November 30 Addis Ababa Ethiopia

I woke up about 8 am. Tired but ok. I got coffee, lots of it. Very good, they make their own blend and roast here!

Caught up with Jayne and had breakfast.

We made a plan and then headed off to walk to airline office but network was down so off to their office in the Hilton hotel. The place was really busy! But we ended up with flights for everything we wanted to do in the north. The best part is we ended up with a 50 % discount on the flights with our international tickets. The guy at the Ethiopian Airlines desk was super.
Caught a taxi back to hotel , dinner of a steak! and the off to bed. Very tired.

Queen in fishing boat

November 29 Addis Ababa Ethiopia (sort of)

Big day of travel. I woke up really early although did not really have to. I caught the bus at 7.30 am to airport, 1 hour trip. Got checked in quickly and then went to have breakfast and more coffee.

The plane was about 45 minutes late leaving, but made up 25 minutes on the flight. There was a medical emergency on board. Not serious, I guess as she was the last off the plane. I had a 4 hour wait in Istanbul airport. And again the plane was about 45 minutes late. This was a 5 1/2 hour flight to Addis Ababa.

I arrived at the hotel about 3 am. Very early! I ended up having to catch a taxi.....a mix up in instructions, but arrived ok at hotel. Seemed like everyone up to meet me.


November 28 Paceville Malta

I headed off to Valletta to watch the 12 o'clock cannon salute. The park I was going to watch from was closed so continued on to where the cannons were. As soon as I got there, I ran into the Scottish couple I had met at Fort Rinella (we were the only 3 people there that day). They said that today was the 21 gun salute to the Queen after her tour of the harbour. It looked like some of the cannon operators were from the Fort.
The Queen was in a local fishing boat (luzzi) which are very colourful. I could not tell who else was in the boat with her as there were a fair distance away. I did take some pictures but they turned out blurry.

After I went to the National Archaeology Museum. The museum covered the Neolithic (the temples), Bronze Age and Phoenician periods. It was not that big but well laid out, there was a good route to follow. The interesting part was the items from the temples, Hagar Qim and Mnajdra temples. They had the sleeping lady. Made of clay and only about 4 inches long. They also had originals of some of the stone carvings (the stone stand at entrance of Hagar QIm.