Malta

So, in all my pensieri (thoughts) about Italy and italian in the past week (has it really only been a week? i feel like i've been here at least for a semester) I've been trying to budget and make plans for this interim space I'm going to have in september between my study abroad program orientation and the real beginning of the program. I used ryanair to conduct preliminary research about general ticket prices and i've decided....

I'm going to MALTA. (pictured above)

I have to. It sounds like/looks like the coolest place ever. There are less then 500,000 people there on only 121sq miles of land, and there are also what are thought to be the oldest free-standing buildings in the world. It's also considered a hypothetical location or nearby location for the lost city Atlantis. Basically, it sounds magical. This is the first truly tourist aspiration I can remember having, in which I just want to go to a place to say I've been there. I admit it, i'm guilty as charged. But I'm sure Malta doesn't need American culture bearers (like myself) invading when they were already colonized by a western power (britain, but who wasn't colonized by britain?) for so many years.
Anyway, I actually think I'm really gonna go, because I was planning (sort of loosely) to go to Athens, Greece, and do the whole island hoping thing, but I only found Malta because ryanair (the cheap european airline) only has 8 flights from this one airport, Bari, that I have to fly out of after my time in Lecce. I was checking out the possibilities of airports and maybe flying out of other airports to greece, so i was googling locations at random and checking them out. When I saw Malta i was like, "what's/where's Malta?" Google led me to the overly-dramatic picture above, and further research led me to the conclusion that it was/is affordable enough to go (on my budget) and I looked into flights and hostels. I'm psyched. I think I'm going. September is a ways away, i know, but I needed to make plans early to save money, i guess.anyway, ciao. i definitely need to do my homework