Knowing that I needed to be up early for the flight, I managed to get my head down around 11pm which made crawling out my bed at 04:30 a tiny bit more tolerable. I got ready efficiently which left me plenty of time to anxiously recheck I'd not forgot to pack anything and also repeatedly do sweeps of the house ensuring everything was in order, plug sockets off, windows closed etc. Tez picked me up around 6am and drove us all to Manchester Airport. We parked up on Ringway and got the shuttle bus to Terminal 3; Stace innocently pointed at a suitcase on the rack and said "look Ben, a Juventus badge"... not realising it was my own suitcase 😂
At security, I dodged under the barrier and almost tripped some poor lass up 🤦🏼♂️ then some kid accidentally opened the barrier further down the queue, and I failed trying to close it. I later discovered that the girl I almost tripped up had told Tez & Stace that I'd also opened the barrier! 😂 I waltzed through security thankfully since the staff kept fearmongering that there would be a 45-minute wait if your case needed to be checked 🙄 We secured seating at the Lion and Antelope around 08:15; Moz paid £8 for a dreadful looking sandwich, and the waiter forgot Tez's beans (he'd ordered extra but they brought him none whatsoever - then they took away his plate of food, and returned with the beans in a little bowl?). I settled for just having a pint. Fuck these airport prices. We boarded the plane around 9am. Moz got flustered fighting to get his seatbelt on, much to our shameful amusement. Ryanair skimp on everything, even the fabric used to make the seatbelts it seems. On route to Malta, we played Pointless from a book that Tez had the forethought to pack, whilst having a cheeky little beverage. I was also introduced to Moz's newly established tradition of opening Pokemon Cards on flights, which is utterly bizarre to be honest! 😂 a woman sitting in front of Moz ordered a Ham & Cheese Panini and when it came, it had no cheese on and she was so confused; you probably had to be there to find it as amusing as I did! 🤣
We finally arrived in Malta around 2pm local time, and headed briskly through Passport Control who found it necessary to stamp on random pages rather than the sensible chronological one. Moz nipped off and secured us all our weekly travel cards for the buses. We got onto our transfer minibus without much ado, and arrived at Luna Holiday Complex just shy of 4pm. We checked in, paid the €8 tourist tax, and headed around to Apartment 5202 where we'd be staying for the week. The lodgings were modest but sufficient; there were a few issues such as the guest wifi not connecting, the safe not working, and the air-con in the kitchen area not responding. We headed around to reception and made them aware of the faults, preferring to get everything resolved out the way rather than putting it off. The guy on reception was utterly fucking useless when it came to resolving the wifi issue. On the way back to the room we popped into the local shop and stocked up on essentials for our stay such as coffee, milk, fresh juice, and various snacks. The Maltese biscuits were incredible. A maintenance engineer attended our apartment and resolved the issues we'd identified, ultimately replacing the entire safe as he couldn't get it to work 🤯 - it turned out the air-con unit was turned off by a power socket hidden behind the toaster 🤣
Finally by 18:45 we were able to leave Luna and head off to actually explore the vicinity. We caught a bus up to Mellieħa and headed straight for an eatery called Tal Puzzu which Moz had earmarked for our enjoyment. The menu was ample and we enjoyed local foods including swordfish, octopus, lamb and rabbit; washing it all down with our first pints of the local beer, Cisk. Once we'd had our fill, Moz led the way to the next venue he'd listed, SQuare Gastro Bar. Whilst trying to locate it amid the labyrinth of stairs and narrow streets, Moz wound up looking for it inside the grounds of The Parish Church of Mellieħa. By 9pm, I was sat with a pint of Hopleaf, the local pale ale, with Spain vs. Albania playing on the TV. Admittedly, I wasn't paying much attention however, as I was on my phone looking at photos of Lysh on her school trip to Blue Peris and messaging Ree in relief that she seemed to be enjoying it! Stace ordered a hot chocolate which was served as a cup of literal melted chocolate 😂
After we'd finished up our drinks, we had a pleasant walk around to the 120 Bar who kindly moved seats to accommodate us. The Italy vs. Croatia match was airing, and one area of the room was occupied by what appeared to be a school trip of Italian children. There seemed to be a solo older male supervising the kids, but he was more bothered about watching the match, so all these underage kids were evidently drinking alcohol. A few of the girls seemed hammered. We remained in 120 Bar until they were closing up shop around midnight, at which point we had a stroll back down the bank to our apartment including fucking around in dilapidated ruins on the way! Once we got back to Luna, a deck of cards appeared and we sat around the table munching snacks and playing Fish until we called it a day at 01:30ish
