I've just gotten back from a 1 week holiday in a very hot Malta. This was the first holiday in 5 years where I've flown to a single destination (other holidays have been touring around and/or travelling by car/train).
What worked:
Google Maps caching saved us from getting lost on the slightly nuts Maltese roads. I managed to find some free open wifi at the airport when we landed and I quickly downloaded all of malta's roads (it's only 120 sq miles). It didn't managed to capture the 1 way system very well though.
Like wise, having GPS on my phone was a saviour. It's now impossible to get lost, even in a foreign country.
Google reader was excellent for quickly syncing content whenever I could get a network connection, for me to read later. Who needs books?
My new Sigma 30mm F1.4 prime was just what I wanted for capturing the festivities in the low light, both inside churches and outside at night. I'm still getting used to it. 2 of my favorites above were taken with it but half of them could have been taken with it if I'd got the confidence to keep it on my 40D whilst roaming. The rest were taken with my ever faithful 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS.
I've recently discovered the benefits of wearing headphones on flights, even when not listening to music. Just blocking out some of the flight noise/screaming kids makes the flight a lot more relaxing. I need to invest in some noise cancelling headphones next.
What didn't work:
Not having wifi in the hotel cost us a lot of time, Especially since I didn't have roaming data connection. It's easy to get used to checking if places will be open when you've got always on internet, so it was a real pain not having it in our room. And I'm not paying £5/hour to access the hotel's paid service when there's a free, open WIFI spot just outside the hotel. Even if I need to stand in the middle of the street in the blazing sun to pick it up.
Android's Browser not caching was therefore even more annoying. Several times I went out of the hotel to pick up the wifi, found the contact details of a few places I needed to call, then went back inside to make the call. At the slightest twitch the browser would stop displaying the page because there was no network connection. I know there's no connection, just show me what you've downloaded so far!
Air Malta's food was particularly bad on the way out. I might take a packed lunch next time.
Our hire car, a Chevrolet whatever (Cruze?), in black, was not a good choice for the twisty, surprisingly hilly, predictably hot, Maltese driving. The aircon could not keep up and the engine appeared gutless. As I'm used to driving a diesel, having to work the gears and use high revs to make the most of the engine was a bit of a shock.
My wife's Kindle didn't like me lying on it. Even though it was in a padded, reinforced case, after I accidentally lay on it the screen only responds in one corner :-(
On camera flash for taking pictures of buildings at night did a surprisingly good job of illuminating the building but a predictably poor job of revealing its shape/texture.
What's next:
Buy/Fix Kindle
Buy/make a remote flash cable
Experiment with my Hama flash slave adapter more
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