The Swiss have accepted the proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.
It's shameful for a democratic country to globally ban the Islamic religious expression in its constitution. The proposal doesn't forbid the building of mosques or other religious temples - only minarets. However, it shows how narrow minded voters are and how very little diplomatic feeling they have.
As an atheist, I must confess that I am way more bothered by christian churches and their bells than by any minaret.
It would be interesting to see how much damage Muslims could inflict to the Swiss banking system if they would draw back all their money from Swiss banks - and how much political damage this decision inflicts to Switzerland on the international level.

I had a bit of time to look through the hundreds of pictures I took during the vacation on Malta. I played a bit with GIMP's panorama plugin. Here is a composition of pictures showing Valetta's, Msida's and Slimas habours together with a view of Manoel Island.

Christine as already left for school, I checked out of the hotel am now waiting for a decent time to leave for the airport. The weather is like yesterday: cloudy, rainy, windy and cold.
Maybe a few final thoughts on Malta. Malta is a bit like an emerging country. Not so long ago it was a place with cheap salaries where international companies manifatured their goods. In the meantime, the revenues are up. Next to tourism, the service sector is strongly growing. The infrastructure is getting better and better. EU regulations help to consolidate the country. Unless countries like Romania and Bulgaria, there is enough capital around to finance the whole process.
There are still big differences between rich and poor but they are much more miyed together. Unlike other places, I don't think there are slums here. Rich and poor can be found in the same street: A five star hotel and three houses next to it, you find a ruin of a house of the 50s falling apart; or you find a luxury car garage in a street where all the other businesses are closed and each door holds a sign "for rent".
For a country living from tourism, the connections between the touristic sites have to be improved. There is no train, just road transports like busses. The bus stations are not always well marked and still have to find out whether it's a bus stop where you can only step off a bus or also get aboard of one - and which bus route actually stops there. It's insane not to have any bus connections after 23:00 - at least in spring. There are night services from mid june to mid september but during the rest of the year you have to take the much more expensive private taxis to get anywhere (remember my question about Napoli or Palermo?).
A positive aspect is that Malta's public places and bars/restaurants/cafés have been smoke free since 2004. It's such a great feeling to be able to wear the same clothes the next day after having had dinner at a restaurant. Other countries should have a shameful sight at Malta. Of course smokers can consume their drug on the terrasses of the cafés. So it can still happen that you are sitting outside on a wonderful day, enjoying a drink or a meal and your neighbour is smoking the hell out of his lungs. But I guess that's alright!
Some people abuse the word "OK", Maltese people abuse the word "alright". Everything is alright. When you get into some place you are being asked "How are you alright?". That's the answer right inside the question. You cannot be anything else on Malta than alright.
Anyway, it was a great time, I enjoyed it a lot and I can certainly recommend Malta during the spring. Alright?!

On our last day together, we decided we wouldn't go to one of these Easter processions. Instead we simply went to Valletta and visited the archeological museum. Our decision was made easy by the fact that it began to rain as we were walking though the sunday Valletta market.
I have to take back my accusation that clothes and shoes can be bought at low price on Malta. At the market you can find anything as very low price, although the quality may be doubtable. So as the source of the marchandise. There were for instance severaly stands where you could openly buy copies of movie DVDs. For a country of the EU this is insane!
Malta is also the first country I visited where in some restaurants and cafés the service charge is not included in the price. This is something I can't understand - moreover as the prices of the lone drink or dish is not really any cheaper from the places where the service fee is included in the price.
A final thought on the bus tickets: if you plan to use the busses regularely or/and if you don't want to bother always having the right and small change from the strange bus fees with you, get a one or more-day bus ticket. It may seem a bit expensive at the beginning but it really allows you to jump on any bus you want at any time, you don't have to bother with the mood of the driver and you don't loose 5-10 cents every time you don't the exact fee ready. So it really pays off...
The construction business is booming and I guess the next one will be the solar panel business. It's amazing how few solar panels are located on maltese roofs. There are a few autocirculating warm water heaters (a cylinder of water above an inclinated solar collector) but not many. Especially compared to the number of air conditionners one sees. I guess that during the summer a lot of the power consumed by the air conditionners could be won from the sun - not to mention the solar cold machines or the solar desalination systems that could be built.

We booked a Gozo-tour for today. We were picked up by a private bus and brought to the ferry. After crossing the Malta-Gozo border we started the tour in another small bus. Private bus drivers are the same kind in matter of driving science as those from public busses.
We were shown around different places on Gozo including live commentary from the bus driver who was sloving getting on my nerves because he kept on repeating the same stuff over and over again.
During all the time on Malta I never felt sick in a bus but today was a bit different. So much for the driving skills...