Malta - Travelling during the pandemic
I flew to Malta in November when the schools shut down again in Hungary and the level of fear and frustration heated up to a boiling point. I picked up on a lot of negativity in my environment that I didn't want to feel. I did a massive job search again for both teaching and volunteering positions but the few people who wrote back to me were not hiring atm. Not even volunteers were needed for the places I was interested in. Everything seemed to be on hold. In the beginning, I utilized the abundance of time that the pandemic forced us into, but now, after 7 months, I just can't anymore. At least not at the place where I got stuck. I need a change, I need movement, I need income. I just can't live in my parents' house anymore!
Adding to that how much difficult I find it to integrate back to the money-centered concrete jungle after having traveled to life-changing naturesque places, is just soul-shattering. Something has just been off since November. I am out of alignment with myself and with my plans. I feel no connection to anything. I've lost my motivation, confidence, and positivity. I feel vulnerable and alone. Is it something that some of you might feel too? Is it the collective energy or is it just me? Meera (my old lady friend from the Canaries) did my astrology analysis and told me that my Neptune was opposite my Sun and on other planets too (whatever that means) and Neptune is linked to difficulties, dreamy, sensitivity, spaced-out etc. So that can be a trigger too.
So a friend of mine in Malta persuaded me to come to the island and look for jobs there. Malta was busting with language schools but what I didn't consider was that due to the pandemic and the travel bans there were fewer students and many schools were temporarily closed. In the meantime, during my stay, I also realized that I didn't actually want to be in Malta. I just didn't vibe with the place. The city where we lived was way too noisy and polluted to my taste: construction works and traffic with impatient drivers. The island was very built up and a local lady, who cut my hair, told me that it was overpopulated: lots of foreigners come here to run businesses. It was quite a hustle and bustle with a lot of British influence. I became more disconnected than I was before. Of course, there were lovely and beautiful coastal places, bays, beaches where would be fun to hang out in the summer, however, it would be crowded, which again, I don't like. The smaller island Gozo, was much closer to my idea of harmony - it was greener, spacier, and less stressful - still far from the feelings I experienced on the Canaries. I was ever so grateful to my friend for the opportunity, I embraced and appreciated it, but I had to be honest with myself "Why look for a job in a place where I am not inspired to be?"
So I flew back to Hungary before spending all my savings that I scraped together from online teaching. Plus Brexit was on my back. I needed to sort out some legal documents for which I didn't have the papers on me in Malta. So December was hectic and difficult. This was not at all what I planned. Ryanair shut down, there were no flights in December. Wizzair had fewer flights on schedule for embarrassingly high prices, and the flights I could afford were indirect with stopovers at other airports stretching the two and half hour journey to 24 hours. I was checking daily if there were changes until I found newly available seats for a direct flight for an okay price in late December. It was a mess.
Covid-19 PCR test
There was no straightforward information about whether I could travel without a negative PCR test. I called the airports in both Budapest and Malta and reached out to the airline too but they could only tell me as much as it was written online. And online there was no answer to the question: Can I sit on a plane and enter the country without a negative PCR test? Then eventually someone wrote back to me from Budapest airport to confirm that everybody can board the plane with or without a test, we just have to wear our masks. I printed out the necessary covid-related documents that were required in order to enter Malta - name, address in Malta, passport number - and trusted that I would be fine. Upon arrival at Malta airport, all passengers were lead to a separate unit where healthcare professionals waited for us to collect the documents and to perform the swab test on those individuals who arrived without the proof of a negative PCR test. The staff was organized, professional, and well-mannered. The test result was ready in one hour that we had to sit through patiently on the spot and if it was negative we were free to collect our luggage and go on our ways. Everything was fine and reliable. Not at all as intimidating or rigorous as it is heard in the news in Hungary. I was surprised that no one checked our temperatures at the airports, though. We just had to wear the mask at all times. By the way, PCR tests are free in Malta for everyone, not only for residents, which is a great advantage.
I may add more details later, positive ones, but until then you can check some of the photos and watch the video of my trip below.
Photos of Malta & Gozo
POPEYE VILLAGE has grown from its days as a Film Set of the 1980 Musical Production 'Popeye' into one of the major tourist attractions on the Maltese Islands. https://popeyemalta.com/
GGANTIJA TEMPLES are a megalithic temple complex from the Neolithic on the Mediterranean island of Gozo. The Ġgantija temples are the earliest of the Megalithic Temples of Malta and are older than the pyramids of Egypt. The temples are more than 5500 years old and the world's second oldest existing manmade religious structures after Göbekli Tepe in present-day Turkey. Together with other similar structures, these have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Megalithic Temples of Malta. wikipedia.org
Video
Music credits in inShot: Summer Soul 'My Last Teen', Kevin MacLeod 'Night in Venice', @iksonmusic 'See You', Rafael Krux 'Lovely Piano Song', Anatu 'Heavy'
Have you heard of Astro map/ Astrography?
"Astrocartography, a discipline of Astrology (it's also known as Relocation Astrology) where your birth chart, which can predict a surprising amount of information about the direction and events of your life as well as your personality, is mapped against the world map.
Lines are drawn on top of a map of the world and places that fall on lines or line intersections are supposed to be more meaningful, powerful, transformative for you. The different lines all have different meanings too. Depending on which line/s fall on the city/place, a place can be very supportive for you, helping you to succeed in an area of your life e.g. relationships or work or self-confidence or they can be very challenging in a certain area of your life, pushing you to change something; remembering challenges can be just as transformative, if not more so, than support.
The energy of moving to or spending time in these new places awakens something in us, something that was already there but perhaps we'd repressed or ignored it; the change comes from within, the energy to do so comes from without.
That certain places can shift something inside us to inspire, support, or challenge us to grow and transform is fascinating to me. And it further validates the reasons why people have periods of their life where they just have to uproot and move cities or where the only option seems to be taking an extended break from their home and regular life somewhere far away. Travel changes and heals us, it helps us to evolve." thetravellinglight.com
To create your own astrography chart, click here: astro.com or read further thetravellinglights's blog for clear step by step instruction.
I astro-checked Malta and many other places of my interest, and it made me think about why I got the opportunity to travel there and was I actually in the right place for a matter I failed to understand?
♡