From Cultural Shock to Comfort: My Experience of Moving to Malta

Volume I: Chapter I

People often ask me why I moved to Malta. The answer is quite funny. Malta caught my attention when I was scrolling through TikTok. It was flooded with videos about it. It seemed like a dream. I immediately sent the videos to my best friends Martin and Filip. We all agreed that we would do everything to go there in the summer. At the moment I was living and working in a supermarket in France. However, at the end of the month, they informed me that they would no longer extend my contract. I found myself in a rather tricky situation. What shocked me even more, was when Martin told me that he had found a job in Malta. It was at that moment that everything changed. The planned vacation turned into a one-way destination without any idea what we were going to do. I bought my plane ticket that same day. All that remained was to pack.

Since I didn't know how long we would be there, I packed almost everything. I actually went to Malta with a winter jacket. You just never know. Usually, when people decide to move to a foreign country, they spend some time planning. We had 10 days. I wouldn't even say that we used the time effectively. Most of our time was spent saying goodbye to friends and family. We had our flight at 9 in the morning from Toulouse and since I and Filip were living over 2 hours from there the question was: how to get there? A month ago I met a girl from Toulouse through Tinder. I wrote to her and asked if we could spend the night at her place. She agreed. And so, on the afternoon of June 14, we set off on our big life change. We spent the evening with Cecile. She had a beautiful view of the Garonne River with an even more beautiful view of the setting sun. Filip and I made dinner as a thank you. Everything was great except for the bottle of vodka that we drank that night. I don't know if it was motivation, but we got up quite fresh and excited. The journey to the airport went without any problems and after a 2-hour flight, we disembarked in the brutal heat of Malta. No kidding, it was 38 degrees that day.

Martin flew from Budapest 3 days before us. He secured accommodation in a Hostel in San Gwann. It's not far from St Julians where all the clubs and the Maltese nightlife are. We just had to get there. Taxi or bus. I have heard and I can now confirm from my own experience that there is nothing more unreliable than public transport in Malta. They don't show up on time and often go back and forth as they please. Therefore, we were quite skeptical and decided to go by taxi instead. We didn't want to get lost on the first day. I recommend Bolt or the local private taxi service ecabs.

We were sharing a room with two people. There would be nothing wrong with that, they were very nice and became our first friends. The problem was that we didn't come for a week and thus we had quite a lot of things. There were almost no wardrobes available, as a result of which our room quickly accumulated a lot of mess. There was also no air conditioning and I can tell you that if you come to Malta make sure to book accommodation with air conditioning. We were about 15-20 of us in the hostel and we got along with each other very well.

My best memories are of our day-long road trip around Malta. That day I recorded a video in the car in case I died. Have I mentioned how disastrous the traffic in Malta is? No? Driving around Malta is like a bad dream. Traffic jams, accidents, work, and many slowdowns. That's a normal day here. Yes, and they drive on the left.

Anyway, our accommodation did not suit us, so we looked for something else. We tried different things. Through all kinds of websites, and agents. Filip finally found a beautiful 3-room apartment through the marketplace on Facebook. You can find everything there. A barber advised it to us when we went to get a haircut. Filip and I were also looking for a job since Martin was the only one who had one. However, another problem arose here. There are two official languages in Malta. Maltese and English. Which is great because everyone here speaks English. That is, except for Filip. All he knew was Hello I'm Filip. Really, I'm not kidding.

I found one offer as a waiter in Valletta. It wasn't the closest, but it was better than nothing. We came there, introduced ourselves, and had a short interview. They offered me to come the next day for a trial. They didn't accept Filip for obvious reasons, so I politely declined. I wanted us to find something together so we could help each other. On our way home we were walking along the boardwalk in Sliema where we came across the Surfside Restaurant. There were lots of Staff wanted signs. We had nothing to lose anyway, so we went to ask. The boss told us to come at 19:00 for a two-hour trial. If he would be satisfied with us, we can continue; if not, we will understandably end. We arrived quite early. We wanted to show our motivation and that we really wanted this job. We were both surprised when he sent us behind the bar. It was quite funny because we had never worked behind a bar and we were quite lost at first. We gave it our all and worked very hard. After two hours, the boss was pretty happy and hired us as bartenders. We couldn't be happier. Surfside has 3 floors. The upper floor is an open terrace with a beautiful view of the sea. The center floor is a sports bar with air conditioning and a beautiful sea view. It's rather peaceful unless there's football. Then it can be pretty wild. Like when the Italians won the World Cup. That was a crazy night. And then there is the beach bar. There was a Czech DJ who also came for the summer. He came together with three Czech girls and we quickly became very good friends. The atmosphere at work was great. What I liked most about Malta was its multiculturalism. There were people from all over the world. It was no different in our work. There were many Balkans, Nepalese, people from Latin America, but also from the Middle East,...

We had over 40 cocktails on the menu and it took us quite a while to learn them all. Anyway, all I would like to say is that don't be afraid to step up from your comfort zone. Moving to an unknown country from day to day was the best decision I made. Sure it wasn't easy but that's also what makes it magical.

THANK YOU MALTA