The things nobody explains because everyone here already knows them. None of it is difficult, and all of it is easier known in advance.
The rhythm of an ordinary week
Each type of rubbish goes out on its own night
Collection is the same across Malta and Gozo. Organic waste in the white bag goes out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Mixed waste in the black bag goes out on Tuesday and Saturday. Recycling in the grey or green bag goes out on Thursday. There is no collection on Sunday.
Glass goes out on the first and third Friday of the month. Bags go out in the evening rather than the morning. Putting the wrong bag out is the fastest way to annoy a neighbour.
Tonight’s collection
The festa closes the street
When your village keeps its feast, the streets are decorated, roads close and there are fireworks late into the night for several days.
It is not something to endure. It is the best week of the local year, and joining in is how you meet people.
The festa calendar
Late evenings and quiet afternoons
Shops and offices often close over lunch, dinner starts late, and in summer the streets empty in the afternoon and refill after seven.
Adjusting to that rhythm rather than fighting it makes a summer here far more pleasant.
Meeting people
The rhythm of an ordinary week
- Everything happens late
- Dinner from half past eight, children out with families at ten, village life in the cool of the evening. Adjusting your day to this is the single biggest quality-of-life change available in summer.
- Sunday is quiet
- Many village shops and bakeries close, buses run reduced, and lunch with family is the fixed point of the week.
- The festa closes your village
- Once a year your streets fill with banners, bands and fireworks until very late, and the roads shut. Resistance is not useful; join in or plan around it.
- Bins go out by night
- Collection is door to door, by type, on set nights that differ by locality. Get this wrong and your rubbish stays on the pavement all week.
- August is different
- The country slows down markedly around Santa Marija in mid-August. Offices are thin, decisions wait, and nobody is surprised.
- Nothing is far
- Anywhere is under an hour away, and locals will still describe a twenty-minute drive as a serious undertaking. Both things are true.
Summer and winter indoors
Summer indoors is a battle with heat and humidity, and the electricity bill in August reflects it. Winter indoors is the opposite problem: Maltese buildings are made of stone, built to shed heat, and largely without insulation or central heating. January is cold and damp indoors, and a dehumidifier is a more common purchase than a heater.
The pharmacies open on a Sunday, the waste collection schedule for bin nights, and the festa calendar for the weekend your village becomes impassable.
Bottles and cans in the deposit scheme are worth ten cents each. Return them to a machine rather than putting them in the recycling bag: see BCRS, the deposit on bottles and cans.