Malta with Eric Tenin and Michael Salone
[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to
[00:00:02] Intro: the Where Do Gays Retire Podcast, where we help you in the LGBTQ plus community find a safe and affordable retirement place. Join Mark Goldstein as he interviews others who live in gay friendly places around the globe. Learn about the climate, cost of living, health care, crime and
[00:00:21] Intro: safety, and more.
[00:00:22] Intro: Now, here's your host, Mark Goldstein.
[00:00:31] Intro: Have you ever wondered what it's like to live and retire in Malta? You'll find out in just a moment, and we'll introduce you to our guests today. We have Eric Tennant and Michael Ceylon. Eric is French, born and raised in Paris, where he lived and worked as a business journalist until Michael and he left for Malta.
[00:00:56] Intro: Michael is American by birth, born in Hollywood, Florida. [00:01:00] I've been there. And became French while living in Paris. An HR executive for two very large conglomerates, Michael has moved around a lot for his companies and traveled the world. He and Eric decided that life was too short to pass up a move to somewhere warm, sunny, and yet still close to Eric's family in Paris.
[00:01:22] Intro: They decided to move to Malta in 2014, and opened up a couple of rental properties before restoring an ancient property to become a boutique hotel, Sanglia Suites. So welcome guys. Welcome to the podcast, Eric and Michael. Thank you so much for coming.
[00:01:41] Intro: And we'll, we'll ask everything that we wanted to know about Malta. So why did you decide so you did move from Paris to Malta and why did you decide upon Malta of, of the place to, to [00:02:00] settle down?
[00:02:01] Eric and Michael: Well, you know, we were becoming a bit disenchanted with Paris. I mean, it sounds a bit silly, but it's true.
[00:02:09] Eric and Michael: And and we also, I lost my job. I think Michael had a problem with his job, too. So we decided it was time to move to other pastures. And and that's why we started looking for countries to emigrate to and spend the rest of our life. And after considering several places like Bangkok, like, Marrakesh, like, what was it?
[00:02:35] Eric and Michael: Even Miami, we went to Miami. Yeah, exactly. Because Michael's from Miami. Right. We ended up in Malta for a couple of reasons that we can explain a little more afterwards. But that's basically what happened.
[00:02:50] Mark Goldstein: Understand, understand. So tell us about where is Malta? I know you live in a in a part of Malta called Sanglia, [00:03:00] if I'm not mistaken.
[00:03:01] Mark Goldstein: Yes, yes. And can you explain as far as geography, where is Malta and how large is Malta? Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:03:12] Eric and Michael: So Malta, Malta is a tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean. It's part of Europe now, but it's between Sicily and Africa. So between Libya and Sicily, if you will. Okay. And we live in a small town inside.
[00:03:31] Eric and Michael: So Malta has about 550, 000 people. So it's quite small and we live in a town, a city technically called Sanglia, which has about 2700 people, but it's within an area that's quite dynamic. So it's quite a big surprise for us as well. It's a very cultural area, it's a very historical area.
[00:03:53] Mark Goldstein: So it's, even 2, 700 people is, is that considered, you [00:04:00] know, well populated?
[00:04:01] Mark Goldstein: Is it, or is it like?
[00:04:04] Eric and Michael: I think Malta is the densest country in Europe. So Malta is 550, 000 people in total, and, and the and where we live is, is what? 2, 700. 2, 700. In fact, you know, everything's so small here that yes, it is it could be considered as populated because it's very dense. The island is only 30 kilometers long, so you can imagine there's not a lot of room.
[00:04:30] Mark Goldstein: Yes, understood. Okay. How about the climate? You, you move to a place that of course you want a warm and sunny climate. What, what's the climate like all, all year round?
[00:04:43] Eric and Michael: Well, the climate is pretty good. It's sometimes too hot. It's very, you know, it's very, it's south of Europe, so it's very hot. So in summer, for me, it's too hot.
[00:04:53] Eric and Michael: For Michael, it's perfect. But so winters are pretty mild. It's about [00:05:00] 13 degrees centigrade on the lowest. I mean, it can go lower, but it's very rare. It's a bit humid, but it's it's really doable. And in summer, like I said, it's it's very hot, but the best months are actually spring and and fall. So October is to me the best, the best month because the weather is very nice and the sea is still very warm.
[00:05:25] Eric and Michael: So it's, yeah, the climate is pretty good. We have, we have what they call here medicanes. So Malta reminds me a lot of South Florida in some respect because It gets very cold in South Florida, even if it's not cold temperature wise, it's very humid. But it doesn't last very long and it gets very hot, of course, in the summer.
[00:05:42] Eric and Michael: In Florida, we have hurricanes here. They have medicanes once in a while, big storms that come from the Mediterranean. But other than that, it's a very easy, very easy place to live climate wise. And also in, in winter here in the middle of, of January, you can have. Lunch in [00:06:00] a t shirt at a restaurant outside in the sun.
[00:06:04] Eric and Michael: That's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, that's very nice. If you're in the shade, it's another story. But in the sun, it's always very warm.
[00:06:10] Mark Goldstein: That's nice. It's nice that you could do that.
[00:06:13] Eric and Michael: The Tourism Authority likes to brag that we get 300 days of sunshine. That's
important,
[00:06:20] Mark Goldstein: especially, you know, you're from Florida. I lived in Florida.
[00:06:23] Mark Goldstein: I live in Phoenix, Arizona now. I like the warmth. I don't want to see snow anymore. Only on a picture on Facebook. That's, that's it. Okay. Do you get hurricanes? Or medic, oh, medicanes. We call it medicanes. Medicanes,
[00:06:38] Eric and Michael: okay. It's big storms, big storms, basically. In a certain kilometer per hour it becomes a named storm, but other than that it's nothing like what you get.
[00:06:49] Mark Goldstein: Okay, yeah. Nothing like Florida gets. Does Malta have a large expat community?
[00:06:57] Eric and Michael: Malta has a lot [00:07:00] of expat tourists. Let's start with that. A lot of English used to come to Malta. The area we live in has a big expat community in the sense that I'm not people who are here for work expats, but people who have come either to retire or to have a second home.
[00:07:15] Eric and Michael: And that's been quite attractive to us as well, because in the area, so the area we live in is called the three cities as well, which is Bormla, Birgu and Sanglia. And so there's lots of expats who live here and from all over and that's been a quite nice way to integrate. And it's, it's quite nice because in the other part of Malta, especially the economy capital called Slima.
[00:07:39] Eric and Michael: You also have a lot of expats, but they're here to work. So it's people who are here for an assignment. For example, they're going to stay three, three years maximum or something. So they don't really integrate to the society because they know they're going to leave sooner or later. Whereas the part where we live it's people who are here to stay.
[00:07:59] Eric and Michael: So it [00:08:00] makes a big difference.
[00:08:01] Mark Goldstein: In your community, where you live, are you able to make friends? Have you found it easy to make friends in your community?
[00:08:12] Eric and Michael: Super, super easy. I think when we, our first summer here, I think it was summer. We got invited to the, so you have the other thing you have to remember, we're coming from France where there's 365 cheeses, Malta has 365 churches, so we're, and that's for a small place, and it's very Catholic, so we're a little, neither one of us are really, we're not religious and we weren't quite, that was the one thing we weren't sure about, but at our age we said, you know, we are who we are, And I think the first summer we got invited to the local church roof for a barbecue.
[00:08:42] Eric and Michael: I thought, well, this will be the real test. Is the church going to fall down or how are the people going to accept us? And I think half of the people on the roof are gay and super, super friendly. And to this day, everyone in the neighborhood is. It, it's really not even a [00:09:00] subject. No. So it's easy to make friends here if you make an effort as well.
[00:09:03] Eric and Michael: You know, you can't just come in and Of course, and say everything should be like it was where I can't.
[00:09:08] Mark Goldstein: Right. You don't, you're not like yeah, I'm from the US so I expect this to be here in that. Yeah. I'm here from Paris and we're used to this you know, you're an immigrant now, mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.
[00:09:20] Mark Goldstein: True. But I understand. And I, correct me if I'm wrong, that Malta is one of the most LGBTQ friendliest countries? Absolutely.
[00:09:34] Eric and Michael: Anywhere? Well, we just had Eurovision Europride here. So we had 30, 000 gays descend on Malta last year. Oh my God. Yeah, it was a really big big event and it was not a big deal.
[00:09:45] Eric and Michael: You know, it was again, very well accepted. The government supports it. The, Eric will tell the story about the, the law. Yeah, so it's very surprising here because it's a, like we said, very Catholic. They had to divorce [00:10:00] until 2013 was prohibited. They had to take a referendum to actually legalize divorce and.
[00:10:08] Eric and Michael: It was not an easy thing. It was 2013 and it passed by only 55%. But the gay marriage passed as simple as that. So everybody voted at the parliament. Everybody voted in favor of it, except one guy. So that's very surprising. So abortion is still illegal here, for example. So you have these very, you know, mixed signals, like, which are naturally linked to religion.
[00:10:40] Eric and Michael: But things like anything that has to do with the gays is pretty well accepted. We don't understand why, but that's the way it is.
[00:10:47] Mark Goldstein: That's amazing. They just legalized divorce?
[00:10:51] Eric and Michael: In 2013, yes.
[00:10:53] Mark Goldstein: Wow. That's crazy.
[00:10:57] Eric and Michael: Yeah, it's very unexpected.
[00:10:59] Mark Goldstein: It's [00:11:00] different, but and when did, do you remember when they legalized gay marriage?
[00:11:04] Eric and Michael: Three years ago, I think, or something. I don't remember exactly, but before, yeah. Okay. Nope. No, no, no, no, no, the gay marriage, so before you could have a partnership. But then but then now you the marriage, no, not the marriage, I think maybe five years ago, I don't remember. Okay. Okay. There's another thing also here, you can choose your gender very easily.
[00:11:26] Mark Goldstein: Now that's different. Yeah, it's very surprising. It's very Yeah, for a country that has 365 churches, they're pretty progressive. Yeah, very unexpected. I'd say even more progressive than one of your neighboring countries that you Which one? Italy. Italy? Oh, yeah, yeah, Italy, yeah. Yeah, you can't get married there.
[00:11:53] Mark Goldstein: No, you can't get married in Italy with same sex marriage, but they will [00:12:00] recognize your marriage because you're, they're part of the EU.
[00:12:05] Eric and Michael: Yeah, maybe in Italy, they still don't have gay marriage, but they will have it eventually. I think I don't think there are many countries in the EU that don't have.
[00:12:12] Eric and Michael: Gay marriage, actually. Maybe Italy is one of the last ones. I don't know. It's not really, it's no longer a topic within Europe now, you know. It's like, okay, maybe some countries still don't have it. Or maybe in Eastern Europe, yes, it is still, it can be a problem, but not in Western Europe.
[00:12:33] Mark Goldstein: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
[00:12:36] Mark Goldstein: Okay. How about language? Does, I'm sure Malta has their own native language. I don't know what that's called. Malta
[00:12:47] Eric and Michael: has Maltese. Maltese. Maltese. Yeah. Okay. And it sounds about 70 percent Arabic, 20 percent Italian, and 10 percent French, English, and a couple others. Because Malta was [00:13:00] invaded so many times, but what you'll hear mostly is an Arabic sound.
[00:13:04] Mark Goldstein: So it's all, it's all integrated and all mixed. Okay, and does anyone speak English on the island? Everybody
[00:13:14] Eric and Michael: speaks English on the island. Everybody? Yeah, that's a big advantage of Malta. And that's probably also one of the reasons why we moved here. So everybody, and, and also it's an official language.
[00:13:24] Eric and Michael: So you're totally autonomous if you speak English here. If you go on a, on a government website, it'll be in Maltese and English. So you don't have to hire a translator or anything to do anything. You can do everything by yourself. That's very, very, very convenient. A few people can't speak English, but it's very rare.
[00:13:45] Eric and Michael: And everybody, you know, everybody speaks English.
[00:13:48] Mark Goldstein: Oh, that sure helps. You know, if you're, you know, if you're an immigrant and you're coming over and don't know the language. I mean, [00:14:00] do you know Maltese?
[00:14:02] Eric and Michael: Well, we took we took a little bit of Maltese. So I took two years. I think you took one year or something, but the thing is that.
[00:14:11] Eric and Michael: It's, so it's, it's, it's not a super easy language. It's not, it's doable, but it's not super easy. But the fact that everybody speaks English and that whenever you try to speak Maltese to a Maltese, they will reply in English. So it's a bit like, it kind of defeats the purpose. And then also, honestly, you know, it's spoken by 550, 000 people.
[00:14:35] Eric and Michael: So you're like, okay. And they all speak English. Yeah.
[00:14:38] Mark Goldstein: Okay. So everybody just speaks English. Pretty
[00:14:42] Eric and Michael: much. Yeah. Well, yeah, but there's a big, you know, right now there's a lot of foreigners in Malta and the local population is, is you know, like in a lot of places in the world, they are thinking there are too many foreigners.
[00:14:54] Eric and Michael: They're trying to change the culture, blah, blah, blah. And and so they're, they put pressure [00:15:00] on, on foreigners to learn Maltese just to show the integrating. But in fact, nobody does because for the reasons I just explained. So it's a common, it's a common thing on forums and articles, it's like should the, so I think the government just passed a law saying that new immigrants who come here to work must learn at least a few words of Maltese, for example, as a sort of prerequisite.
[00:15:26] Eric and Michael: But it's pretty useless because they never use those few words. So in this case, when Eric's talking about foreigners, he's talking about migrants who are here to work. Right.
[00:15:36] Mark Goldstein: Like from other EU countries or?
[00:15:38] Eric and Michael: Not even, you know, a lot of Indian, a lot of Indians have come here to provide, to do service jobs that the Maltese now don't want to do.
[00:15:46] Eric and Michael: And so to be frank if you're a white foreigner, it's different than if you're a brown foreigner. Of how those, that language aspect is accepted, but like they say bonjour for good morning, [00:16:00] which comes from the French, they say grazie for thank you, which comes from the Italians. So there's a few things that are easy to pick up, but having a conversation is quite difficult, especially, and a lot of Maltese mix Maltese and English when they're discussing between themselves.
[00:16:14] Eric and Michael: God, yeah. We're not
[00:16:16] Mark Goldstein: totally
[00:16:16] Eric and Michael: blind. Fun fact, because the word for God in Maltese is Allah, a church, a Catholic church, you pray Allah, because that's the word they use. Hmm. That's very it's always very surprising to people. Yeah,
[00:16:33] Mark Goldstein: it's very, it is very surprising. Okay. All right. Is there a, like a, a vibe that people, Maltese people have about Americans?
[00:16:47] Mark Goldstein: Do they think Americans are American? Yeah. You know,
[00:16:51] Eric and Michael: privileged. I guess that's mine to answer. Yeah, that's his answer. You know, it's like anywhere I've lived in the world or visited as an American. It [00:17:00] depends on what's going on in the world at the time. It depends on the leadership, and it depends on the American in front of you.
[00:17:08] Eric and Michael: Even myself when I'm with other Americans, sometimes you just don't want to be together because you have different points of view, or some Americans are a lot more integrating. They like to integrate more than others. I think my HR background has helped me because I have to deal with so many different kinds of people, but it's true when there are big things happening in the world presidential races or wars you quickly have to assess what the, what the person in front of you is.
[00:17:40] Eric and Michael: His thinking or doing a lot of, if you take the immigration issue, a lot of the Maltese not a lot, there's more Maltese. I thought would support Trump because of his immigration stuff, but next week it might be something else. So it really depends on who it is. But in general, the Maltese are very accepting of [00:18:00] everybody.
[00:18:00] Eric and Michael: They're very open and welcoming. They've had different cultures on the island forever and ever, so they know it's temporary. I don't think that's an issue. So the Americans are not, there's a big English impact here, because they've been coming for years and years. So when they come across Americans, actually a much smaller population of foreigners.
[00:18:20] Eric and Michael: So they're quite interested with the Americans. So I actually try to behave better than I normally would. Because I know that I'm being assessed. To be a good example. Yes, yes, yes.
[00:18:30] Mark Goldstein: That's great. That's great. And, and they treat you, you like as being a, you know, from France, they treat you like a brother, probably.
[00:18:44] Eric and Michael: Oh, like a brother, no, because I actually, the French the French the last time the French were here, it, it was during, Napoleon era and and yeah, and they didn't, they didn't behave very well. So it's actually because that's [00:19:00] the reason why it was an English colony for some time. It's because they the, the Maltese called the English to get rid of the French.
[00:19:07] Eric and Michael: But that's a long time ago. It was in 1850 or something like that. In 1802, I think or something. No, I'm kidding. I mean. I mean, it is true. The history part is true, but I mean, this is a long time ago. You know, the French get treated like like everywhere being called arrogant, arrogant and small.
[00:19:25] Eric and Michael: No, but Eric gets treated a little bit Not special. What's the word? He's exotic because there aren't a whole lot of French walking around except on holiday. So somebody who lives here and is French, they're always, they wonder how, why would you leave Paris to come to our little island? Or why would you leave Miami to come to, you know, we get that a lot, you know, why would you leave Florida for, for this place?
[00:19:46] Eric and Michael: So they're, they're very excited. I mean, we don't see it as a difference. No, and we're very well accepted. I think we are very well accepted here. We never encountered any hostility.
[00:19:57] Mark Goldstein: That's it. So when you [00:20:00] moved, did you transport a pet at all? Just outta curiosity? No, not me. No. How do you do that? Do you put them on the plane?
[00:20:10] Mark Goldstein: No, we
[00:20:10] Eric and Michael: say, I'm saying he's the pet. Like I'm the pet. He's the pet I transport. Ah, no. No. We didn't have a pet. No, no, we didn't have a pet to
[00:20:18] Mark Goldstein: transport. Oh, okay. Because I was wondering how you get them over as well, but okay. Does Malta have any type of LGBTQ neighborhood or gayborhood like we do here in the U.
[00:20:32] Mark Goldstein: S.? Or is it so integrated and so kind of normal that everyone is just, you know, lives, live, live and let live type?
[00:20:45] Eric and Michael: Well, there's, yeah, I mean, I think there is one gay bar and, and I think that's about it, you know, Like you said, it's pretty integrated. It's pretty, you know, it's pretty common. So you don't have to have special areas.
[00:20:58] Eric and Michael: But not one gay bar because it's [00:21:00] small and everything. It's one gay bar because people Interact them between themselves. There's parties. It's very integrated. If you go to anybody's party, there'll be gay people there and it's just not a thing. There are gay parties. There are dance parties which we're probably too old for at this point.
[00:21:17] Eric and Michael: So they do have parties. They do have club nights. You know, there's a lot of that. But it's not a gay bar. It's a venue where somebody's throwing a party. And there's certainly not a gay
[00:21:27] Mark Goldstein: area,
[00:21:27] Eric and Michael: that's for sure. And there's not a gay ghetto at all, and there's nothing, there's not an area. Now, that being said, in the three cities where we live, because it's culturally interesting and you have interesting people who move here, there are several gays in the area.
[00:21:42] Eric and Michael: There's a street near, nearby called To gate street and it's, it's, it's nickname is to gay street. I
[00:21:52] Mark Goldstein: could imagine. Yeah. Okay. But that's refreshing too, you know, because if everything is [00:22:00] integrated and there's no need, see here in the States, there are some places, you know, like I go to that I'm like, Oh, where's the gay bar.
[00:22:11] Mark Goldstein: And it's a fairly large city. And they're like, Oh, we don't have one. And I say, why? And they say, well, we're pretty much integrated and we don't need one. But still, being in the States, I feel I need my little safe place to go to. That's just my opinion. I think there is a need and unfortunately all these apps that come out that people just go on, got rid of a lot of the gay bars because of, you know, that type of hookup.
[00:22:44] Mark Goldstein: Electronically, so to speak, but if I'm having, you know, a group of friends, I, I like that camaraderie, you know, bunch of gay men in a, in one place drinking and have a good time, you [00:23:00] know, but here I feel like there's a need there. It might be totally different because. It doesn't matter.
[00:23:10] Eric and Michael: There's so we have a pretty good, we have an active community here.
[00:23:13] Eric and Michael: There's a website called gamealta. com. So that's interesting maybe for your listeners. Or allied rainbow communities. And they always publish, so hikes, and drag brunches, and you know, dinners, and. A sunset things. You know, we have both, you know, with lots of boat things in the summertime. So there's always something going on, but it's true.
[00:23:34] Eric and Michael: I think in our generation as well, we're used to finding that place where you could be out with, you know, you just showed up and you met people. So I think that's us. It's a generation. I think it's changed and we're not going to change it, but we're quite lucky. And I mean, even Paris. The Marais in Paris is all going away, it's all Gucci and Chanel, it's not at all, there's one or a few bars, but it's not even, it's a shame because there's [00:24:00] some people who just need to wander around and find themselves versus going there.
[00:24:03] Mark Goldstein: Yep. Yeah, I totally get it. Okay. Tell us a little bit about the local economy. What's it like? Give me some sort of idea in our audience, an idea of what it costs to buy a, a single family home. Or a rental how much does it cost for a rental, like, let's say on average, two bedroom, two bath.
[00:24:27] Eric and Michael: So housing is quite, it's quite expensive now. I mean, for a two bedroom, how much would you pay? A rent would be 1, 000 euros, I suppose, no? Yeah. Depending on, depending on where, yeah, because you've got the economy capital Coslima, I mentioned it earlier, that's more expensive because that's where all the expats are and that's where all the businesses are and then in places like ours, it's, it is less expensive.
[00:24:54] Eric and Michael: But yeah, it's, it's probably in the region of 1000 euros for a two bedroom.
[00:24:59] Mark Goldstein: For a [00:25:00] rental. How about a home to buy, purchase? What's the average?
[00:25:03] Eric and Michael: Bye. So to buy like a house, for example, that's that's pretty expensive. That's noise It's it's very often about in the region if you want something decent. It's about 1 million
[00:25:17] Mark Goldstein: a million
[00:25:18] Eric and Michael: So no, there were some places listed for 300, 000 recently But you know, it depends on if you're gonna renovate something that's all because remember the houses here I mean the hotel we did at the bottom parts 500 years old Yeah, so that's not simple to renovate and then you have new builds But I'd say you can probably get something around 500 or or less depending again If you but if it's an expat moving here, you would have a little more money to invest, right?
[00:25:45] Eric and Michael: If you want something if you want like a nice apartment Facing the sea that's going to be more in the region of 1 million euros Especially you can find cheap apartments like cheap really cheaper apartments here [00:26:00] To buy but they're of very bad quality Huh. And you're not going to have a house with a pool here, you know.
[00:26:08] Eric and Michael: I don't know. No, this is the thing I probably miss the most, is having a house with a pool and a garage and my land and nobody next to me, you know. I look over the fence maybe, but first of all, it's an old country, so they're not built like that. There's very little land. There are homes like that here, but then you're, it's several million and not very easy to find.
[00:26:28] Mark Goldstein: So it's not cheap to, to live in Malta.
[00:26:33] Eric and Michael: It's not a, it used to be. So when we arrived almost 10 years ago, it was really very affordable. We bought our apartment for probably half of what we would sell it for today, at least. So you could rent for next to nothing. We rented a house during our the works of the, of the apartment.
[00:26:53] Eric and Michael: We rented a house, a full house for 450, 000 450 euros, facing [00:27:00] the sea. It was absolutely fantastic. But now all this has changed because the economy is very good here. And and you know, there's a huge growth. There's construction everywhere. There's, it's really in the development phase. And of course, that creates
[00:27:16] Mark Goldstein: inflation.
[00:27:17] Mark Goldstein: Word got out. Yeah, yeah. The secret got out, I guess. And everybody And
[00:27:24] Eric and Michael: taxes, you know, you don't have, you don't have any city taxes here. So that's a good thing and a bad thing. You know, you don't have tax for the rubbish. You don't have tax for, you don't have park, parking's free. So yeah, there's things that you wouldn't even expect them to do.
[00:27:38] Eric and Michael: The tourist tax. So for our hotel, we just told somebody they were there for a week and they had to pay what five euros or something tourist tax, which, you know, if you went anywhere, it'd be 10 years a day. Yeah. Yeah. So there's still things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so some things are extremely cheap and some things are becoming pretty expensive, like restaurants, for example, [00:28:00] now they're, they're pretty expensive.
[00:28:03] Eric and Michael: Do you find
[00:28:04] Mark Goldstein: that when word got out and it became popular, did you find expats moving in and purchasing the, the homes and creating Airbnbs and renting them out? And kind of like pushing out the locals, did that
[00:28:25] Eric and Michael: happen? Locals who sell the property, let's start there. Right. They, no, the locals are especially this area.
[00:28:32] Eric and Michael: This area was one of the most bombed areas during the last, during World War II. A lot of the buildings were destroyed, and people migrated to Canada and Australia, and the buildings were left in ruins. So the poorest of the poor moved to this area, which happened a lot of places in the world. And only since joining the EU, when did Malta join the EU?
[00:28:56] Eric and Michael: 2004. 2004, Malta joined [00:29:00] the EU, so money came in from the EU. Need I say, the gays moved in and renovated a lot of properties. And people had homes and apartments that they didn't want to live in anyway because there was a stigma. There was a stigma to live in this area. And so making apartments and rental properties was the right thing to do at the time.
[00:29:21] Eric and Michael: I don't know whether it's over, like a lot of, a lot of countries now it's being Yeah, what's the other word legislated a bit. Yeah, like Portugal. Yes. And so that's one of the reasons we left France too. We had an Airbnb in Nice and they were about to put in some laws about how many months a year you can rent.
[00:29:41] Eric and Michael: So we did it for a little while in the hotel and, and the tourism economy here is one of the biggest economies. It's, it's also a place people want to come and people want to rent. So the locals rent out their properties as well. The, the non. Maltese tend to follow the rules more because [00:30:00] you never know if you're going to get inspected.
[00:30:01] Eric and Michael: Whereas the locals know how to get around some of the rules. And again, that happens everywhere. Pushing them out, I don't know, is the right way. I mean, we're sensitive to that ourselves, but it doesn't seem to be the attitude we're feeling here. So the good thing about this economic growth is that the life of everybody is improving.
[00:30:21] Eric and Michael: You know, so people start being being too jealous or too, I mean, to be nasty to foreigners, or to anybody actually, when they feel the somebody, the others in their life is not improving just like their neighbors. And that is not the case now because everybody, everybody's life improves. And that's, that's, that's a very good thing for the cohesion.
[00:30:47] Eric and Michael: Yeah, exactly. I don't know how long, we don't know how long it's going to last. The thing is that. It's an ex poor country because it was really pretty poor 25 years ago, 20 years ago. [00:31:00] And now it's got the GDP per capita of Italy, for example. So within 20 years, there has been a tremendous development, which still continues.
[00:31:10] Eric and Michael: It's slowing down a little bit, but it's still pretty, pretty big compared to other countries in Europe. That's
[00:31:18] Mark Goldstein: pretty impressive. For that period of time, okay how about like groceries and can you walk where you are to like a market or pharmacy and stuff like that?
[00:31:33] Eric and Michael: The answer that I mean, we have, yeah, you're gonna walk to the pharmacy, the doctor.
[00:31:37] Eric and Michael: So the story I like to tell us, we have like a, you know, town doctor, like you imagine in the old days. So we have a, there's two actually in the, in the city of Sanglia, but there's one, one doctor, you go see him in the morning. Or in the afternoon because he only works two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon.
[00:31:54] Eric and Michael: But he's the guy you go to get your prescription. For antibiotics, or you know, something basic, [00:32:00] and you give them 10 euros. This is your co pay, but it's also the cost of seeing the doctor. Of course, you have to wait in line. So you show up at the doctor at 9 o'clock in the morning, or 7 o'clock in the morning, let's say.
[00:32:12] Eric and Michael: Before people go to work. And you show up, and you see how many people are in line. You have to ask who was the last one? And say, oh, I was. And then, so you get in line that way. So there's no waiting room or anything. You just go to see the local doctor. That's for real basic things, so that's pretty cheap.
[00:32:26] Eric and Michael: You have a public healthcare system, which is quite good, so that's free. And then you have a private healthcare system I saw the doctor the other day and it was 70 euros to see a neurologist you know, for a pinched nerve kind of thing. And I, I think that's a good price compared to, to the U.
[00:32:43] Eric and Michael: S., and I saw him within a week.
[00:32:46] Mark Goldstein: Um So, was that with private healthcare? That was private. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it costs you 70 bucks.
[00:32:53] Eric and Michael: Yeah. And, and that'll be covered by insurance of the week. So we have a private insurance. So we have the, we have the [00:33:00] health insurance of the country because we, we have the hotel so we pay social security.
[00:33:05] Eric and Michael: Sure. And, and then we also have private health insurance because it goes quicker. So if you want to. Right. But very often we go to the public system, you know, if you want to have your blood checked or anything, all this is free. But, but if you want to have, you know, sometimes you feel, you feel better going to a private clinic.
[00:33:25] Eric and Michael: Grocery.
[00:33:26] Mark Goldstein: Yeah, sorry. Oh, I was going to ask, what does the private health care cost and what is the public cost for
[00:33:34] Eric and Michael: you? You're talking about the insurance or you're talking about the cost of seeing it? The insurance. Well, the insurance, it's pretty, when we, you know, we're going to tell you the price that still amazes me.
[00:33:43] Eric and Michael: It's 1000 euros a year.
[00:33:47] Mark Goldstein: For each? For each. For each of you. I mean, 1, 000 for you and 1, 000 for you. Yeah, so it's 2, 000.
[00:33:58] Eric and Michael: For both of us, at our [00:34:00] age.
[00:34:00] Mark Goldstein: That's pretty good. And how about, do they accept pre existing conditions?
[00:34:07] Eric and Michael: So it depends. That I think once you've been treated, they know you've been treated, but I don't know if you came here.
[00:34:13] Eric and Michael: Actually, if you came here, they wouldn't know what you had. They don't do that sort of, they ask you to fill in a questionnaire and you tell them what you need to tell them. But but I don't think that's a big effect cause it would be free. Otherwise they're just making it, you know. I
[00:34:25] Mark Goldstein: don't know.
[00:34:26] Eric and Michael: I mean the public system, the public health system would be free no matter what.
[00:34:30] Eric and Michael: If you have something serious you get treated much quicker as well, and they have a reciprocity with England still, with the UK. So if you needed to have a really emergency surgery they couldn't do here, they fly you there, put you up and get treated in the UK.
[00:34:44] Mark Goldstein: Yeah, it's pretty well organized. Do you have well equipped hospitals?
[00:34:48] Mark Goldstein: I'm sure you do on the island.
[00:34:50] Eric and Michael: I think we think so. I mean, we're not specialists, but I mean every time we I don't, it doesn't seem to be, I mean the hospital is pretty new [00:35:00] actually, the hospital is pretty, it's much newer than the hospitals we went to in France. Oh my gosh, yes. And the, the medical system in France is very good.
[00:35:08] Eric and Michael: The hospitals I would say have some work to be done, compared to the US, you
[00:35:13] Mark Goldstein: know. And how long is a wait? Like if you had something, you had to see a
[00:35:18] Eric and Michael: specialist. So that's the thing we don't know because, not on wood, but we never had anything serious. So the, the thing is that Michael had one day the Michael had one day the back problem and he needed what's it say?
[00:35:33] Eric and Michael: Injections. Injections. And this this he went private because that was much quicker. But if you have something, so if you have something that's not urgent, you can wait several I think a guy next door had a hip replacement and it took him a long time to wait. So this is a story we always hear in the U.
[00:35:53] Eric and Michael: S. about the wait
[00:35:55] Mark Goldstein: time. Oh, yeah. There is a wait time. It never used to be that way, but now it [00:36:00] is. Oh, you're talking about the U. S., yeah.
[00:36:02] Eric and Michael: No, but here, yeah, you're gonna wait two, three weeks. It's always, it's always this discussion, mark. No, but you hear that, sorry, mark said two to three weeks. Oh, right Now here it could be six months.
[00:36:11] Eric and Michael: Oh, in a social system like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's
[00:36:15] Mark Goldstein: not gonna be that long
[00:36:16] Eric and Michael: here, but if you've got cancer, you will be treated right away. Okay. Right. You know, so we had a neighbor, they, , they saw that he had cancer and he got into the hospital right away.
[00:36:27] Mark Goldstein: So how much do you pay for the public?
[00:36:30] Mark Goldstein: You
[00:36:31] Eric and Michael: don't, it's in the it's a, well, I mean, yeah, you pay social security contributions. So it's about, it's 10 percent of your salary.
[00:36:41] Mark Goldstein: Okay. Cause I know in Spain if you're coming over as an immigrant expat the public system, if you're over 65, I think it's. 170 per month. I
[00:36:59] Eric and Michael: [00:37:00] don't think here, here we could benefit from the public health system if we didn't contribute to it.
[00:37:08] Eric and Michael: I don't think so. You mean if we hadn't contributed to it? Yes, if we hadn't. So when we retire we can still benefit from the public system? I think so. Yeah. Because,
[00:37:17] Mark Goldstein: yeah. We've already contributed. Yeah, Spain they let you, but you have to pay for it. Yes, of course.
[00:37:23] Eric and Michael: Okay. There's no free
[00:37:24] Mark Goldstein: lunch. So in your area, can you walk to a restaurant?
[00:37:29] Mark Goldstein: Can you walk to a market and get food?
[00:37:31] Eric and Michael: So we have lots of restaurants here. There's a mark, we have a organic market and a regular market and a flea market. Very important things, right? I mean, a walk away. And then today we did big shop Two big grocery stores by car. Yeah, we need to take the car for them.
[00:37:48] Eric and Michael: Which is new to me because living in Paris you don't have a car. And but here we need
[00:37:53] Mark Goldstein: a car. You need a car wherever you go here?
[00:37:56] Eric and Michael: You need a car for many things, yes. Yeah. Okay. [00:38:00] I mean, we have a, you don't, you don't, people can survive here without a car. You can, but yeah, if you want to go to a supermarket, you need a car?
[00:38:07] Eric and Michael: No. There's buses, we have ferries, we have traditional boats. A cycling is not easy 'cause it's quite rocky and hilly here. A lot of traffic, but a lot of people don't drive. But we wouldn't survive. But we have a scooter here. So most of the time we use a motorbike. Motorbike, yeah. We use a motorbike because traffic is pretty bad here.
[00:38:27] Eric and Michael: So we use a motorbike. Do you
[00:38:31] Mark Goldstein: find food more expensive because you're on an island, everything has to, it's like Hawaii, like every, everything has to be imported from the mainland?
[00:38:41] Eric and Michael: I think it's slightly more expensive, but it's not, like compared to, to Paris, I think it's about the same prices. We're about to have elections here at least local elections.
[00:38:53] Eric and Michael: And they've made a a commitment to lower the price of 20 food items, you know, so we [00:39:00] don't, we're not so they must have done that because they've been hearing complaints that the prices, price, the right price of food has gone up. Which it has everywhere, but I don't know that these 20 items are going to change anybody's life, but I think that was, but, but the fact they're doing that tells you that they're hearing something.
[00:39:15] Eric and Michael: So that's important. It's
[00:39:17] Mark Goldstein: at least they're doing something here. They would just argue and not getting anything done,
[00:39:22] Eric and Michael: but it's, you know, this is this thing that probably happened in the States too, and is very common in Europe after COVID. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Prices shot up, prices of everything for good and bad reasons, you know, for good reasons because yes, price of transport, blah, blah, blah, and all this.
[00:39:37] Eric and Michael: And then also because people took advantage. So I think it's something pretty common in the West. And now people are starting to say, okay, this is enough now. And then they started, yeah, it's true what Michael's saying now there and you see a lot of advertising of supermarkets competing on the price of things, for example, which, which never happened before.[00:40:00]
[00:40:00] Eric and Michael: We get a lot of food imported from Italy.
[00:40:02] Eric and Michael: Pretty good food. Well, yeah, but it's, it's closer, so we get it on the ferry. We have big ferries that come here. Other countries as well, but a lot of food comes from Italy. Yeah, a lot of food is imported, so that's why it's probably also more expensive. But it's, I don't know, I think some things are more expensive than in other countries, but I think it's pretty similar to a big city in the rest of Europe.
[00:40:30] Mark Goldstein: How much is well, you don't do gallons, so you do liters, but how much is gas?
[00:40:37] Eric and Michael: So gas is, so it's very affordable for Europe because it's 1. 32 per liter. 1.
[00:40:44] Mark Goldstein: 32 per liter, how many liters again in a
[00:40:48] Eric and Michael: gallon? Four. Four. It's a little, yeah, I think it's a little less.
[00:40:52] Mark Goldstein: We're talking five something six dollars a gallon six six six dollars a gallon [00:41:00] okay so
[00:41:03] Eric and Michael: how much is it in the states
[00:41:05] Mark Goldstein: around here and it's kind of expensive here in phoenix but it's it's 369
[00:41:15] Eric and Michael: a gallon that sounds expensive to me for the u. s
[00:41:17] Mark Goldstein: but i have no idea now yeah but you go to california a place like california Where taxes are higher and it's probably in the fours there, used to be in the fives and sixes, but price of gas has come down recently. So that's a good
[00:41:37] Eric and Michael: thing. Yeah. So though here, the price of gas and the price of electricity, actually in the price of water is regulated by the government.
[00:41:45] Eric and Michael: And it's a big thing here. So the, the, the recent government, I mean the current government was elected. Because they promised to lower the price of water and electricity. And so that kind of remained even during the, [00:42:00] during the war, because of the Ukraine war, you know, prices of all this has risen everywhere in Europe.
[00:42:07] Eric and Michael: Here, electricity didn't change, gas didn't change, and, and, and gas, the gas you put in your stove and the gas you put in your car didn't change either. But we think, you know, like Michael said, there are elections coming up in a couple of months, and we think that after these elections, things are going to change.
[00:42:29] Mark Goldstein: Yeah. As you know, we have elections coming up. That's all we hear. Yeah. So and people are like, Oh, what's your escape route? You know, if things happen. Like, yeah, I don't want it to even go there, but we'll, we'll see what happens. So how about, does Malta produce wine, [00:43:00] or do you import it from France and Italy?
[00:43:04] Eric and Michael: Oh, no, there is wine in Malta, but it's again, it's a very small, there's very limited space. So it's not a lot, it's not, I'm not a specialist, even though I'm French, everybody thinks I'm I'm good at wine. I'm not. And so I think there's some pretty decent wine here, but not extraordinary. But the rest get, yeah, is imported from Italy mostly.
[00:43:29] Eric and Michael: And they have good wine. Yeah, so we see a lot of Italian wines because it's easier to transport from Italy. We get French wines, but they're overpriced French wines. Get South African wines. There's a lot of South Africans moving to Malta. That's their escape route. And several of the Maltese wines, they use some Maltese grapes or they do some processing.
[00:43:48] Eric and Michael: So we're not quite sure what's a hundred percent Maltese and what's a portion of Maltese, but there's a few that are labeled Maltese that are pretty good. And then the majority are [00:44:00]
[00:44:00] Mark Goldstein: not pretty good. So they're not as inexpensive as they are in other parts of the EU like Spain and. No, it's cheap. Did
[00:44:09] Eric and Michael: you say expensive or inexpensive?
[00:44:12] Eric and Michael: Are they ,inexpensive or? Yeah, Maltese wines.
[00:44:15] Mark Goldstein: Yeah. It's very
[00:44:15] Eric and Michael: inexpensive. Even, even French wine. I mean, we bought wine for today. What was it? 60 euros a bottle or something? No, first of all, it was Italian. You really don't know wines. Yeah. It was a white wine. He's like, Oh, this is red. No, so French wine is quite expensive here, in my opinion.
[00:44:34] Eric and Michael: I mean, you can find a few that are imported from Italy. Yeah. Yeah. The French wines, but, I mean, compared to France, I'm sorry, the wine is not the same. It's more expensive. Yeah. I don't
[00:44:44] Mark Goldstein: know. Yeah, I, I mean, in Spain. But there's Italian wines here
[00:44:47] Eric and Michael: that are, that are good price and good qual very good quality and good price.
[00:44:52] Mark Goldstein: Cause in some places it's cheaper than water. Bottled water. In
[00:44:56] Eric and Michael: France, they were complaining at some stage, you know, [00:45:00] even on the, on the road, you would, on the motorway or something, I mean, you cannot do that anymore. But in the past, when I was young, you could buy a glass of wine, it was cheaper than a glass of Coke.
[00:45:11] Eric and Michael: Yeah,
[00:45:12] Mark Goldstein: I believe it. I definitely believe that. In Malta, I'm trying to picture, they don't have any type of public transportation.
[00:45:22] Eric and Michael: They have buses.
[00:45:23] Mark Goldstein: Buses? Okay. But there's no like tram or trolley that takes you around?
[00:45:29] Eric and Michael: We have ferries, we have boat ferries.
[00:45:32] Mark Goldstein: Probably because it's hilly, right?
[00:45:36] Eric and Michael: It's hilly and there's not a lot of, again, there's not a lot of room.
[00:45:41] Eric and Michael: So I've been, they're talking about building a metro here, but it's, again, that's the topic they used before elections, but it never, it never sees the light. That's the topic. Because that would be so much money to to invest for such a small population that it's not worth it. So I
[00:45:59] Mark Goldstein: don't [00:46:00] think so trying to picture how, how long would it take to drive from one end of Malta to the other?
[00:46:10] Eric and Michael: It is quite long. It's about two hours to drive. Two hours? Yeah. Okay. But it depends. That traffic's very bad. Okay. So if it's at four o'clock in the morning, of course it'll be quicker, but if it's during normal hours, it can be very long. So it goes it to go to Chaka the North from here, it's an hour, it's one hour 40.
[00:46:29] Eric and Michael: It's an hour. It's an hour. No, it's less than two hours. I promise you it's from, from the south to the north. It's an hour. If you're from the south, south, it might, nobody lives in the south, south to go there. But, but technically be about an hour and a half to go from one tip to the other. Then you have traffic.
[00:46:50] Eric and Michael: Yeah. And so we have, that's why we have a boat ferry that takes us from this part around the, around the island to the top, to the sister island of Gozo. [00:47:00] And that's 45 minutes by boat.
[00:47:02] Mark Goldstein: And that's also why we have a boat. Yeah, I'm kind of trying to compare it. When I used to live in New York to Long Island, it used to take us longer to get from New York, Brooklyn, where I live, to the tip of Long Island.
[00:47:16] Mark Goldstein: Yeah so it's actually shorter. Malta is actually shorter than that. Oh, yeah, yeah. Waste as far as distance. Okay. Is the airport close? Close by?
[00:47:29] Eric and Michael: Fifteen
[00:47:29] Mark Goldstein: minutes. Fifteen minutes?
[00:47:31] Eric and Michael: Okay. It's the best airport in the world. Really? Until recently, you still walked onto the plane and off of the plane. That was really nice.
[00:47:41] Eric and Michael: Now you have to take a bus to go across, you know, a hundred feet. That's probably not for the, that's more security, I think, but yeah, it's a great airport.
[00:47:50] Mark Goldstein: It just goes to, where does it go to, like Italy, France?
[00:47:55] Eric and Michael: It goes, no, it goes to everywhere in Europe, all the capitals. But, it [00:48:00] doesn't go any further than Dubai, is that it?
[00:48:03] Eric and Michael: Dubai? I think Dubai. No, not even Dubai, you change in Cyprus. Turkey, Istanbul. Yeah, so not
[00:48:11] Mark Goldstein: bad and it's 15 minutes away. That's one of my criterias of living in a place close to airport, hospitals, close. Yeah, it's very, the,
[00:48:22] Eric and Michael: The, the airport one day, I one day I I I took the plane to go to Paris. I, I went there and then I suddenly, I checked my luggage and then I suddenly realized that I had forgotten my headset.
[00:48:33] Eric and Michael: I had enough time to go back home, take my headset, come back, and I was still early to board the plane.
[00:48:41] Mark Goldstein: That's funny. That's funny. Not here. Can't do that here. No, no, I couldn't do that in Paris. So let's talk a little bit about crime, or maybe even lack of crime. Malta, I'm sure they don't allow guns, correct?
[00:48:58] Mark Goldstein: To [00:49:00] everybody. There's no country EU is pretty much Yeah. Well, there's some places in the EU that allow guns, but Hunting.
[00:49:08] Eric and Michael: We have hunting grounds, but hunting, yes,
[00:49:09] Mark Goldstein: but But not anything like what we have here, the mess that we have here in the US. It's
[00:49:17] Eric and Michael: something very difficult for us, for us Europeans, to understand why a government would allow guns.
[00:49:23] Eric and Michael: But we know that it's part of the, it's a big problem in the US, and it's part of the Do you
[00:49:27] Mark Goldstein: think, if it's difficult for you to understand It's difficult for me to understand what the hell is going on, you know. It never used to be that way. Nobody ever had guns when I had grown up, you know. Maybe they had them, but
[00:49:44] Eric and Michael: But from the outside now, from the outside now, it looks like you all accept them.
[00:49:48] Eric and Michael: Must be everyone likes them now, I'm being facetious.
[00:49:50] Mark Goldstein: No, not everyone, not everyone likes them. There are a bunch of people that wish that they never existed [00:50:00] because they only cause trouble and the way people think these days is like, Oh, the, the solution is to arm more people, which is ridiculous.
[00:50:13] Mark Goldstein: I mean, here in, in Arizona, it's open carry. People could just carry a gun on their holster, you know, on their pants, and it's considered okay. It's legal. Where, when I see it, and I'm from New York, it's not legal in New York. Open carry is not legal. So I'm, I'm a New Yorker, native New Yorker, and I look at that and it's just like, oh my god.
[00:50:43] Mark Goldstein: Yeah, it's not a comfortable feeling. It makes you wonder if you're going to the supermarket, if something's gonna happen, or you're going into a venue, a concert or something. You know what? I sit home and [00:51:00] watch TV. As far as that's concerned, I don't remember less. Well, maybe a few years ago I went to a concert, but in
[00:51:09] Eric and Michael: Malta, you can still leave your wallet on the table at the restaurant block away.
[00:51:15] Eric and Michael: Come back and come back the next day and it's either there or the restaurant has it or your phone or something. There's some places you wouldn't do that, but the majority of places in Malta are super honest. We still wear our wallets and phones in our back pockets and don't worry, you know. It's really it's a nice feeling.
[00:51:35] Eric and Michael: It's a very nice feeling. You leave your door open. Until recently, people left keys in the car. I mean, it's an island, where are you gonna go? You steal a car, where are you gonna go? Yeah, it's true.
[00:51:48] Mark Goldstein: That's such a novel idea. Feeling safe in a place. Mm hmm. So
[00:51:53] Eric and Michael: It's very, very nice, actually. Very nice. Yeah. I'd say that's the thing I like the most about Malta.
[00:51:58] Eric and Michael: It's yeah, I don't know [00:52:00] how long it's gonna last, of course, but But it's very pleasant.
[00:52:04] Mark Goldstein: That's perfect. That's, that in itself is worth a million dollars. To me. You know. Okay, I don't have a problem if I take my dog, if I lived in Malta and I take my dog out at two in the morning to do his business. I won't feel unsafe at
[00:52:22] Eric and Michael: all.
[00:52:23] Eric and Michael: Same with women. You know, women, very often they ask on forums. Oh, is it okay if I travel by myself? Absolutely no problem.
[00:52:33] Mark Goldstein: Yeah, it's
[00:52:34] Eric and Michael: But to be honest, there are some places in Malta where you have lots and lots of nightclubs and a lot of young people and, you know, so you have, you can't, I don't want to I don't want people to think that everywhere in Malta is like that.
[00:52:47] Eric and Michael: But the majority of Malta is. I can say that. So
[00:52:50] Mark Goldstein: you might have in those places like petty theft, like pickpocket. Yeah,
[00:52:54] Eric and Michael: pickpocketing, or you've got fights, you know, like the guys that get drunk and Yeah. [00:53:00]
[00:53:00] Mark Goldstein: But it's not a, but they're not going to shoot you. No, no, no.
[00:53:04] Eric and Michael: No, it's very, very rare that they shoot people here.
[00:53:07] Eric and Michael: And it's often for like a Eastern European. Yeah, that's it. The Eastern European, they come, they get drunk and they fight.
[00:53:15] Mark Goldstein: Okay. We won't go there. So do they have, is homeless population, is that a thing at all?
[00:53:26] Eric and Michael: No, it's not a thing. It's not a thing for two reasons. One is because it's private. So you cannot, it's prohibited, you cannot beg it.
[00:53:36] Eric and Michael: It's prohibitive. Yes. And the second part is that it's still a very Latin kind of family kind of a country, you know, like where the family nucleus is still very important. And so they don't understand, we, we had this discussion several times, they don't understand why. In Northern Europe, you have so many homeless people and they say, but [00:54:00] so don't their family take care of them?
[00:54:02] Eric and Michael: You know, it's like, so they say here, it wouldn't happen because, because we would take it, we would take care of them. But that again is probably going to change because of, because like everywhere, you know, like, because of housing is costing more and more money. So you cannot have your grandmother, you cannot have, you know, at home.
[00:54:19] Eric and Michael: So it's not, it's no longer what it used to be. So it probably, it would probably change, but you don't have, it's true. I mean, in Paris, if you go into the Metro, you, you get asked for money every five seconds. Yeah. Here it never happens. Very, extremely a railing.
[00:54:35] Mark Goldstein: Extremely. It's like in the, yeah, in the states too.
[00:54:38] Mark Goldstein: Like in New York, in the subways here in Phoenix on the light rail. There's a lot of homeless around, around that area. And it, it's really sad and it's become a really big problem. So there's, I've been to some cities like Portland and Seattle where they have actually tents, [00:55:00] you know, tent cities and they're.
[00:55:03] Mark Goldstein: You know, one after another. It's, it's so sad, you know, it's a big problem. I don't know what the, what the solution is, but
[00:55:12] Eric and Michael: we, we heard a lot. We heard that's a lot about the. Some cities in the US and we have some people, some Americans actually who are here because they didn't feel safe in the city they were
[00:55:22] Mark Goldstein: in.
[00:55:23] Mark Goldstein: Yep, that's, that's for sure. Okay, so what do you wish that was in Malta that you may not have in Malta that you had elsewhere? Amazon? Amazon. Yeah, but not like no Amazon Prime, no Amazon Prime, we don't have Amazon Prime, no Amazon Prime. So you do have Amazon and it takes a while to get it. That's
[00:55:52] Eric and Michael: it. I mean, it takes a while.
[00:55:53] Eric and Michael: If you want, you can, if you pay, you can have it overnight, but that would cost a lot of money. If you want [00:56:00] just like the normal Amazon, you have to wait, I don't know, a week or something. Okay. Because the thing is that that's, that's the, probably the thing that is the most difficult here is that because the population is so small, because the country is so small, and because it's an island, everything has to be imported, like we said, and of course they cannot have an inventory like they would have in a big city, of course, makes, it would make no sense.
[00:56:23] Eric and Michael: So it's very, sometimes if you want something very precise, very particular. There's on the Amazon
[00:56:32] Mark Goldstein: and no Costco.
[00:56:34] Eric and Michael: No, no, no, no, that's a good, that's a good answer. I wish we had a Costco, but but I don't as well.
[00:56:40] Mark Goldstein: So I'll tell Mr, Mr Costco up and say, Hey, Malta.
[00:56:44] Eric and Michael: Yeah, Ikea, Ikea. We get from Italy so we can have that delivered at a cost.
[00:56:51] Eric and Michael: So even that we get here, yeah, there are plenty of of, of, of companies that actually go to Sicily, which is not far away, and they [00:57:00] buy, so you, you shop online and they bring it to you. Okay. But of course, of course they charge you 25% of price, but of course they do buy local. But we try to buy local as much as we can.
[00:57:13] Eric and Michael: Also, because we want to support the business at sometimes either it's like so expensive or. Or they don't have what we want and we have no choice. Well, what do we miss? What do we miss here that we don't have? It's, and for me it's also is the food. Is the French food? French
[00:57:31] Mark Goldstein: food,
[00:57:33] Eric and Michael: diversity of food. The diversity
[00:57:35] Mark Goldstein: of food, yes.
[00:57:37] Mark Goldstein: Yeah. Paris especially, I'm sure is, is a great place for, for
[00:57:43] Eric and Michael: food. Yeah. And it's, it's not, I'm not even talking about high-end restaurants because. We have high end restaurants here, so if you want like super good food, you can have it. It's just a casual thing, you know, it's like you go to Paris to a casual restaurant around the corner, and it's going to be good, and [00:58:00] it's going to be affordable, it's going to be easy, served quickly, blah blah blah.
[00:58:04] Eric and Michael: So this I miss the most, but, you know, apart from that.
[00:58:07] Mark Goldstein: Okay, alrighty. Can you just briefly tell us how to obtain a visa? Is there such thing as a retirement visa?
[00:58:22] Eric and Michael: I don't think there is a retirement visa. No, I'm pretty sure there is. I mean, you can retire here, but you have to pay and it's quite expensive.
[00:58:31] Eric and Michael: I think you have to pay, what was it, 20, 000 or 25, 000. It was Canadian dollars, but I think it's 20, 000 euros a year
[00:58:43] Mark Goldstein: to stay here. A year to stay here? Wow. Just for the visa?
[00:58:49] Eric and Michael: What about a residency? It's not really a visa, I think it's a residency. A work? No, no, it's not a work visa, it's a residency as a non, what is it called?
[00:58:59] Eric and Michael: A [00:59:00] non non-EU citizen. No. Yeah, it's definitely EU citizens. They have no problems because Right. This is part of the eu, so you can move it, but if you are from outside of the eu, it's it's self-sufficient visa probably, or self-sufficient status. I don't know exactly what's it called. And you can stay here, but you have to pay.
[00:59:20] Mark Goldstein: Or you have to prove that you have money? Like a pension? Also,
[00:59:24] Eric and Michael: also, also. So what about the thing where you pay 500, 000 or whatever? Oh, Golden Visa. Yeah, if you want to become, you can become Maltese. You can buy a passport here, which is highly controversial as you can imagine. But that's one million euros.
[00:59:44] Eric and Michael: And there's one with the property, if you buy a property, so the Chinese come and they buy a property. They don't pay a million euros. No, when I say one million euros, it's because you have to buy a property for 650, 000 euros, but you get a property that it's still 650, 000 euros. [01:00:00] And then you have to pay, I think it's 300, 000 to the government.
[01:00:04] Eric and Michael: And then you have to give to a charity 50, 000, I'm not a hundred percent sure of the, of the amounts, but it's, it's in this region. And so in the end, so it's roughly 1 million. That's what I said, 1 million investment. And then and then you get a European passport, actually, because you get a Maltese passport, which is actually a European passport.
[01:00:24] Eric and Michael: That's why the EU is not very happy about that, because basically they're selling something that doesn't really belong
[01:00:30] Mark Goldstein: to them. Right, right. Yeah, you can buy EU citizenship or residency. But Malta
[01:00:37] Eric and Michael: wasn't the only country doing this. Right, right.
[01:00:40] Mark Goldstein: There's a lot of countries that do the Golden.
[01:00:43] Eric and Michael: It's the last country doing it now.
[01:00:46] Eric and Michael: And the other thing, what you're saying, the Golden Visa is another thing. I was talking about the passport. Then you become a European citizen. The golden visa is a different story. It's a visa. It's less [01:01:00] expensive. It's less expensive, but it's still not cheap. I don't remember exactly how much it is, but it's not cheap.
[01:01:07] Eric and Michael: But
[01:01:07] Mark Goldstein: we have American You can actually buy a European passport. Yeah,
[01:01:11] Eric and Michael: that's amazing. So it's a lot of a lot of Russians and Chinese who do that. Used to be Russians. Now it's only Chinese. Yeah, maybe not. The Russians don't come anymore. Nope.
[01:01:22] Mark Goldstein: They don't come anymore. They're not allowed to.
[01:01:26] Eric and Michael: Okay. And because because, you know, they, they buy this passport not to live here, but if something goes wrong in the country, they have a sort of escape route, escape
[01:01:35] Mark Goldstein: route.
[01:01:36] Mark Goldstein: Which is
[01:01:39] Eric and Michael: good to have here. And it's for super rich Chinese and stuff. But the goal, we have a, so Dash and, how do they stay here? No, they don't. So that's why he keeps going out of the country. He has, so there's something called a Nomad Visa. So lots of people who are working remotely, they'll have a Nomad Visa.
[01:01:55] Eric and Michael: But they still have to leave the country. It's not, They don't get anything from it except the [01:02:00] permission to stay longer than a tourist. It's not
[01:02:01] Mark Goldstein: easy. Right. It's not easy and it's not cheap either. So if you did buy property, you recommend working with an attorney in Malta, correct? For sure. For sure. Okay.
[01:02:20] Mark Goldstein: And living there for so many years, are there any cons that you can think of?
[01:02:26] Eric and Michael: Oh, I think we covered a couple things. Traffic. Traffic. No, I mean, it's like any, it's a I think people I know who lived in Hawaii will tell me the same thing. They got island fever. So it's good to get off the island and go other places and do different things.
[01:02:42] Eric and Michael: But I don't, but that it's also, I think at our age now, we're, we're easier to please and you're happy to, I think if I was younger, I wouldn't want to spend my whole life here. This is for sure. And it's also because we, we both come from. Big places. So we, we, we saw [01:03:00] that. We, we enjoyed that. We've done it.
[01:03:03] Eric and Michael: We used everything Paris or Miami had to offer. And now because we're older, we're like, okay, been there done that we want something more quiet. And we travel and we travel and we get away, you know, that's
[01:03:14] Mark Goldstein: great. So tell us a little bit about your You're, you have hotels, right? Is it hotels? Yes, we
[01:03:24] Eric and Michael: have a hotel and an Airbnb.
[01:03:28] Mark Goldstein: Oh, tell us a little bit about it. Where can we find it, or, or audience?
[01:03:34] Eric and Michael: Well, it's, it's, I will give you the name. It's called Sanglia Suites. Sanglia, that's S E N G L E A. And suites, like suites. And and it's, so you can, for now, you can only find it on booking. com, unfortunately, because we haven't finished the website, or on on Facebook.
[01:03:55] Eric and Michael: And it's a small six bedroom boutique hotel, we [01:04:00] tend to say nicely decorated, and and so it's, it's it's near, near the area where, where we live, and Or you could just email us at ericandmichael at sanglia suites.
[01:04:12] Mark Goldstein: That's it. There you go. There you go. Excellent.
[01:04:17] Eric and Michael: We're quite happy. It's been a big, good project,
[01:04:19] Mark Goldstein: that's great. Gentlemen, in wrapping up, what would you say to our audience if they're thinking of relocating to Malta?
[01:04:28] Eric and Michael: Well, it's definitely a place to consider. Do your homework? Yeah, do your homework. Okay. And if you're American, then that's yeah, you do your, do your homework and see how you can. You can come here and be legal.
[01:04:45] Eric and Michael: But so we have several people from North America. We have we have Canadian friends, very good Canadian friends that moved here several years ago and bought a property here. But they have to leave the Schengen [01:05:00] area every 30 days, every 90 days. And be out of the Schengen area for another 90 days.
[01:05:06] Eric and Michael: So depending on your lifestyle, depending on, you know, if you have these people, they have several properties. So they can, they can go to other places. So it's also, it's also a matter of how much money you've got and your lifestyle and all this. But it's definitely a nice place to live in. It's, it's also, it gives you access to all the European countries very easily.
[01:05:30] Eric and Michael: And I think that's a very nice, nice thing, because, you know, you're like maximum three hours away from most of the cities in Europe, and that makes it extremely convenient. It's true. I think it also, it also depends on people's objectives. Why they want to move somewhere else, or they want to move to Malta.
[01:05:46] Eric and Michael: A lot of people are moving to Portugal now. But if they don't speak, if they don't speak Portuguese, they're going to be in a community with a bunch of English speaking people, which is okay. Maybe that's what people want. You know, some people want that easy [01:06:00] approach and I'm not, I don't say that in a, in a negative way.
[01:06:03] Eric and Michael: That's, that's what fits some people. So I was lucky because I was in France and I learned French and, and that's helped me in so many different ways, but not everybody does that. Portugal seems to be attractive, but I think we're hearing people say, yeah, but you know, we don't really sit in because, but, but our objective is we want, our objective is we want to be out of the States or we want to live in Europe or whatever it is.
[01:06:26] Eric and Michael: These Canadian friends Eric's mentioning do a lot of home exchanges. So they have properties and then they move around and it's like they live somewhere else. But they're they're really letting out their own home and people come to Malta. And that's also another way people can discover Malta, do a home exchange or, you know, come visit for a short period of time and see how it is.
[01:06:52] Eric and Michael: We came, we came, we had finished looking all over the world and one day our friend said, why don't you come to, [01:07:00] Malta? And we were on a plane the next week. And we didn't fall in love with it the first week. But then we came back and said, Ah, this could really work for us. So you just don't know. But definitely do the homework.
[01:07:12] Eric and Michael: Talk to a lawyer if you're gonna think they're gonna buy something. Multi is not for everybody. No. There are things that are, you know, like for example, people who love nature. Yeah, nature is very limited because of course it's a small place. It's a rock. And it's a rock. In summer it's all dry and Yellow, you don't see any green anywhere.
[01:07:35] Eric and Michael: So some people don't like that. You know, it's not for everyone. But, for
[01:07:40] Mark Goldstein: us. Check it out. Yeah, I'd say check it out. And I just actually, I'll give a plug. I just teamed up with a company called Trusted House Sitters. So what they do is you pay an annual fee, that's not much. And you [01:08:00] interview people via zoom.
[01:08:02] Mark Goldstein: That want to come to your location during the time you're going to be away on vacation. And they walk your dogs, they house it, and pets it, your animals. So it's a great way to get away for a week, two weeks, three weeks, as, as long as the person that, you know, wants to visit your, your home, they stay in your home.
[01:08:29] Mark Goldstein: So it's really good. It's at www. TrustedHouseSitters. com and you can get it 25 percent off. There's a slash W D G R where do gays retire? 25. So that's trustedhouseservice. com slash WDGR 25 and you get 25 percent off of your annual fee. So that's a little [01:09:00] plug. Good idea. Yeah. Good idea. All right, gentlemen.
[01:09:04] Mark Goldstein: So thank you so much for joining us today in the podcast. I learned a lot about Malta. It seems like a great place. I do want to visit apps. Absolutely. Certainly a place to visit and maybe I'll stay at your hotel. So thank you again. And it's been a pleasure.
[01:09:25] Eric and Michael: Thank you. Pleasure was ours. Thank you very much.
[01:09:29] Eric and Michael: You're
[01:09:29] Mark Goldstein: very welcome. Take care. Bye.
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