Gibraltar

 A week or two ago my friends Dominique, Mary, and I talked about how we all had the same crazy desire to go to Gibraltar.  I don't know what about this destination struck my attention....probably the monkeys....but I thought it would be a perfect day trip for this weekend.  So, we signed up for a Gibraltar trip through one of the travel agencies here and spent Saturday exploring the last British colony!  That's right, even though the city of Gibraltar is located on the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula, it is British not Spanish territory.  I've gotten the vibe that most Spaniards are not interested in what Gibraltar has to offer.  The government of Spain has been irritated that they were never able to reclaim this 2.4 square-mile territory.  However, the 30,000 Gibraltarians are proud people with a mixed/interesting heritage (a combo of British, Spanish, and Moroccan).  When given the choice, they remained Queen Elizabeth's loyal subjects and voted to continue as a self-governing British dependancy.  Queen Elizabeth visited in 1954 and the locals are still talking about it...many sites and streets were renamed after she visited (ex: the street-name of Queensway).
     The area was once dominated by the military because of it's excellent location and large bay, but is now primarily a tourist location.  King's Bastion was a forefront for battles.  As the southernmost tip, the city witnessed many sea battles and was the site for an important naval base.  The city is surrounded by two sets of stone defensive walls, Roman and British, that have helped to fortify it in the past.  Some key points in history involving Gibraltar: in 711 the Moors started their conquest of Spain from this point; here is where the Duke of Wellington beat Napoleon; and the Allied forces rallied here to begin Operation Torch, or the retake of North Africa from Germany.

St. Michael's Cave

     We were on a tour that took us to all of the main sites in mini buses.  This is ideal, because the sites are all on the rock of Gibraltar, which is pretty high up and an intense hike.  First was the lighthouse at Europa point - from here you can see both coasts of the Iberian Peninsula (one side being the Atlantic ocean, the other side the Mediterranean Sea) as well as Africa (only 14 km away).  Looking back towards the rock is the King Fahd Mosque.  This was a $20 million gift from the Saudi sultan for the Muslims of Gibraltar to worship at.  A little uphill from there was the St. Michael's cave....lots of stalagmites, stalactites, and classical music...what more could you want?  Walking out of the cave we got our first excited/nervous view of the Gibraltar monkeys!!  The rock is home to about 200 of these tailless monkeys.  They are protected animals even though they are clearly not native (probably brought over by Roman troops).  I wasn't nervous about the monkeys until Mary and Doe started getting jittery.  However there are signs everywhere warning tourists not to feed the monkeys because they are still wild and have the capacity to be quite vicious.  We took quite a few pictures of them - one had stolen an ice cream treat from a tourist and our bus driver was giving peanuts to ones that would sit on the side view mirror (top secret because it's a 500 pound fine).  Driving back down the rock we saw several components of World War II - tunnels, barracks, and a 100 pound gun.

    Next was free time.  We were dropped off in Casemates Square.  Here is where it really hit me that we were in British territory...here were a few clues: the red classic telephone booths, garbage cans were labeled as litter cans, "God Save the Queen," British accents, and every restaurant sold fish and chips!!  I was ecstatic about all of these thing since I chose not to visit London this semester (since I have already been there with Velocity before our tournament in Spain).  I was fun to visit an area that made me feel like I was in London.  We strolled the square and main pedestrian street where all of the shops are duty free!  As per usual, my only purchase was a postcard.  All this sightseeing made us hungry, and fish & chips was the solution.  We stopped at a cute restaurant/pub and sat down at a table outside.  Although I have heard that this meal is actually not that good in Gibraltar, we were all very pleased...especially after loading up on tartar sauce (haha, sometimes it's the smallest things that make us so content).  By the end of our meal it was time to cross the border and head back to Sevilla.