Thoughts From Malta International Airport

I was awake before my alarm this morning. Staring into space in the dark waiting for the buzzer. We were early to the airport, i always am, arriving at around 6am but my flight was delayed till 10am. I feel a bit nauseous, too much coffee and not enough sleep. Dad and I wandered round the bookshop together until he had to leave for work. I almost wish I had got the bus because the last goodbyes at the airport are just the worst and my tummy churns. In Malta airport you say goodbye at the entrance to the security que, like in most places I guess. Except that here, after you have been through security you have to go up an escalator past the check-in desks to get through to the departure lounge. As the escalator climbs there is always that moment when I wonder if my mum or dad has waited for me to go through the secirity checks and is standing, looking sad and small, holding on for a last wave and smile. Dad was there this morning holding his Madagascar Lonely Planet and waving. That made me cry so I walked through the duty free all weepy with a lump in my throat trying not no catch the eye of any of the spritzing perfume ladies.

Daddy waiting for the last goodbye

I always feel a bit odd when i leave the island, and being on the cusp of this next adventure and not knowing when I will be back makes it worse. It is like there is a tough old piece of elastic which connects the pit of my stomach to the yellow limestone and when you try and leave it pulls back and gives you a tummy ache. When I was 16 and I left Malta I had grown bitter and angry, a typical teenager pushing back against a small, traitional community, determined to never return. Needless to say as I have grown my feelings toward my home have changed and leaving the saftey, security and comfort of the island now feels like taking that one last deep breath before you dive off the ciffs, just hoping that you'll hit the water safely and surface for air on the other side.

I know dad will be sad at work today and everyone wil wonder why he is being grumpy and snappy. And mum will go about her day with Pierre and be thinking of me and wondering if I have gotten on the plane yet, whether i have landed, if I have got on a tube all right at the other side. Their heaviness is in such contrast to the excitment I feel from Brian who will be jiggling his legs under his work desk, knowing that when he gets home later i will have already let myself in, unpacked and started thinking about dinner. It makes me feel better to think about what I am going to rather than what i am leaving behind this morning... I only hope I feel that way next Tuesday when it's him I am leaving and an expanse of unknown before me. I'd better swat up on all the lemurs that have their cute fluffy babies this month in Madagascar so i will have something to visualise the plane moving towards next week. Maybe I should print some pictures out... funny ones to look at if I get weepy. I hate crying in confined public spaces like planes, it just makes everyone so intensly uncomfortable.

Talking of lemurs, mum and  I went to see Madagascar 3 yesterday in 3D. We went at 2:15pm and it was being shown in the biggest screen of the cinema complex, the one with over 370 seats, and mum and I were the only 2 people in there. Mum kept forgetting and when I said something she'd look around worridly in the dark and shush me. It was her first 3D film and i wish I had recorded her. Every time something flew through the screen she'd yelp or duck. One time she jumped and put her hands up near her face but she was holding the popcorn so it flew into the air and all landed on the floor and seats of the row behind- thank goodness we were the only ones there! I don't know if the film was really that funny or if it was mum and her cinema antics but I didn't stop laughing for 2 hours, much needed for us both i think.

Mum in the cinema- before she spilled the popcorn

I am feeling like a propper techy as I write this blog actually, I am still waiting to board the delayed flight and I am using my new tablet (a nexus 7 from google) and a tiny bluetooth keyboard my uncle recommended to make typing easier (i hate the touchscreen keyboards). I know that technology is becoming the enemy of human interaction in many ways but more and more recently it has become my friend, a lifeline to myself. My aunt and uncle bought me a mac as a present for graduation and for using while i am away. Betweem that and this tablet thing I have not only got my skype, emails and now this blog, which make me feel so much closer to those I love, but also lots of e-books, films and series which can keep me company on those nights when I really feel lonely and have no interest in struggling to make small talk in my pigeon French at some cafe or bar. Who could ever fee lonely or sad when the entire expanse of Downton Abbey, The Big Bang Theory ahead of them or feel scared while being lulled to slepp by the lyrical tones of the one and only Sir David Attenborough.

Haha, this has turned out to be quite long. Points for all those who have reached the end. Struggling to decide who this blog is for now really, those of you who asked to be kept up to date while i am away of myself, as some wierd kind of personal therapy. Wonder if everyone has the internal monologue which follows me around all the waking hours of the day, and some non-waking ones too!