I’ve just got back from a week on Gozo (Malta) and I hate to say this, but it made me miss Sweden.
Granted, the weather is nicer than in Sweden. That’s a given, but weather isn’t everything. In Malta, nothing seemed to work. As we drove around past building site after building site, I felt like I wanted to take the whole country to task and speak to them like an irate parent: “Do one job at a time. Finish what you’ve started, THEN move on to the next one.” In Sweden, building work usually gets completed and building sites tend to have builders on them. In Malta I saw very few actual ‘builders’, and those I saw were sitting down eating a Tuna sandwich. There was rubble all over the island. Swedish doesn’t even have a word for rubble!
OK. You could swim in the sea, eat fresh fish and vegetables and buy cheap alcohol without having to queue up in a state run monopoly. But there’s more to life than that! In Sweden, there’s a sense of equality. We’ve got political incompetence, but not outright corruption. In a pizzeria, I shook hands with the Maltese Prime Minister and the Minister for Gozo. The next day, I read the weighty newspaper Gozo Today and there were mentions of backhanders, ongoing court cases, a traffic warden being beaten up by the mayor as well as Gozo being described as the Minister for Gozo’s own personal fiefdom.
They drive on the left in Malta, which is a sign of higher civilisation, but, unlike Swedes, they ignore the rest of the Highway Code. I missed the sedate experience of sitting comatose on the E4 doing 110km/h – It’s a mind numbing drive, but at least you get to your destination alive.
Marmite was available in the shops…. but at least Sweden is a secular state, which is not dominated by the Catholic Church. Sunday Mass has an 85% attendance in Gozo! That’s the highest rate in Europe. This means that 85% of the population are directly influenced by whatever The Vatican decides is good or evil. Divorce, contraception, abortion, speaking Latin, supporting Celtic FC.
So Malta can keep its weather, warm sea, fresh food and cheap beer. Life is lagom in Sweden and I like it. If only Marmite was available in the shops.
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Don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter @BenKersley
And catch me this week in Stockholm at The Tuesday Chinwag on April 3 and in Linköping on April 5th at LKPG HA HA!
Marmite was available in Daglivs Kungsholmen last time I checked … but if you want Vegemite (the Australian superior equivalent) then it is a little spice shop in the Haga in Gothenburg that will sort you out.
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Vegemite?? VEGEMITE!!?? How dare you! Thanks for the Marmite tips though : )
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Myself beeing an immigrant in sweden and having done my fair bit of complaining about sweden. I still have to say its the best place I lived so far. Sure it has its drawbacks and people might be up tight unless their drunk. But than again warm water and not having homophopiba as a national doctrine is nice too.
So hate to say it, go sweden!
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So nothing has changed in Malta then since I last visited in 1995. I used to go every summer as my parents had a timeshare apartment. They used to say the English drive on the left, Americans drive on the right and the Maltese drive in the shade!
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I come from Gozo and i have lived away from Gozo for a while. I understand we do have a fair share of problems but who doesn’t. Please you can stay in sweden since it seems your country is perfect but do not put down ours and also leave religion out of it if you were to see the number of people we as a country have helped in third world countries it probably puts most countries to shame. Most of the time we judge without taking the time to get to know what we are judging.
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