Michelle's Journey to USA, Middle East & Europe

August 27: We´re going to Gibraltar today - very excited!!!

Drove to Gibraltar in the morning. It only took about 90 minutes to get to the border control, but the line for that was huge. A little windy and hot, but great day.

Had to go through passport checks for both Spain and Britain before crossing the International Airport runway (now mostly used by the UK Navy) and into town.

Note: Gibraltar is part of the UK. It is governed by the British, the citizens are British and their currency is the Gibraltan Pound, equivalent to the British Pound Sterling. (Mind you, you can use Euros too.) Population is around 30,000.
A lot of people come to shop here as it´s tax free...

Most of us chose to do a taxi tour, which was a 6 person guided tour around the Rock of Gibraltar. We drove around the city wall before going to a viewing platform, where we got to see Africa (Morocco in fact)!
You can´t always see it due to the haze but we got a pretty good view today which was lucky. Couldn´t see the entire coastline but the mountains were spectacular - so too the view of Spain, ports and coastline surrounding Gibraltar.

We then went to St Michael´s Cave, a ´living´cave with stalactities and stalacmites... which they believe was created due to water seeping through the Rock. The acoustics are so good in there that they even hold concerts ... there´s concert seating too.

Further up the hill within the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, we got to have a play with the local Barbary Apes. They climb on your head and arm if you so desire. Unfortunately though, one of our guys got pissed on. Funny to see, but thankfully it wasn´t me!
Saw two groups of the apes including many babies. (see photo, Africa is in the background)

In town, we had free time. I looked at some of the synagogues (from the outside as it was shabbat) - there´s around 600 chabad Jews there I believe - and did some brief shopping too. Met up with rest of the group at Casemate´s Gate.

When heading out of Gibraltar you have to get off the bus and present all your belongings, not just what you purchased there... strange, but necessary I guess. Some of our guys got check for alcohol and perfume, but no one was in trouble.

Great experience visiting Gibraltar, would have been nice if it was longer!

We then drove north to the fourth largest city of Spain, Seville.
Some people went swimming in the hotel pool, I ran a few errands. We´re staying quite a distance out of town so we couldn´t do any exploration this afternoon unfortunately.

In the evening, we drove into town to have a yummy dinner and to watch a Flamenco Show. I loved the costumes and guys dancing the most, but also enjoyed watching the women´s expressions while dancing the various styles and their playing of castenettes. They also re-enacted the musical, Carmen, which was well done.
Had an individual photo of me taken there, turned out to be really good, so I bought it! Will have to show you...

Despite being a Saturday night, most people bar 8 were so tired, we all headed home.

Seville is known for many things including Flamenco, Bull fighting, Christopher Columbus and bridges, and more. Like it so far, hopefully I´ll get to see more tomorrow.