We wandered lonely as a cloud...

Where do I begin? Yesterday was a day of epic proportions, and I honestly feel ill-equipped to describe it. (Long narratives/travelogues aren't my forte hehe). I went on a hike. Yes. Me. Hike. They do not usually go together. I love walking but I don't ever actually get down to doing a lot of it. I guess my friends and I are just very bad hike-organisers (for want of a better word). Or else it's just the fact that I never get down to doing 75% of what I am really keen on doing, which is an alarmingly true statement about my life history.

Anyways, Claire wanted to go on a trip to the countryside in order to take some nice pictures, and, after postponing it a couple of times (my fault again!!!), we decided to go on the 1st of May i.e. yesterday. We met at Valletta at around ten in the morning and decided to go to Zurrieq. Our destination: Wied iz-Zurrieq. Claire and I had hardly ever been to Zurrieq, let alone to Wied iz-Zurrieq, so it all looked like one big sunny adventure. Apparently, at Wied iz-Zurrieq you get the best of both worlds- sea and countryside, so off we went! At around eleven we arrived in the main square of this lovely village, got off the bus and started strolling through the quaint narrow roads in the direction of where we imagined the Wied would be. That was our problem- we imagined rather than found out or checked. Anyhow, after walking for one and a half hours, in which we only managed to come across one very ambiguously stationed signpost, we reached the ruins of an old chapel dedicated to St. Catherine of Baqqari. This is a quiet rundown little place, with white flowers scattered all over, which made me declare this as the place I want to get married in someday, but it is meaningful to our journey because it was the last sign of civilization which we passed by before getting lost. And then we got lost. It felt like we were in a movie and Zurrieq was standing in for the countryside of some vast country. The paths were endless and my continuous singing of the Beatles' "The long and winding road" must have made them seem even more endless for poor Claire. Finally we reached the sea, a feat we had thought much easier in an island as small as Malta. But we could not actually get down to the sea, as we found ourselves on cliffs. So we trudged on along the cliffs until we were scared away by three barking dogs and the oncoming end of the last flickers of hope that the Wied still actually existed.

To cut a long story short, we decided to sit and eat and take pictures on the cliffs. Then, after risking our lives looking for the Wied in what was clearly a hunter-colonized territory, we finally gave up and had the brilliant idea to bathe our tired dusty feet at Birzebbugia rather than Zurrieq. We arrived at Birzebbugia at 5.30, exactly six and a half hours after starting our adventure. You can imagine how it felt for two rather geographically-challenged young ladies to be standing clueless in the middle of a grey, hideous, deserted industrial estate in the middle of nowhere on a scorching May afternoon. It still beats me how we managed to keep walking and walking... and walking and walking till we finally caught a glimpse of good old Birzebbugia. Finally we could just put our very tired feet in the cold sea. Our noble mission was accomplished and immortalized on camera. Afterwards we bought a chocolate doughnut each and rode the bus back home.

Ah what a day! Even writing about it has tired me out (Only God knows what reading it will do to you poor souls). However it was certainly a memorable and lovely day, and the sunshine seems to have recharged me for the last month of hard work at university. Thanks Claire!!! P.S. Once more no energy to proofread, so excuse any mistakes,

Till next time,
Take care
Lizzy
xxxxx