miscellaneous

This room appears to have half of its electrical outlets equipped for British plugs and the other half for continental European plugs. It’s a great idea that must save the receptionists thousands of requests per year for adaptors. The tourist base here is heavily international, but I would say the British dominate. They were here for 150 years, after all, and seem to feel very comfortable here even now.

One of the biggest changes since I began travelling is how many Chinese tourists there are now, everywhere: not just in London and Paris, but also Malta, Ireland, Poland, and Egypt in my recent observations. This really seems to have increased dramatically in the past five years, and is obviously a clear sign of China’s surging economic might (in the building where I lived in Amsterdam was a Chinese woman in a commuter marriage with her Chinese husband in Beijing; incredible to imagine that— they would take turns making the trip in alternate months). In olden times (up through the 1990’s, I mean) most Asian tourists were clearly Japanese or South Korean, and that is no longer the case.

Malta seems to love fireworks shows. The sound of fireworks is almost non-stop, and if I’m not mistaken they all seem to be shooting off at the main soccer stadium a few miles from here. The echoes along this waterfront are so strange that they seem to come from everywhere, but visual inspection suggests the fireworks are highly localized in the stadium.

Let’s see if I can actually answer that brutal 4:45 AM wakeup call for Sicily tomorrow. I give myself a 70% chance at the moment.