gibraltar

I’ve been exhausted from traveling every weekend, and I had a great time in Sevilla this week, so I wasn’t really that excited about going to Gibraltar.  I really just didn’t know what to expect.  Abigael, Courtney, and I headed out Friday morning, and Gibraltar turned out to be such a fun stop!

Gibraltar’s a British Territory, but it’s located at the southern tip of Spain and separates Spain from Africa and the Straight of Gibraltar.  The British influence was one of my favorite things about Gibraltar.  I had really hoped to take a weekend trip to London while I was in Spain, and that just didn’t happen this time, so it was like God arranged this interesting way for me to get my UK fix or something.  Everyone in Gibraltar speaks English (but British English, of course) and Spanish, and they interchange the languages in the midst of conversations.  I absolutely loved that!  And having English as the primary language made everything so much simpler.  Even though we can all understand Spanish, having English to fall back on was very helpful.  There are also the stereotypical London telephone booths throughout the city, and the restrooms are called “toilets” and the trash cans are labeled “litter.”  All of the streets and buildings have British names too.

We arrived in La Linea, the Spanish city on the Spain/Gibraltar border, on Friday afternoon.  We left Sevilla at 9:30, and we’d expected to arrive in Gibraltar within 2-3 hours.  However, the bus took a very roundabout path to get to Gibraltar, so we ended up spending more like 5 hours on the bus.  Our hostel was just a few minutes from the bus station and was very easy to find.  We dropped off our things and decided to head into Gibraltar.  We stopped at an information office in La Linea to ask about Gibraltar, and the lady working there told us that her information office was only for La Linea.  We felt like that was unnecessary because there’s really nothing in La Linea, but to be nice Abigael asked if there was anything we needed to do in La Linea.  She said, “well right now everything is closed.”  So we took that as a no hahaha.  We decided to postpone our trip up to the Rock of Gibraltar until Saturday because we wouldn’t have had much time to see everything on Friday afternoon.  We headed to “la frontera” or the border of Gibraltar and Spain; we had to show passports, but we just walked through.  Such a strange feeling!

Right after “customs” and border patrol, we had to cross an airport landing strip to get to the center of Gibraltar.  It’s hard to believe that such a small place has its own airport, but it’s there and we walked right across it!  On our way into the center we had our first experience with the wild monkeys that are in Gibraltar.  I don’t understand why they’re there or anything, but there are monkeys all over the street just like squirrels are all over the street in Indiana.  You can be fined up to 3000 pounds for feeding the monkeys!  We were marveling at the first monkeys we saw when a man came up behind us and pulled peanuts out of his pocket.  I saw what he was doing, so I moved out of the way.  Sure enough the monkeys came leaping out of the tree into his hands.  The monkeys are so friendly, but they like to grab hair and bags and stuff.  I wasn’t a huge fan, but I did make sure to get a selfie :)

We spent Friday walking through the center of Gibraltar, and we ended up venturing out to Europa Point.  Europa Point looks out over the Straight of Gibraltar, so from the southernmost tip, we could see the Straight, the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, and Africa!

lighthouse at europa point

africa!

Saturday morning we got up pretty early to allow enough time to see everything we wanted to do on the Rock of Gibraltar.  We bought tickets that included entry to all of the sights on the Rock and a cable car trip to the top so that we didn’t have to walk up.  The cable car was pretty freaky, but I definitely preferred that to walking/climbing or whatever we would have had to do had we walked.  Before we even got out of the car we were greeted by monkeys.  They’re everywhere!  On the rock, we looked out at the views from every angle- the Rock from one side, the Mediterranean from another, the Atlantic, Spain, and Africa!  We also went in the tunnels that are built in the rock around the city; they were used when Gibraltar was under siege on several occasions, but most importantly during the Great Siege when Gibraltar was regained or maintained by England.  The tunnels were also used a lot during WWI and WWII.  We went in St. Michael’s cave which is now used sometimes for concerts, so they have stadium seating inside.  It’s very interesting, and the cave itself is beautiful.  We also stopped in the castle on the Rock.

The highlights of our Rock of Gibraltar experience were definitely our adventures with the monkeys. We had heard that we shouldn’t have any food or scented lotion, etc. with us when we went to the Rock because they’d be attracted and might bite our hands!  Our first adventure involved Abigael and her fan.  She had her fan out while we were walking around, but had closed it and was just holding it while we were looking out at the rock.  In the meantime, 2 monkeys leaped at her and grabbed the fan!  We think they assumed it was food of some sort.  We figured that if we tried to take it back the monkeys would bite us, so she just let them have it.  Then we worried that we’d get in trouble for giving them something that could be potentially harmful.  So we followed the monkeys around for a little bit and eventually they dropped the fan and we got it back.  By then Abigael had had 2 monkeys sitting on her lap, so Courtney wanted monkeys to sit on her too.  We found some on the way to our next stop, so we were going to try to get them to come towards us.  She decided to sit down to get closer, and before she’d even made it to the ground there was a monkey on her head.  The money just sat there and licked at her hair.  Finally Courtney decided she didn’t want the monkey on her anymore, and we all had a moment of panic as we wondered how we were going to get that thing off. It eventually left and we went on our way!  I made it through the whole weekend without touching/being touched by a monkey and I’m not at all disappointed.  

a monkey taking in the view

After seeing all of the sights of the Rock of Gibraltar, we headed back to the center, grabbed some lunch, and started our walk back to Spain and the bus station.  We were commenting on how well we had navigated and used our time all weekend, and how glad we were that we had made the trip!  We got to the bus station about 30 minutes early and sat down to wait for our 4 pm bus.  We waited, and eventually it was a little after 4, so I went to ask where the bus to Sevilla was.  Then 2 or 3 people told me that the bus had already left.  We figured they meant the 3 o’clock bus, because we had been at our platform for at least 30 minutes and would have seen it.  I went to ask the information desk if they knew anything, and she asked if we were a group of 3.  I said yes, and she said that it had already left.  We were so confused, and we still don’t know what happened or how on earth we missed that bus.  But anyways, it happened.  We called Katie and Leslie, two of the school employees, to see if they had any good ideas that we wouldn’t know of.  Our bus was the last to Sevilla of the day, so we were a little lost.  We considered (for about 5 seconds) the option of taking a cab, but ruled that out after imagining how much it would cost for a 2 hour trip.  We thought we had it figured out that we would be able to go to Cádiz, about halfway between Gibraltar and Sevilla, and catch a later bus back to Sevilla.  Then we walked to an ATM (none of the bus stations take credit cards) and planned on doing just getting back to Sevilla really late and switching at Cádiz.  When we got back to the station to buy our tickets, the lady told us that our trip wouldn’t be possible because the bus didn’t leave before the other bus to Sevilla.  We don’t know what we heard or why we thought that was a possibility, but yet again we felt hopeless.  Leslie recommended renting a car, so we walked to a car rental place- the first one didn’t have a place to drop the car in Sevilla, and the second didn’t have any automatics.  Abigael and I both live on farms, but somehow neither of us knew how to drive a manual.  Again, we were without great options.  Leslie recommended staying in Cádiz rather than La Linea because La Linea is kind of random and not ideal, so we ended up taking the bus to Cádiz and staying in a hostel for the night.  Thankfully I had an extra change of clothes, and it felt so good to shower and have a plan.  I got up at 5:30 the next morning to grab a 7 am bus back to Sevilla, and I arrived home around 8:45.

I ended up going to the beach on Sunday after all of the weekend’s chaos.  Jamison and I went to Huelva, an hour away from Sevilla, and spent the day at Punta Umbria.  The beach was packed, but after we’d been there an hour or so everyone started to leave (for the hottest part of the day I guess).  The temperature was great, the water was wonderful, and I got to catch up on some sleep I had missed out on that weekend.  A beach day was the perfect way to spend my Sunday.

I have 10 days left in Spain!  I seriously cannot believe how fast the time is going.  I’m not sure how I feel about leaving yet- I know I will miss Seville so so much, but I am excited to see everyone at home.  It will be interesting to see how the next month or so goes with so many more transitions.  I’ll be at home in less than 2 weeks, but “home” is our new house!  So weird.  Within a month, I’ll move back to school for res life training and I’ll get ready to start the semester.  Volleyball will start within a few weeks of being home, and I’ll resume my crazy all work/school no sleep lifestyle.  I know the re-entry transition will be easier than coming to Sevilla a few months ago, but I have been trying to mentally prepare as much as I can.  Right now, I feel like I’m not sure how to best use my time here!  A lot of others are having the same feelings.  Here’s to hoping I can maximize the time I have left!