z guides to move around London. I still own one, always kept it in case of a viral zombie invasion and subsequent power shortage. After all, I will need to know where I am going during a zombie apocalypse. I got my very own A to Z right after landing in Heathrow, far back in September 2001. I came straight to from the airport to Oxford Street with a suitcase (containing 6 months worth of winter clothing AND with only one working wheel) and a backpack. The next trip of the day was a bus fare from Oxford Street to King's Cross, to my new flat. I clearly remember feeling smug about it too (look at me, little foreign girl manages to go where she was meant to, in another country! Go Anna!). That smug feeling kinda wore off pretty quickly, as soon as I realised that any idiot could do that, but it still left an impression on my car owning mum and my car owning auntie though (so young and so brave! - yes yes I am!). Point is, moving in London is extremely easy. 24 hours transports, wow. You can get completely shit faced and still get home safely, even if you live in the sticks. It might take you hours, but you will get there baby!
Also, some routes are down right beautiful. If you have family members or friends visiting, instead of going to the tacky guided bus tour with the annoying tour guide talking all the times, I would recommend you take the bus route 11 from Liverpool Street. It takes you through the City passing down the Strand, up to Westminster. Thank me later :)

There’s always something

So, it's Monday and the weekend is over,  and it was a good weekend at that. Our before-last-weekend in London was graced with a lot of friendly faces at our goodbye braai (which is like a barbecue, but a bit better). 

Garden ready for the goodbye braai

Done with the partying, in with the packing. Whilst I was packing away like a compulsive octopus-beast on speed and giving Joey a hard time (I'm packerzilla, apparently), I was thinking about writing this post. I wanted to call it 'Things to do' because, if you haven't guessed it yet, there are many many things you can do in London. When I relate that to my daily life, divided between Netflix, work, commute, gym contemplation, guilt post gym contemplation, Netflix, bed (repeat times 4 until the weekend) I kind of feel a teeny weeny hypocritical. Just because there are a hundred and one things you could do, it doesn't actually mean that you get to do all of them, but it certainly feels great to have the choice. Gigs in almost any borough, festivals, creepy victorian school turned museum opening at night, italian plays played in french with english subtitles (yes, subtitles in a theatre), free open cinemas, Bogan Bingos... whatever blows your skirt. 
And if you feel like the hermit that you are, no one will judge you - with one hundred and one things to do, everyone is exhausted after all.

The Londoners

Fav 2: The Londoners

With a population of 45% White British and 55% Randoms, you can rest assured that London can definitely be called multicultural. But that's not all: 37% of the whole London population is born outside the UK - that's one in every three people. I'll let that sink in. 

Despite that, most natives are open minded and welcoming, they are used to us Randoms and we don't phase them very much. Also, you can't really tell if they like you or not.  I am not saying that Londoners are nicer, or that once you step out of zone 6 they will start chasing you with torches and pitchforks - I am just saying that at the general elections in May this year, Labour dominated London's polls. It's not me, they crunched the numbers, and it turns out that Londoners are a pretty cool and liberal crowd. 

On a practical level, this means that you can struck the most unusual conversations just by waiting for your coffee, taking a cab, talking with a colleague's colleague or having a pint. If you stay open, the most mundane interactions can become something unique, funny, and sometime terrifying.  The terrifying ones are good too because they make great stories. It's a pity that after a while it becomes routine, you loose the sense of how special it is to meet all these people from all over the world. 

The Real Londoner is never surprised, never phased or shocked, because s/he has seen so much. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as this attitude can give people the freedom to be as they are. 

I love this London, with millions of faces and none, that at times it makes you feel like you own it and some other it just rolls off of you like rain. In the most fortunate cases you will meet kindred spirits and make friends, and wonder how on earth these souls have so many things in common with you.

Referentiality

Well, with 16 days to go I decided that I will entertain you with five of my favourite things about London, one at a time. After that, five of my favourite things about moving to Malta. If you have ever clubbed, you will know this technique as the downer-upper, which is a big no-no. 

Fav 1: Referentiality

It always amazes me that is so easy to find glimpses of London in so many books and movies, places i came to know so well. I come from a small town in Italy and I used to get excited if in a foreign book the closest big city (Milan) would be mentioned, even if in very small type in the footnotes. 

In London you are part of the choreography, people. From Harry Potter to Sherlock Holmes via Bridget Jones, together with The Who, The Clash, Oliver Twist, A Clockwork Orange, Adele, Sex Pistols, My Fair Lady, the Beatles, Peter Pan, The 101 Dalmatians, Jack the Ripper, Cat Stevens, About a Boy, James Bond, A Christmas Carol, Blur, Notting Hill, Amy Winehouse, Pink Floyd, Charlie Chaplin, Led Zeppelin... please stop me. The list goes on, and these are just a few. 

In three occasions yours truly brushed shoulders with the golden people. Once I was with Joey in Camden and Amy Winehouse asked us for a cigarette. I didn't have any. I frantically tried to roll her one but she walked away. Her back looked amazing, it's imprinted in my memory.

Once I spoke with the bass player of the Clash. I was with my good friends, who I am going to call Flamingirl and Flaminguy. Flamingirl and Flaminguy share similar qualities, they both are nice, fair, wise and wiseass at the same time, they are both born & bred in London, which makes of them a rare flamingo breed indeed.  Since the time of the Clash-spotting, Flamingirl became officially my english sister, my brit-benefactor, a never ending dispenser of grammar and swag. Anyway, we were having drinks in a pub in Notting Hill, chatting away and smoking. Flaminguy spotted the bass player of the Clash. I knew and loved the Clash since the tender age of 13, being introduced to them by the older sister of my cooler friend. I could have recited their lyrics by heart, but I had no idea what their names were and how they looked like. Before you judge me, please remember that my generation didn't have Google and we relied on home made tapes. Well, Mr Simonon (as I later found out) was not very pleased. He was trying to light a cigarette while holding Sainsbury's bags, and he practically disappeared when I wasn't looking. Sly puss.

Once i took the picture of my Starbuck's colleague and the drum player of the Queen. I had no idea who he was until my colleague told me, after he left the store. 

If it seems like a lot, I can assure you it's not. Stories like mine are very common, and usually more exciting. Point is, history was and is made here, and you get to be part of it. 

FAQ

Once you decided to move and you make it public, it is inevitable that the people that care about you will ask you questions. A lot of questions. I am usually happy to leave the talking to Joey (my husband-to-be), as he loves it. As for me, it depends entirely on my mood and who is doing the asking. If you are lucky, you will get a yes/no answer and a smile, but if you are not, be prepared to lose half hour listening to incoherent rants about life, death and the importance of futility. Especially if drinks are around. At the end of that forever lost half hour, you still won't have a clue, and neither will I.

The most common questions I've been asked are: are you excited? followed by: are you scared? 

Yes, I am excited. I know I am scowling while I say it but I truly am. Thing is, London has been really good to me and I don't feel like blowing fireworks just yet. This city welcomed me when I was a dorky young girl until I finally grew and became a dorkier young woman (I use the term young loosely). I made very happy memories here and I met some wonderful people I hate to leave behind.

Yes, I am scared. Of course I'm scared, I am not insane. I am moving to a country that is smaller than the city I am currently living in. To give you an idea, crossing Malta will take the same time as visiting my friend in North London would, without traffic. I have to start (again) everything from scratch, including finding a job. Who wouldn't be scared? But I tell you what scares me the most: that in 5, 10 years time I'll be exactly where I am today.

Operation n1: Killing the dreaded first post

So this is how it feels to post on your very own blog... This is just a test post to see how it all comes together, but while I'm at it I might as well tell you a bit about 'the rambling flamingo'. I'm a 30 something year old, who is about to move from gorgeous London to sunny Malta, whilst getting married in Italy in the process. Keeping in touch with family and friends can be difficult, and I hope this blog will allow people to follow along if, and when, they want to. 

In case you are wondering, this is the countdown:

- 18 days to the big move

- 46 days to the wedding

I have a list of things to do I like to mumble every night before I go to bed in such manner that would make Arya dizzy with anxiety. Despite all of that, I spent the good part of the past three hours naming the blog and writing this first post. Some of you may enjoy the fact that originally I wanted to name it 'Dr Jre - the Xplicit', in homage to fierce turn of the century gangsta hip hop. I realize that not all of you might be big fans as I am, (though between us, this says more about you than it does about me) so I reluctantly let that go. For the moment.