Maureen is an Enrolment Services Advisor in Student Support & Advising. Part of her role as an ES Advisor involves working with a cohort of about 1000 current undergraduate students as well as advising students from a variety of other graduate and post-baccalaureate programs. Another part of her role is working on a number of project teams, including the UBC Bursary and Recruitment teams. It’s a great combination of helping current students and meeting eager prospective students!
First thing’s first – Maureen where did you travel to?
I travelled to Italy and Malta in Fall 2018. My parents were staying in Malta for seven weeks and I knew it would be a great opportunity to see a country I hadn’t previously thought of visiting. You might remember Malta from the first season of the Netflix series The Crown. Queen Elizabeth II lived there with Prince Philip while he was serving with the Royal Navy. Malta is a former British colony and its British history lives on with a full Marks & Spencer department store in the middle of its capital city!
Give us some of your highlights of your adventure abroad!
We took a boat tour to the Blue Lagoon, Comino, and Gozo off the coast of Malta. It was a perfect way to see the coastline and islands of Malta. Comino is a tiny island with a population of three people! However, during the day the population explodes when tour boats take people to swim in the Blue Lagoon. Gozo might be best known as the home of the Azure Window, a rock formation that unfortunately collapsed earlier this year. The Azure Window is featured in Game of Thrones and the movie Clash of the Titans. If you are a Game of Thrones fan then you can see lots of filming locations across Malta!
What was the most interesting meal you had?
Malta is famous for pastizzi, which are pastries filled with ricotta cheese or mushy peas. You can find them at bakeries all over the country and the aroma of freshly baked pastizzi is everywhere. They were a great snack to pack for busy days of sightseeing.
What is some advice for our future jet-setters?
Take walking tours. We did walking tours in the cities of Valletta and Mdina and it was the perfect way to learn about the country’s unique history. I absorbed far more detail on these tours than I would have from a guide book and gained so much more appreciation for the unique architecture seen across the country. Plus, walking in Malta is a lot more relaxing than driving!
