On British Soil

Well, this was a struggle today.  Getting the Wifi password is very hard in this hotel.

Today, we had to wake up agonizingly early.  Like, 5:40 early.  As in the time I get up for school.  Then we had to walk a half hour through sketchy streets to get to the meeting place.  Once there, we piled on a bus and set off for our destination.

Apparantly, the German guy had had a rough night after some bad... something or another for dinner, so all of the boys were irritable and tired.  They went immediately to sleep on the bus.

I change my mind about the dullness of Spanish countryside.  There actually are two things in southern Spain worth looking at.

One is the wind farms.  The southern part of the country is very hilly until you hit Gibraltar (our destination), so you can't grown a lot of stuff.  I mean, you can.  But you also get a lot of lovely breezes that turn the turbines.  There are hundreds of them.  It was surprisingly hypnotic to look everywhere and see the turbines.

The other thing is the sunflowers.  The main plant of the south is apparently sunflowers.  There are almost as many sunflower farms as wind farms.  They're so yellow and happy!

We went for two hours until we reached Gibraltar.  Finally!  I can go to the UK!

We got off the bus and had to go through customs.  Going through this customs is a lot easier than the one at airport- you literally just walk through with your passport.  We had to ask them to stamp it! And stamp it we did.  I now have a cheerful United Kingdom stamp!!

We met up with our tour guide, who was vastly superior than Mario and Alfonso from Madrid and Toledo in two major ways: one, he was very laid back and polite.  Two, he had a perfectly posh Andalusian-British accent.  As if you couldn't improve on a British accent more!

We took a van through the town of Gibraltar, which is adorable.  See, the thing about Gibraltar is that even the signs are polite and posh.  While Spain ignores street-signs completely, Gibraltar asks you to "Please Give Way" or "Slow Down Slightly" or "There Are Apes Ahead", which just makes you feel like they're looking out for you.  Everything is clearly labeled, polite, and in cheerful colours.  And they SPELL WORDS RIGHT!  As in, "Gibraltar Harbour."  Oh, it made me happy.

There's Morocco!

We went up the side of the Rock, John our tourguide narrating our "journey" as we went in a very certain and informative manner.  He talked about how the people used to get stuff to the top of the Rock before there were automobiles, the history of the many kilometer long tunnel system throughout the entire Rock, how it was used in World War 2, how many boats pass through the strait daily, all sorts of stuff.  Then we went to a viewpoint.

It was windy and cold, but I got to see the Mediterranean and Morocco and the Atlantic and several ships and it was awesome.  We took several pictures, but this was the only really good one that I kept.  See the mountain?  It is very probable that the Rock of Gibraltar and that mountain were once the same.  Then something broke, and the Atlantic surged through, splitting them apart.  The Mediterranean was formed.

Also, I'd like to note how very clear the water is.  It's like teal.  And probably absolutely freezing.

We got back into the van and buzzed up the Rock even more, until we got to the Ape Zone.  There are hundreds of apes on Gibraltar that can't be seen anywhere else in the world except across the strait on that mountain.  Coincidence?  Probably not.  Anyway, apparently, all the lady apes had babies, so they were unusually aggressive.  As in, then growled at us a bit and wandered off.  Even British apes are polite!


We passed the apes and went through a cave.  I was a bit irritated, since the caves are extremely well-lit, and are just hard to appreciate.

We then emerged from the caves, where we saw more apes.  Why aren't humans that fluffy?

One ape needed to do some grocery shopping.

Well, we finished our tour and said farewell to John, then we had all of two hours to see all of Gibraltar.  Sigh.  We went to a pub where the waitress grudgingly gave my roomies sweet iced tea, but looked downright grateful when I asked for hot tea.  They had fish and chips (with vinegar.  I made sure they put on the vinegar) and I had chicken with chips.  The chicken wasn't what I expected (on the bone.  It was tasty though).  We lounged around there because it was a little chilly, then we split up.  I don't know where the girls went, probably shopping, but I stayed with the guys.  They figured out that my name isn't Katherine, so I have respect for them.  I helped them find sunglasses.  Fun fun fun!

Then we had to load up on the bus and leave Gibraltar.  It was a sad, sad parting.  So sad.  Four hours total on British soil just isn't enough.

We were off to Cadiz, which is a city on the beach.  Mostly tourists.  When we were checking into our hotel, a band of German Motorcyclists wandered in and started talking to each other.  I thought Americans were loud!!  Our German buddy sheepishly ducked into the elevator, clearly not wanting to communicate with his countrymen.  I can't blame him, honestly.  They were kinda scary.

I will spend all of tomorrow in Cadiz, so I'll speak more on that later.  Just know that I tried Gazpacho again and still don't understand the appeal.  I just don't.  Sorry, all you gazpacho lovers out there.

I will leave you with a pretty picture that I took as we drove away from Gibraltar.  There's Morocco across the strait, and a small strip of land right below the mountain we were on.