We were so young, dumb, and broke, but we had the most incredible experience in Malta on our honeymoon.
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A Shotgun Wedding But No Baby On The Way
My wife and I lived and loved very fast. We started dating in October, took our first international trip together the following March, we were engaged by July, and married in September. We moved to England to start our lives together and before we had been together a year, we were on our honeymoon in Malta, just south of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea.
There was no baby on the way to spur us into a rash decision but we did have a reason to move quickly. I had been offered a transfer from Omaha, Nebraska to the company’s new branch in Manchester, England where I would help build out the sales team. My wife and I weren’t living together and she wouldn’t move in with me unless we were married. I wasn’t going to move to England without her, I didn’t even think about it.
I proposed at the end of July and we were married six weeks later. Looking back now, it was absolutely crazy and I would lose my mind if my daughter, Lucy, did the same. Somehow we still managed to put together a beautiful wedding in the middle of a downtown park with a limited list of 100 of our family and friends. Somehow, we were also able to put together a reception at a nearby hotel for 300 people who made time on short notice for our special day. We were so young and inexperienced, we didn’t even receive points for booking the event.
An EasyJet Holiday Package
We moved to Manchester earlier than needed to start my new job and put together a package holiday from EasyJet, one of the largest LCC carriers in Europe. Why? We didn’t really know any better and we didn’t have much money. The move was expensive, setting up a new life was expensive, and my wife wasn’t able to immediately work as I was, further limiting our resources.
Our week in Malta started off with an aircraft switch from a standard EasyJet A320 to a charter 757, certainly an upgrade. Upon arriving in Malta, we made our way to the hotel and what we found was shocking. We certainly knew what EasyJet was/is but we have never booked a holiday package with any other carrier ever again.
The hotel was empty, I can’t recall seeing another guest the entire time. Not at check-in nor check-out, not in the lobby coming back from seeing the city; not even during the one time we visited the unheated saltwater pool in late September.
Honeymoon Suite With Bunk Beds
We didn’t book a honeymoon suite – I’m not sure the property had one – but we certainly didn’t book a bunk bed family room either. We got one though, and two twins pushed to make a king bed (common in Europe) complete with an undetermined stain that I lean toward being blood. Try as I might, I don’t have the name of this hospitality palace in any confirmation emails, apparently my email client deletes content older than a decade.
In this family room, complete with kitchenette, a balcony (that was actually decent but I don’t have photos of the balcony, just from it), and a 12″ tube television.
The hotel bothered to install electricity saving key card requirements but didn’t bother to move the water heater from above the tub. It technically had a shower function, though it should be noted that the it was just a hose hooked up to the tub faucet. The bar of soap from the prior guest was a nice touch.
At the time, we were 23 and 24 and found humor in the situation. We still find it hilarious now, though if for some reason we were ever to find ourselves in a similar situation we would immediately check right back out and fly home rather than be stuck there for a week.
But maybe that’s the problem with where we are now versus where we were then – we just laughed and had a great time rather than letting it ruin or cancel our holiday. Surely, that has to be better than letting it bother us.
Beauty, Happiness
Malta was an incredible place for a honeymoon. Days were very warm, and sunny but not sweltering in mid-September. The color of the mediterranean and fresh breeze blowing through the island. The sandstone buildings of old Valetta were astonishingly well preserved. It felt like paradise.
One of the most incredible coincidences occurred while we were on the island. We were advised by some locals (our hotel was without a concierge) of the best steakhouse in town at the time and we were able to get a reservation last minute. We were led to the third floor to our table for two. At the time, I was a smoker and the table next to me, another couple but middle aged, asked me for my lighter. The accent was unmistakably American but without a regional slant. I asked where they were from in the States, and she answered, “you’ve probably never heard of it. Omaha, Nebraska.” Omaha was even smaller then than it is today and of those from Omaha that traveled abroad, I’d never once heard anyone mention Malta.
What were the chances that of all the times either of us could have visited the country, both couples were there at the same time? What were the chances we’d both pick the same night and same times to have dinner, and that of the three floors they could have set us at, we were seated at side-by-side tables? And what are the odds that neither table speaks to the other and the connection is never made at all? It was an incredible series of coincidences that amazes me still to this day.
We couldn’t believe it, and had a fascinating conversation with the two of them. We told them of the Fawlty Towers experience we were having and they invited us to just sneak into the Westin and give their room number as they would be out the next day. We were in our early 20s and couldn’t pass it up. We felt like at any point we would be found out but tried to enjoy ourselves anyway.
We spent the next day with them touring Valetta, he was Maltese and had emigrated to Omaha but comes back every year. He gave us the rich history of the island, its role in World War II, the colonial British governance years, and cultural influences from Italy and beyond.
The food was incredible.
Reflecting After All These Years
It’s been nearly two decades since we were married on a rainy day in Omaha. Our honeymoon in Malta could have been a tragic experience in the oddest, dirtiest hotel we have ever stayed in, but we really didn’t care. We were happy, in love, and basking in the Mediterranean beauty of this island nation we’d only learned of when we selected our package. We had little money but we didn’t care about that either. Through the strangest chance meeting with some fellow Nebraskans, we had the most amazing experience in Valetta and to this day it reminds me that the world is small, but amazing, and if you’re open it will still surprise you.
Now, with two kids, all these years later, I think we are just as happy as we were then. But there’s no way on earth we would stay in that hotel.
You guys are adorable. Young love makes up for all the questionable things encountered.
What a heartwarming essay on your experience. Thank you for sharing. Amazing how two couples from Omaha Nebraska ended up together through time and space.
Really enjoyed reading this. What wonderful memories you and your wife share now and for the rest of your lives.
That’s a great story. Thanks for sharing. Can’t say my wife and I had such an…adventurous…honeymoon, though we did get married under similar circumstances (in my case, my company offering me a position at our office in India).
Love this. Thanks for sharing, Kyle.
A charming story.
Totally love this Kyle. You brought a smile to my very stressful day. Will think of this fabulous story everytime I read your Sunday column!
Aaron must be getting in your head writing 2 stories about things coming out of and going in someone’s a$$.
Only one head I seem to be in, and it isn’t Kyle’s.
I mean, I guess I should be flattered that an inbred Nazi such as yourself is obsessed with me, but for I do seem to have the opposite reaction.
Also of you nothing constructive to say about this article, why are you even posting? Why does trolling and hijacking posts about traveling with your asinine comments het you off so much?
I’m surprised you keep responding to him. Ignore him and eventually, he will go away.
Silly Lukas, don’t you know these people have no self control?
Like taking men’s loads in his mouth, he can’t stop.
Neither can you, you inbred Nazi.
Since you people, liberals not bone smugglers, call hard working Americans keeping our country safe Nazis now I’ll take that as a compliment coming from you c#ck breath.
You’re not hard working, you’re just a vile inbred hateful person. There is nothing patriotic or commendable about you at all.
And people like you are called Nazis because that is what you are.
Nope I’m not hard working anymore but I certainly was for many years. It’s why I live a life of leisure at an age most are still only dreaming of it.
But you missed the point clown, you people call ICE and Law Enforcement, who are hard working Americans Nazis. I’m damn proud of them and fine with being called the sane thing you call them. While they work tirelessly to get illegal scum off the streets, and out of our hotels and restaurant kitchens.
Of course you’d be proud of Nazis, birds of a feather and all that. Are they all as inbred as you are though?
“Ignore him and eventually, he will go away.” We should be so lucky. Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no evidence to support that. And silence is agreement or complicity.
From your balcony picture, it looks like you stayed at “La Vallette Resort”, rated at 1.7 stars out of 5 on Google, before it closed! Nice story to share with us.
Dragonara Road, St Julian’s STJ 3170, Malta
(Apologies, Kyle and Matthew, these kinds of comments should not be necessary. But to allow Douchebag Dave Edwards comments to go without response implies agreement or complicity.)
Douchebag Dave Edwards, good to see I’m not the only one living rent free in your swollen demented head. Obviously you are in dire need of professional help.
Douchebag Dave Edwards & Dirtbag Derek & Sch*tt Hsuag, proving with your every (too frequent) comment that your nicknames are absolutely accurate and completely deserved and that you each have nothing better to do with your pathetic waste-of-oxygen lives than to post abhorrent and revolting comments here over and over again every single day. Thank you for confirming once again that you and other MAGAs are stupid hateful racist cretins. Trolling or not, the extent and frequency of your comments are indicative of severe psychiatric and/or addiction problems. Your insults, undoubtedly projection, speak much more to your lack of character than to anyone you attack. Hope you each get deported back to whatever rocks you crawled out from you SHPOSs.
Get help! It’s not too late.
Douchebag Dave Edwards re: “Get help. It’s not too late.” Your most pathetic, but not most vile, comment ever. Exactly what I wrote to you, not original at all. Further proof that I own you, you SHPOS.
Douchebag Dave Edwards, proving with your every (too frequent) comment that your nickname IS absolutely accurate and completely deserved and that you have nothing better to do with your pathetic waste-of-oxygen life than to post abhorrent and revolting comments here over and over again every single day. Thank you for confirming once again that you and other MAGAs are stupid hateful racist cretins. Trolling or not, the extent and frequency of your comments are indicative of severe psychiatric and/or addiction problems. Your insults, undoubtedly projection, speak much more to your lack of character than to anyone you attack. Hope you get deported back to whatever rocks you crawled out from you SHPOSs.
You might be worse than the Covid guy, but I’m thinking you’ll end up the same way with your issues all can see.
You are right up there with him with the copy and pasting.
Get help!
What a great story, thank you for sharing! It’s a great reminder to have a sense of humor and laugh when things don’t always go as planned on a trip. Blessings to you and your family.
Douchebag Dave Edwards re: “Get help.” More projection, it’s obvious to EVERY reader here that you are the one who is in dire need of help. Still pathetic that’s the best you can come up with you moron racist bigoted cretin MAGAturd SHPOS.
Douchebag Dave Edwards, proving with your every (too frequent) comment that your nickname IS absolutely accurate and completely deserved and that you have nothing better to do with your pathetic waste-of-oxygen life than to post abhorrent and revolting comments here over and over again every single day. Thank you for confirming once again that you and other MAGAs are stupid hateful racist cretins. Trolling or not, the extent and frequency of your comments are indicative of severe psychiatric and/or addiction problems. Your insults, undoubtedly projection, speak much more to your lack of character than to anyone you attack. Hope you get deported back to whatever rocks you crawled out from you SHPOSs.
The joy of being young! It’s so cool to think back to travel before knowing miles and points and then contrasting to what we would do today! I have some memories of similar terrible hotels in Mexico and Europe myself! Its nice you can joke about the experience now! Perhaps you can redo the honeymoon and see how you could experience Malta again today? Anyway how cool to look back and what a blessing about being young and in love!