Blocked at every turn

This morning I woke up by 9, early for me this week though I hope it'll become routine. I started my day off with some Nescafe (yes - instant coffee in the apartment is as good as it's going to get) and an episode or 2 of the Golden Girls, Season 2 (Thanks again to Kirk!) After another chapter of Herzfeld, I hit the pavement. This time in search of the reference library.

I sort of remembered where it was, and thankfully I chose the right back alley passageway from behind the apartment that led straight to it. The 3 dreadful dudes working there didn't seem very pleased with me though and were kind of rude about helping me. They have a periodicals room but it's a mess and half of it is in Maltese (Gah!) so I'll really need to know what I'm looking for before that's going to be of any use. They have these signs at the computers there reminding people that they are for research purposes only, so I wasn't able to check my facebook from there. It was blocked as a social networking sight. But then I tried to go to the website for St. George's church and it was blocked. The pop up said it was because "the government of Malta classifies this as a "religious" site." Crazy that the public library would block it when the country is 98% catholic...

I picked up some other essentials and stopped by Roma again on my way back to the apartment to thank the clerk there again for her advice. Lunch at the apartment, then a siesta (gotta love mandatory nap time - it's really pointless to be out and about when everything is closed) and then back out again.

I had every intention of hitting up the Religious artifacts store today to talk to the shop owner, and her sign said she'd be open again from 5-7 but alas - she was not. Then again, it seemed like there was something going on in town today (a LOT of traffic and parked cars on streets that normally don't have any) so maybe she was off doing something else. *sigh* Ah well, tomorrow is my interview with George so hopefully that will get me started.

So that was kind of boring. What else can I say....I bought a bottle of wine and a large bottle of water for 4.50Euro today. The cheap prices on the local stuff still just kills me, though disappointingly the cost of cappucinnos has gone up from the .80 - .90 that I remember to 1.00 - 1.35 depending on where you are. I'm at Cafe Cordina again and they are only 1.00 here. Yesterday the echo of children screaming in tiled McDonald's was driving me nuts. Today it's the smoke of the 3 tables surrounding me, though we're outside so I guess it shouldn't. The trade-off of sitting somewhere more "local" I guess. I'm suddenly reminded of Sean from last summers trip saying that it's always a good "in" to be a smoker when doing anthro work because you can always start a conversation by asking for a light. Not for me. I wonder if I can come up with a non-smoking alternative...Suggestions are welcome.