Republika ta Malta

Clouds and rain. Did I jump on a flight to Brighton by mistake this morning? - I wondered as I exited La Valletta's international airport looking for the bus connecting it to the town.
I crossed the road quickly to get repaired under the shelter of the bus stop: I clearly didn't think of taking an umbrella with me as I packed.
Still, as bus nb 8 to Valletta appeared up the hill, I immediately realized there was no mistake but simply a joke by crazy Zeus: a dynamic and colorful Bentford-model vehicle trotted to the stop. I definitely was in the right place: Republic of Malta, straight in the middle of the Mediterranean sea.
I sat next to two ladies chatting in a strange idiom that I imagined had to be the weird Maltese, a mix up of Arabic (60%), Italian (20%) and English (20%). And analogously, the population is a mix up of black-haired, blue eyes, blonds, Mediterranean-line and milk-skinned. All of them united by a religious faith in the Catholic church that I hadn't seen before (notwithstanding my Italian origin).
My adventure had begun.