Island of Light-Bulbs. Island of Fireworks.

Mdina: The Silent City. Silent lamp. Silent bougainvillea.

Yes, I went to Malta. I went there from Brazil. It’s weird, I know, but still. I went to reunite with a group of kids I met while I studied at the University of Utah. Four years ago, I was privileged to meet and become friends with an extraordinary group of exchange students. One of them, an Englishman named Tim, has doggedly kept in touch with all of us and determined that this summer would be the summer we reunite in Malta. So we did. Well, five of us did. I knew I had made the right decision when the hot humid Maltese air fogged the windows of our plane as soon as we landed at the Malta International Airport and the geniuses at Alitalia played Vangelis’s “Memories Of Green” from the Blade Runner soundtrack as our welcome music.

Riksta. Tim. Karina. Mark.

Oh, but why Malta? Because Mark’s from Malta. Mark redefined graciousness and drastically altered his schedule to accommodate the four of us foreigners. He drove us all to and fro the airport, took us to the island’s finest beaches, reserved tours for us, fed us fine foods, and introduced us to his wonderful friends.

One thing that the Maltese do so very well is love their visitors. The island is invaded every summer by every variety of non english speaking European teenagers sent there by their parents to learn English at one of Malta’s numerous English academies. As far as I could tell, every Maltese person didn’t seem to not only mind their guests, but loved them. I felt overwhelmed by kindness throughout my entire stay.

What was possibly more remarkable was that the five of us, who had spent the past four years living vastly different lives in 5 different corners of the world were so ready to hang together again. We spent an entire week in close quarters, spending every waking hour together, and had a non-stop ton of fun vacation.

But what did we do? Our days were spent alternately sleeping, reading, eating, swimming, and sunbathing. We jumped of a cliff. We rode a ferry to Gozo where we visited a prehistoric temple. Riksta and I both got stung by jellyfish (they invaded the island too!). Tim got sunburnt. I found out that no one in Malta eats cilantro. We ate rabbit. We danced. We slept in. We saw the sunrise. We had a BBQ on the beach. We slept on the beach. We visited the tombs of knights. We heard rock and roll. We saw where they filmed Popeye. We saw tons of fireworks.

A thing about the fireworks. There are supposedly 365 churches on this little island of 400,000 people, one for each day of the year. Each day has a saint, and each church has a saint. Therefore, there’s an excuse to have a huge party—a “feast”—just about every day during the summer. That means we got fireworks all the time and I’m convinced that these feasts make the Maltese the world’s greatest consumers of fireworks and light-bulbs (they decorate all the churches and streets with countless bulbs see here, here, here, and here). My pictures of fireworks are the only ones that we got to see up close, but they’re supposed to be some of the best on the entire island.

Iridien.

But the other thing about Maltese fireworks is the thing about the pictures you see here (movie too!). I don’t know how to spell this, but everyone told me it’s called a gigi-fogo. I don’t know what gigi means, but fogo means fire. A brief internet quest to find out how to spell gigi-fogo taught me that there’s another—more Tolkien-esque—name for this stuff: IRIDIEN. They’re engineered fireworks displays that use the fireworks to propel large metal wheels and gears to create beautiful spinning flowers of fire, sparkles, and magic! We heard that several people die every year while preparing them, and based on a few malfunctioning stray rockets into the crowd, I’m surprised that no injuries were reported at the show we saw.

The spectacle of the iridien was almost worth the entire trip, but there were two distinct moments that convinced me completely of the trip’s worth. The first was eating a massive meal of rabbit, spinach pie, baked penne bolognese, and potatoes prepared by Mark’s mom and served outside on a beautiful clear Maltese night. Enjoying such great food with friends in the quiet Maltese countryside is the finest of luxuries and it was then, right then, that all doubt left my mind that the trip was worth it.

But the other moment was alone. I had an afternoon to myself after Riksta, Tim, and Karina had left and Mark was at work. Anxious about the half marathon I’d have to run soon after returning to Rio, I decided to jog far away. I put on my headphones, laced up, and set out into a late Maltese afternoon. I ran around the entire bay where we’d been staying, out to the cliffs on the other side where the bay opens to the sea. I have no photos of this rocky place, these high sheer cliffs, the wide blue Mediterranean horizon, the lonely statue of the Virgin, the tiny candle-filled shrine, the golden sun at my back…it’s just for me.