Malta - Day Five

A Few Notes on Pants

"Trousers" for our British reader

Of all the challenges that were faced by my wife and I during our stay in Malta, one of the most enduring difficulties revolved around a pair of pants. Once again, this will require some explanation before you can fully understand the scope, depth, and full, incessant frustration of the problem.

Something Stinks Around Here

In one of my earlier articles, I mentioned the problem that I smelled something like a "dead jellyfish" upon arrival in Malta. Those who have travelled long distances by plane know how it feels to step off of a plane after several hours and feel a distinct layer of disgusting that only comes with travel. Cars and busses are also good for this, particularly if the trip required one to travel through the night. It seems that attempting to sleep in an uncomfortable seat makes people leak some sort of chicken grease/fish oil that smells bad and feels even worse. Or maybe that's just me.

This became an issue for me due to the fact that the pair of jeans I wore on the flight to Malta was disgusting by the time we got there and there would no wearing of them without the washing of them. Yes, it was a fancy hotel and they offered laundry services. But those laundry services charge about $15 to wash a pair of pants and I was not in the mood to drop that kind of currency on a pair of simple dungarees.

Nor was purchasing a pair of jeans an option. I was not about to go purchasing a pair of $150 jeans, as I am not a teenage girl. So it seems that the pants I brought were the pants I would wear.

As a result of this unfortunate situation, I was suffering from a distinct lack of long-legged apparel. This was bad because the churches in Malta do not want you walking around in shorts and all the sightseeing we were doing inevitably took us to a church or two. This would have been an ideal time to get some pants with the zip-off legs, but the only possible source I know of for those is my brother-in-law and he was back in Ohio.

Solving Problems by Creating Bigger Ones

Now then, what is the experienced traveler to do? The experienced traveler washes his jeans in the shower by throwing them on the floor and walking on them while he showers. This is a very effective way to get the stink out. The problem with this is that it then leaves you with a pair of exceptionally wet jeans that will not dry out for days. Very literally, days. I'd done this before and I knew that there would be a time crunch if I wanted them back in time to leave Malta.

Fortunately, we had a few balconies in the ol' hotel room (three, to be exact), with some nice patio furniture to boot. So I laid out my sopping wet chinos on a nice lounger and let the sun and wind do their thing. I did this on the second day we were there. It was now the fifth day of our trip and my jeans were almost... almost dry. One more day of sun and wind would do the job and I would have completed the laundering of a pair of jeans in the improvisational style I have used before. Furthermore, Chris did the same to her pair of jeans from the flight in and hers were already dry and ready to be brought in.

So, after finally answering our wakeup call, getting our breakfast and the gathering of stuff for the trip to Gozo, we left one pair of jeans on our sunniest balcony and headed toward the bus stop.