Note: This is a blog post when I lived in Mediterranean rock in the ocean called Malta in my 20s.

Since Ireland and Canary Islands, Malta was my third home aborad where I’ve lived. I just wanted to share this post from years back how it felt like being an expat back then.

Nowadays I live in Spain, and I did find parts of this article quite hilarious. I decided to share it anyways as it can be relatable, as feelings are also typical for anyone leaving their home countries first times for extended periods.

So here’s the unfiltered feelings of a 20-something Finnish girl who relocated to Malta.

Fuuu it hit me again. Home sickness. During my time living abroad the home sickness has been coming and going.

There might be months that I don’t miss Finland and home at all, or at least I’m not consciously thinking of it too much. Then sometimes when it hits, it hits hard.

In Malta I feel occasionally kind of trapped. I mean actually traveling opportunities and flight options are much better than from Finland, but due to job and other stuff just quickly flying somewhere isn’t an option. In addition, flights to Finland aren’t so cheap and convenient with changes and all.

Anyhow, the feeling of being trapped is for me personally about the small rock that literally doesn’t have much wide open natural areas. I just wanna go outside and see trees and nature and chill. And don’t get me wrong there are beautiful places in Malta as well.

But many times they are either

1. Full of tourists or

2. Full of trash that idiots have ditched there.

Maybe I’m just whiny but I’ve been here 1,5 years and quite a lot of 20km x 30km rock has been seen in that time.

I came here after studying in Finnish Lapland. So in many ways I find life in Malta completely opposite than my life there. Maltese culture is very different, wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say almost opposite.

But as said, When in Rome, do as the Romans do. So it’s not possible and actually not even fair to try to “change” or assume that the culture, habits and way of living should be similar as in my country. If I want to voluntarily live here, I can assimilate or listen to Maltese people who like saying to negative comments of Malta: “Go back to your country”.

(As a matter a fact, I did eventually go back to my country, and you can read about my reverse culture shock here.)

It’s even a bit hilarious and some Maltese people say a bit shamefully how their nation might be a bit racist. I don’t comment on that but thinking of the size of Malta and amount of expats and tourists, it is understandable that at some point locals might feel too harassed.

Of course it’s not a reason to be racist but having negative attitudes towards high tourism flows and a lot of people may be an opinion that you can get behind.

Within these expats, there are quite some Finns and Scandinavian people in Malta. Then it’s easy to share the feeling of home countries and Malta. And in a way there is kind of an expat bubble in Malta: in the area most expats live, it feels very international.

But when you go a bit further, it becomes much more “authentic” Maltese. (Authentic in quotes because after a tourism research course in University I don’t want to call anything authentic anymore because nothing can be actually called authentic if you think of it deeply enough.) Without analysing difference of cultures more deeply, based on this I’ll describe a bit what do I miss from home(country).

Dog, family and friends

Well this is pretty obvious. Last Christmas was very weird because I stayed the Christmas in Malta. Didn’t see my family, didn’t have a holiday. Just sat in the office and then went to walk in 20 degrees sunshine to boulevard.

So yeah, very weird. I don’t want to get too emotional here but sometimes it just sucks so much that you can’t go home to see your family and friends and first and foremost dog whenever you want.

Last winter I felt very home sick for a while but still had to wait for a couple of months before visiting home. And when the trip came, it was of course nice to go but the crazy home sickness had passed. So it really comes and goes. It just feels so strong when it comes.

It also sucks that you can’t be there if something negative is going on. It’s hard to support and understand if you’re not in the same country.

And also positive family gatherings like graduation parties or birthdays aren’t nice to miss. Sometimes I feel like I’m bad at being in touch with people who are far away.

I spend a lot time online; working, reading and sharing pictures on Instagram, but still it’s somehow difficult to message and to be in touch with people you can’t see. I feel sorry about that and I wish I would be better in that but somehow it is difficult when reality is different.

Right now I just miss the cold. I never thought I would say this, but yes, I actually would want to feel cold and not to wear summer clothes anymore. It’s so random that I can’t really remember how it feels to feel nicely cold outside: I’m sweating on the couch writing this.

I never really liked cold in Finland and summer was definitely my favourite season. So I feel so odd that I reached my limit of fancying heat wave.

In social media friends are sharing so beautiful autumn colour pictures, autumn hikes and cosy chilling in woollen socks. Morning walks from forests with a dog, last cottage weekends and cooler evening swims.

One is eating mushroom soup made from hand-picked mushrooms, next one is doing yoga and meditation in colourful nature and third one is sipping wine under blanket. Okay this is of course romanticised image and in reality if I was there I would probably be just browsing my phone and eating cereals. But at least I wouldn’t sweat while doing that.

When I went to Finland one of the most satisfying experience was smooth grocery shopping. There is literally everything in the stores, staff greets you and cashiers are fast and effective (sorry Malta, this literally is opposite of you).

And well, karelian pies, blueberries, fazer’s blue and rye bread have basically been my whole diet during my visits to Finland.

Other than my daydreaming of grocery shopping, I miss all the other simple stuff that just isn’t there.

It’s not one particular thing, but when these small things pile up, they start to irritate.

To name a few:

no card payment accepted,

no change for cash for notes bigger than 20€,

monthly rent needs to be paid by cash because locals don’t pay taxes,

streets are full of cat and horse shit, travelling 7 kilometer distance for 2 hours due to traffic,

neighbour listening to 90’s music very loud every Saturday morning from his stupid enormous car that doesn’t make any sense to have in Malta anyway and

being scared of your life every time with Maltese taxi driver.

But it is what it is, and “go beck to your country” is always an option, I know.

But I’m not giving up just because it’s not always all fun and games. Neither it is in Finland, issues are just different.

I feel like just in our latest apartment where we moved in in July, it has started to feel like home here in Malta.

Before it was just a temporary place I lived in. And as I mentioned earlier, here it's actually quite easy to not to miss home too much, because you're definitely not the only Finn or only Nordic person here.

So my home is here now, but homehome is still in Finland. I wonder does that change for people who live abroad for a long time. I guess home country is permanent feeling, but depending on your bond with your home country it varies.

But god dammit I’d enjoy some snow or ruska hiking in Lapland right now. (Don’t know what ruska is in English, you can google it).

YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:

My experiences when returning to home country

Reverse culture shock

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