The trip to the theatre to see "Woman in Black" and our stay in the one-star accommodation turned out to be fine. The play was really creepy and enjoyable, The hotel room was also creepy but we were too tired from our twenty-seven hours without sleep to worry about the groaning stairway and the musty odors.

The next morning we had the breakfast provided with the bed: OJ, instant coffee, toast and marmalade, and dry cereal and milk. My daughter and I took a walk looking for a place to get a real cup of coffee and she discovered a pair of jeans to die for in a church gift shop window. It was priced at six pounds and she said they were easily worth two hundred dollars. Unfortunately they didn't fit her. I didn't think of it at the time, but she should have bought them anyway to sell on eBay. I was certain she could have made a nice profit on them to help pay for the trip.

We could have used the money. The US dollar hit a near all-time low against the pound and the Euro. Every Euro spent was $1.50 in US currency and the pound was about $2.15. Luckily I had an account with Barclays and was able to pay for the room and sundries from it. I also considered cleaning out the account and becoming a practitioner of arbitrage, the ancient practice of buying currency from one country and selling it in another at a profit. The money had gone into the account when the pound was $1.60. I also had the same idea about my six hundred Euros in the Bank of Valletta from my book sales on Malta. Great idea, except our expenses also were in pounds and Euros.

The three of us took the Gatwick Express back to the airport and spent a couple of hours in the vibrator chairs. I had never realized that they took credit cards because we only had a few pounds in change. Believe it or not, some of the kiddie rides at the airport took Visa too. I couldn't imagine what Dumbo the Flying Elephant could do with plastic. I'm sure he would have preferred hay or peanuts. I bought a big bottle of Bushmills single Malt at the Duty Free, my daughter bought a scarf from FCUK--yes believe it or not, there is such a store, it stands for French Connection, United Kingdom. I've seen teeshirts with the initials on bellicose-looking teens on the street. My wife seemed to think she needed a bigger Paddington Bear, and two hours later, we were on our way to Malta.

The one-hour time change made us arrive at Malta International at 9 p.m., and the only way to get to our hotel, which was all the way to hell and back, was by cab. A pack of hungry hounds awaited us. They were a boisterous group with loud laughs and illicit cigarettes. We bought a ticket for thirty Euros and half an hour later the cab was climbing a steep hill, the main street in the village of Mellieha. On our way, we passed a very nice looking hotel known as the Fontana, which was where we originally were booked for the trip. The airline's change in schedule moved us to another hotel a short distance away. We turned off the main street and screeched up a series of hairpin curves. The driver had to honk as he drove because the byways weren't wide enough to allow for two cars, and he had to keep up a head of steam to make it up the incline. At last we stopped and retrieved our baggage. The driver gave me a dirty look for the three Euro tip and drove away. Unfortunately the hotel was a Maltese four-star facility, a fancy equivocation that meant maybe three star anywhere else. We found that out when we saw our room.

More to come.