Gibraltar

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February 23, 2008

When we woke up this morning it was cloudy and drizzling, but we were not about to let that ruin our exciting day ahead of us. We boarded the bus, and drove to Gibraltar. On the way there we watched The Shawshank Redemption, which I really liked. We finally made it to Gibraltar after 3 hours on the bus. Since we were about to step foot on British land, we needed our passports, but the guards really didn’t look at them, and sadly, they didn’t stamp them! We walked to another area to board smaller buses that would take us on our tour of Gibraltar. My bus driver was Dan, and ironically, his son lives in Indiana right on the boarder with Illinois.

We started our tour with a drive through the town, making our way to the Rock. We passed their version of smaller version of Big Ben, named, Little Ben. Then we stopped at a point, close to Europa Point, where there was a waterfall of the excess water from the desalination process. This is when they take the salt out of the salt water so that they can drink and use the water. We were also able to see the change in water that happens at Europa point, the southernmost tip of Gibraltar. The darker water signified the Atlantic Ocean, and the greener water was from the Mediterranean Sea. We continued driving, passed the lighthouse on the tip, and saw the remains of a ship. There was a ship wreck a couple years ago right off the coast, and one ship has sunk most of the way, but there is still a tip showing out of the water.

The next stop was at St. Michael’s Cave. During World War II, the cave was prepared but never used as an emergency hospital. Nowadays, the cave is used as an auditorium, in addition to being a visitor spot. When we got out of the cave, we noticed the monkeys that were hanging around. They are Barbary Macaques monkeys, and they live as “wild” monkeys on the island. It is rumored that Britain will only claim Gibraltar as long as there are monkeys living there. When Winston Churchill was alive, the numbers dwindled down to 3, so he sent people to collect more monkeys to bring to Gibraltar so they wouldn’t disappear. The monkeys were very friendly, and even took pictures, or jumped on people. Our bus driver opened his window to feed one, and the monkey got into the bus! That was a first for Dan! We went a little farther down the rock to see more monkeys.

We made our way down the rock, drove through town again, saw where their Parliament was and various other places, such as the “Embassies” of Ireland, Australia, and Germany, aka Guiness, Foster’s, and Heineken pubs. We were dropped off in Casemate’s Square for lunch or shopping. We roamed around, and eventually got ice cream from Burger King, since there weren’t any local ice cream places open. On the way home, we watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

Katie, Julie, and I decided to go to Pizzeros Orsini. It was nice to get home to change clothes and be warm, since it had started raining while we were in Gibraltar and everything was wet. I had a lot of fun there, and would love to see it with sun!

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Comments

[jill keller]

Monkey's
Emily what a great picture can't wait to show dan and sam tomorrow. It looks like you are having a great time