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Gibraltar
Rock of Gibraltar Hey guys! I´m in Gibraltar right now! Its in the very very very southern part of Spain and actually isn´t a part of Spain, but its a part of the UK. It is really neat! The natives of Gibraltar speak both English and Spanish fluently. I ended up taking a tour and my guide said that the students are taught in both languages at school! What an advantage to have! There´s really not much here besides the big ole rock, which is awesome! It´s so pretty with the blue blue Mediterranean sea as a backdrop! Like I said, I ended up taking a guided tour. I was walking to the cable car station to buy a ticket and a guy stopped me and started telling me about taking this tour in a van with eight other people for 25 euros, which I guess works out to be cheaper than the cable cars. I was a little hesitant at first, but I´m really glad that I did this because it saved me from climbing UP the rock, I was in air condition, and I got some background on Gibraltar. I got some great pics too! Besides just the rock being here, there´s
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me with Africa in the background (I promise its there, it was just cloudy that day!) also a TON of monkeys. Barbary (I think) monkeys. There are signs all over the place saying not to take your ice cream, food, drinks, etc outside of the gated area where you buy the stuff, yet there are people who don´t read or don´t listen and their stuff is stolen! These monkeys are smart! They literally wait above the doorway for someone to walk out with food and then snatch it! Haha! I saw a man´s ice cream cone get taken away! I don´t think he was too happy, but the monkey sure was! He has vanilla ice cream all over his mouth!
One of the stops was the ´monkey stop.´ As we were pulling up to the stop, the guide rolled his window down and yelled out ¨chico¨and 2 monkeys jumped from pretty much out of nowhere into the van! Haha! They were just sitting on the dashboard and the door! When we stopped, the guide asked if anyone wanted a monkey on their shoulder, and I volunteered. I wanted a picture, so I was brave enough and I got some good pics! The guide kept on saying, I hope you don´t feel anything warm start to
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and the guide just told me that something warm might run down my back...gross! run down your back...gross! The tour also took us to a lookout point where we could see Africa, about 9 miles away, however, it was a bit hazy today so I could just barely see it! It´s still neat to say that I´ve seen Africa before now! 😊 You could also see Spain from the lookout, but I´m used to seeing that! We ventured into a few of the many caves that are in the rock of Gibraltar. In one of the caves they sometime hold concerts. I bet that sounds amazing! I wouldn´t mind doing that sometime somewhere. Another one of the caves used to be used for wars and keeping intruders away. There are several man made holes in the caves that overlook the sea and have cannons there. It was also used during WWII. Of course, its not used anymore.
The rock of Gibraltar was considered to be one of the two posts of Hercules. The other post is in Morocco, Africa, just across from Gibraltar. A long time ago, sailors would turn around at these posts because what was past it was the únknown´world and they thought that they´d fall off the Earth because this
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people just dont listen to the warnings and the signs about not carrying food around, and then this is what happens! Lucky for him, not so lucky for the man he stole it from! was when they thought that the Earth was flat. Haha!
Marbella has been great and very relaxing! Yesterday morning was kind of cloudy so I slept in and then walked around. I found some shoes that I was wanting to get since I only had boots with me! It´s ridiculous to be wearing boots in 90 deg weather! I then took a bus to a nicer part of Marbella with a beautiful view! Unfortunately, the view was sometimes ruined by the half naked women walking around (of all shapes and sizes) as well as the men in the THONG speedos. Gross! I don´t understand how people are comfortable plopping their stuff down and then taking off everything in public! Haha!
I then went to dinner last night with some American girls, sisters, that I met at the hostel. One of the girls, Elizabeth, just graduated from IU as well! We knew some of the same people! It was great to hang out with some people for a while and these girls were great! We were cracking up the whole night! As we were walking home we heard some rowdiness and chanting in the street, so we wondered over to it and there were a ton of guys jumping up and down and chanting and singing in the streets and a ton of cars driving past honking their horns. Barcelona had beaten England (I think it was England or London..not quite sure) in football aka soccer and so they were celebrating! They had huge sparklers and they were all in the streets singing and dancing! The police soon came, but not to end things. Just to make sure that none of the kids got hit by a car! The kids would run out into the street though and start rocking the cars or jumping on top of them! It was hilarious and sooo crazy and it made me want to love the sport of soccer! Haha! I wish that Americans got THAT passionate about a sport. I´ve never seen anything like it!
Well, thats about all I´ve got. I´m leaving Marbella tomorrow to fly back to Madrid. And then Saturday I´m meeting up with Matt and Beth at the airport! I´m soooo excited! 😊 We´re going to Avila, Toledo, Barcelona, San Sebastian, and Madrid! I´ll try to update during my time if I get a chance, but I think I´ll be more busy traveling around with 3 others!
Hasta luego!
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