19th of August, 2019.
When I arrive just after midnight at the entrance of the port, I was surprised with the number of people already there. They say that foot passengers should arrive two hours before departure, which was almost four. “Oh, but you were there already, Lei!”. Yeah, but I have no car either means to get in there at any time I want.
When I arrive, a young guy approach me and start to ask me about my backpack and ticket. So I realize he is with three other people (actually they are the people I saw a few days earlier, in Mosta, with their backpacks) all backpackers. The problem is they had no tickets yet, and the guy at the entrance made such terrorism with them, talking about the extra weigh you should pay for it in case you need. So they were concern that the backpacks were too big.
We read together the politic privacy and also my ticket and we found something about that, but they did not mentioned exactly how much it is this “extra weight”. So I told them we could board all together and try to pass through. Unfortunately for them, even that they were the first on the queue, since they had no tickets yet, they had to wait for everybody else. So I wait with them. We saw people with all type and size of bags and no one of them being stopped. But you never know. At my turn, the police officer had some trouble to find my entrance in Schengen Visa (but first she did not even know that, as Brazilian, I did not need a Visa, which is really bad because I could simply be lying! How come she is not trained for this? Absurd!) but finally let me pass. I tried to wait for the guys but there was another officer already showing me the way and said I could wait a bit further. There, we wait just a bit and when two other people joined us, they made me move. So I got inside the ship hoping the new friends were doing all right.
To be able to board, we were just going inside the ship as anyone else who worked in there. No private passengers area or whatever, no! Just passing through the garages and engine rooms with doors open, a completely mess!
Once inside, another mess: Our tickets did not say anything about a special named room with seats, just deck seats, but the deck itself it is so small that maximum 20 people could fit in there. And of course when I got in there it was already full. So I walk into this “special named room” with enumerated seats, took a how bunch of four on the back and when somebody else asked me about the how name problem, I just told them my theory “If someone come and ask us to leave because it is not for us, we leave. If no one come, we have a more comfortable place to sleep.”
No one asked us to leave. Just more and more people arrived. Including the new friends. They were from Poland, by the way! Everything worked perfectly for them too. Yay! Now we know (presume / assume) that extra weigh it is in case that you are moving to another country and decide to bring all your stuff, including furniture and utensils, pets and etc. By the way, there was a family all very comfortable with their mattress in the floor plus a cat and a dog.
So I actually spent a lot of time talking with one of the guys of the group. They were two boys and two girls. He was the one who spoke more English. They were travelling through Malta by bus and hiking and camping in most of the places, including in the Blue Lagoon. Nice! He also told me that the other guy had hitchhiked in Italy and it was not easy at all. Oh, Loki! So we talked a bit more after they arrived and we all tried to sleep then.
I could rest a bit but all of sudden we were already in Sicily!
When we were leaving the ship, the group were so lovely and gave me a little souvenir from Poland! So cute! It was actually a magnet, so I update to be able to carry as a key holder in my backpack! We all wait for the “passenger taxi” together. It was actually a Mercedes Van. They just drop us out of the port and that is it. I said goodbye to my new friends, wish them safe trip, and started my own again.