This weekend, we decided instead of taking a trip for the whole weekend, we would do two day trips. This way we would save some money on hostels and food (kinda). I had exams on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so I didn't have class on Fridays, and none of my friends have Friday classes. We went to Nerja again on Friday and laid out all day. Fortunately, we bought tickets for a bus back to Granada, and actually got on it, unlike last time we went to Nerja!
There was NO ONE in Nerja, we basically had the whole beach and boardwalk to ourselves. It was great!
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| Eimear, Rachel, Hannah, Me, Sierra |
This is why we love Nerja so much!!! If you ever get the chance to go to southern Spain, GO TO NERJA!!! It's 2 hours away from Granada by bus, and the bus is fairly inexpensive (around 20 euros round trip!)
On Saturday, we decided to wake up bright and early to catch the train at 6:50am and head to San Roque, Spain. You are probably wondering where that is, and unfortunately I can't answer that, but I know it's near the coast and Gibraltar. It's southwest of Granada.
We had a 4 hour train ride to San Roque, where we slept and hung out. The train was really nice, it had bathrooms, vending machines, and the seats were big and had lots of leg room! It was a great trip. We saw this random horse and building in the middle of no where on our ride..
Once we got to San Roque, Spain we hopped in a cab and crossed the boarder into Gibraltar. When we got to Gibraltar, we walked through customs and had to show our passports. Right away, we found these taxi tours that our friend told us about. They were 25 euros per person, but we were able to see the whole city and all the cool places. Later we found out that it would've taken us days to walk all these hills and curvy roads! The taxi tour was AMAZING!
I'll share a little bit of Gibraltar history with you. An Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The territory was ceded by Britain by Spain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It was an important base for the British Royal Navy. After talking to Encarna about Gibraltar, I quickly found out that Spaniards believe Gibraltar is a colony of Spain, however, it is truly a British colony. The Rock of Gibraltar is what it's known for, and during WWII, the rock was used as a fortress.
The Pillars of Hercules has an amazing view of EVERYTHING!! You can see Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar (British colony), the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea!
The day we went on was pretty gloomy, but at least we could still see everything! In this picture, you can see Morocco on the left and Spain on the right, and the Atlantic Ocean.
This video will make it feel a little more life-like!
We drove up a HUGE hill and the taxista warned us that these monkeys are not friendly to humans, so don't touch or feed them! We watched some ding dongs feed them and a monkey ATTACKED a lady! I guess that's why they warn you. After that we had to get out of there!
This is the one that was being fed. He was loving it, but soon didn't like the lady!
Baby monkey!! SOOOOOO CUTE!!!!
We entered the caves and took tons of pictures! These caves were awesome. They were so beautiful.
In this auditorium, there are between 30 and 50 concerts held there a year! They are held between July and September so that the caves are dry. When we went, they had classical music playing to sound like the concerts.. haha!
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| Me, Rachel, Hannah, Sierra |
After we left the caves, we jumped back into our taxi tour and headed up the rock even farther. We stopped at the monkeys! These monkeys are friendly toward humans. The taxistas are trained in dealing with these monkeys, so the tourists are able to take pictures with them. The only rule again: don't touch the monkeys!! The taxista told us that to keep these monkeys around, they are fed twice a day because there is not enough vegetation for them to eat. They are fed fruits and vegetables.
The taxista asked who wanted to hold the monkey first, so I volunteered! He had me turn around and the monkey all of a sudden jumped on my back! I was instantly terrified. It climbed up my back, scratched my eye out, climbed over my shoulder, shoved my sweater off my shoulder, and plopped right down in my hands, ,the taxista had put a bunch of nuts in my hands.
Sierra with the monkey and our taxista, Bernardo. He was a great tour guide!
The economy of Gibraltar is based on tourism, financial services, and shipping. It receives no financial assistance from England, however, it is still under the responsibility of the UK Government. There are 30,000 habitants in all of Gibraltar. The rock separates the tourists from the locals, and that's how they like it. The official language is English. Children learn English in the home, but in schools are taught Spanish, this way they are immediately bilingual. When the kids are 12, they are required to take a third language, which is French. Even though English is the official language, most Gibraltarians speak an Andalusian Spanish based vernacular that is influenced by British English called Llanito (ya-nee-to). Llanito is much different from Spanglish!!! We couldn't understand it at all, it was like gibberish to us!
This shows you how small Gibraltar is, the Mediterranean Sea is on the right and the Atlantic Ocean is on the left!
This is part of the fortress that was built in the rock. They had huge rings planted in the side of the rock that they used as a pulley system so they could get these 800 kilo canons up the mountain.
We found this on our way to finding Fish 'n Chips! We had to take a picture by the "legit" British telephone booth!
And as we were walking we saw these people marching to a drum. We're not sure what it was, but it was awesome!!!
The infamous British Fish 'n Chips. This meal was AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGG!!!! I was thinking of my dad the whole time I was eating it. I knew he would love it!
After spending the day in Gibraltar, we had to walk back over the border. This was a funny sign to see!
Gibraltar is the only international airport that you can walk on the runway. When a plane is getting ready to land or take off, gates are lowered so that no pedestrians can walk across the runway.
Once we passed through customs, and showed our passport. Which, by the way, when I say that we had to show our passport, we didn't even have to open it up! They just wanted to see that we had a passport with us, we could've used any passport. That's legit security! We got back in a taxi and had them drop us off at the train station and made our way back to Granada. This has been my second favorite weekend (next to Nerja!). I'm sooooo glad we were able to go to Gibraltar! Another great trip with great company!!!
Class update: I passed into level 7; superior!!! I had my first day of class today.. it was alright. I think this is going to be much harder than the previous levels because we are learning street lingo. Wish me luck!!
Hope you all have a great week!
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