Gibraltar

Wednesday night Ashley's sister Maria had a fiesta for her 22nd birthday. She was nice and invited Ash and I. So I went for a little bit, drank some wine, ate a little bit of food, and ate too much cake. It was fun to meet a few of her friends. I didn't stay too late, because we had a bus to catch to Gibraltar in the morning.

Thursday morning we left Sevilla at 9:30 and got to Gibraltar at 1:30. We found our hostel, dropped our stuff off, and headed to Gibraltar. We had to go through "customs" to get into Gibraltar, since it's a territory of the UK, which consisted of flashing them our passports. Since it's part of the UK, they speak with english accents, which was so fun to hear. The first thing we say when we crossed through was a phone booth, so obviously we had to take pictures. There were a few scattered around the place, so we took a few more photos with them later. We walked across the airport. Yes, to get to the town you have to walk/drive across the runway. This walk was the windiest place in Gibraltar. We walked through the town on Main Street, and not far in we saw our first monkeys. They were just hanging out and playing on the cars. One was really enjoying sliding down the windshield. A guy next to us put his hand out towards a monkey and it grabbed it. He just held his hand for awhile and then started nibbling/biting it. They're cute, but they have sharp teeth and can be a little scary. We walked to the cable cars, and took it up to the top of the rock. It was a wonderful view from 412 meters up (taller than the Eiffel tower). From the top we made out way down. Walking down steep hills is very tiring and hard. We walked to the St. Michaels Caves. We stopped in for a little bit, and then continued down to the Apes Den. This is just a place where lots of the Apes hang out. They were playing all over the two cars there, jumping all around, and playing with each other. We kept walking around the nature reserve towards the tunnels. I don't know all the history about Gibraltar, but whenever they were fighting, they built tunnels into the rock. It was fascinating to be able to walk in those tunnels, and see out the little windows they had for the cannons. When we walked out of the tunnels it was raining a bit, but there was a rainbow! Actually a double rainbow. It was pretty and a very cool place to see it at. We made our way to the Moorish Castle, and climbed to the top of it. From there we made our way down out of the park. We were exhausted after walking that much (the days total was 10 miles), but wanted to stay in Gibraltar for dinner. Our hostel was in La Linea de Concepción, the city in Spain right next to Gibraltar, so it was close, but we didn't want to walk back again. We sat down for a little, and then went to look for a place for dinner. We settled on the Horseshoe Cafe. It was an english style pub, and so we had english food. I had a gigantic cod fillet with a jacket (baked) potato and a pint of hard cider. It was delicious and tasted so good after our tiring day. It took us a long time to finish out pints, but it was nice to sit and relax.

Our little hostel room

Phone booths

Monkey

Monkey playing on the car

View from the top

the top

monkeys

The caves

monkeys

the cable car we took up

they really like cars

The Queen

A window in the tunnel

Tunnels

Rainbow

The Moorish Castle

Ash and I at the top

Engineer Lane

Our Pints in the pub

Dinner. 

Friday morning we slept in a little, and make our way back to Gibraltar to find breakfast. At home we don't have much for breakfast, just cereal, yogurt, fruit, or toast. (side note, my mom bought greek yogurt the other day. I told here how much I liked it, so we have more of it!) We found a cute breakfast place, the jury cafe. I had the most amazing pancakes!!! I had been wanted them for so long. They were summer berry pancakes, so they had blueberries, black berries, and lingonberries on them, with maple syrup and a scoop of ice cream on top. They were absolutely fantastic! We sat outside there, and while we were still waiting for our food, a man came and asked it he could sit down it the unoccupied chair, since everywhere else was taken. It's hard to say no, so he sat down. He ended up telling us his WHOLE life story. He was a local from Gibraltar. He said he had gone to London to study, then came back to Gibraltar, opened some shop, and was a "somebody." Then he got in some trouble, had a bad few years, and was finally back on his feet and happy. It was random, but interesting to hear a little from a local. After breakfast we headed to our dolphin tour. We went out on the water for about an hour and a half and saw a small pod of dolphins. The best part was when they created big waves, the dolphins would come play in them. From the water, we had an incredible view of the rock and all of gibraltar. Plus we saw Africa! It is super close to the bottom of Spain. I believe it's only 10-15 km across, but I'll know in three weeks when I get to take the ferry across. I also had a hot crossed bun from a local bakery. It was delicious, but not quite at good as Tags.

Pancakes!

The rock

Dolphins

Then we decided to head towards the lighthouse at Europa Point (the tip of Gibraltar). We stopped for frappes, which we yummy, and kept walking. The dolphins were pretty close to the border of Spain, and the territory is 3 miles long, so that was roughly how far we had to go. On the way we walked through a botanical garden, which had some very pretty plants. Then we walked right by the water for a while, but it ended up being a dead end road, due to construction on the tunnel. So we had to turn around and go back awhile before we could walk up hill to find the other street. But there was a very cool waterfall we saw on the way. It was a long walk there, but we finally got there. There was a mosque, and the lighthouse. It was a very pretty area, where again you could see lots of Africa. We decided on the way out there, there was no way we were walking back. It was the best bus ride back, after being exhausted from all the walking we did (again about 10 miles). We went back into the center of town and decided what to eat for dinner. Pizza sounded so good, so went to a place with it. I got a Hawaiian Pizza (ham, pineapple, and asparagus) and Ash got seafood pizza. They were both really yummy, and hit the spot.

The mosque

lighthouse

waterfall

Europea Point

Africa in the distance

Saturday morning we got up and went into Gibraltar for breakfast before our bus left. We ended up going to the same place as the day before and I got eggs benedict. It was a good breakfast before we had to leave. We got back to Sevilla at 4, and it was nice to be home! Later on Ashley came over to back a cake for her sister and I made brownies. Then after dinner Ana and I watched Las 4 Bodas de Marisol. It was a movie in Spanish from the late sixties. Marisol was a very big Spanish star and it was a fun movie to watch. I didn't understand all of it, but Ana would make sure I knew what was happening.