Rock of Gibraltar

Hello all! Well yesterday I took a day trip to Gibraltar and boy was it great! It's on the Iberian Peninsula of Spain but is a colony of the United Kingdom. It has a ton of antisentiment from Spain since the land was Spanish and England somehow calls it their own. Marilo had a lot to say about that when I returned...phew!

The drive down was absolutely georgous with many more mountains and lakes than there are around Sevilla. After going through customs and immigration, we connected with a tour company with buses to take us through the city and up the rock. We all packed into this tiny bus and started up the rock. The area used to be, and I believe still is, one of the biggest ports since it connects the rest of the Mediterranean, Europe, and Asia to Africa, North America, and South America. It is a huge industrial and port city. Anyways, we started up the rock up these tiny roads that our bus barely fit through. We had to go through many tunnels carved right out of the rock to wind up through it. Our first stop was going to the lookout point, pretty much at the top, but on the southern side that looked out towards AFRICA! We could really see it pretty well from across the Strait of Gibraltar even though it was a little cloudy. There was also a beautiful Mesquita (Mosque) at the top of the rock and a lighthouse. This lookout point was just georgeous and was the first time seeing the ocean since I got to Spain!

We then continued up the mountain to meet the MONKEYS! We saw St. Andrew's Cave first that was pretty amazing and millions of years old....but I would rather talk about the monkeys! ha....The rock is occupied by hundreds of Macaques that are usually only found in Africa and are the only group of wild monkeys on the Iberian Peninsula. They probably came over from Morrocco somehow. They live in a reserve on the rock and are protected but are so incredibly accustomed to humans that they are master thieves. We were warned by our guide to be careful with them because they WILL steal whatever is in reach. A girl in our group had her bocadillo for lunch stolen by one who broke the plastic bag it was in then ran to the top of a building to eat it. We were able to take pictures with them and be so incredibly close too! I wanted to hold one so bad but I didn't have any food with me to feed it :( I still got really close and the babies were fun to watch!

After all that excitement, we continued and got a bus tour of the city and ended up in the main plaza of the city to eat lunch. Luckily I left my bocadillos on the bus while we visited with the monkeys because I still had them available to eat for lunch later! We had free time and explored the city a little bit. It really was like a little Britain. There were telephone booths like those in London, English fish n' chips, and they accepted pounds (euros too but it was really expensive).

The whole trip was by far worth the money and really exciting to see such beautiful ocean, playful monkeys, and see, technically, another country other than Spain! This Friday I head to Rome! I can't wait!

School has been good and pretty interesting. There is not too much work to do but just a lot of reading. We only have one paper for every class due at the end of the semester and one oral presentation too. Those get piled up especially if they are all in the same week. So I have been trying to work on them a little as I go. The weather is turning officially into Spring with a high today of 72 degrees! Marathon training took a little dip last week but hopefully I can pick up the miles again this week and continue running every day.

Hope you are all well! I want emails and updates of your lives!

Also a big CONGRATULATIONS to my the Tommie Track ladies who got the MIAC Conference Title for the 10th time in a row! Miss you all and wish I could have been there to cheer you on!

Besos y Abrazos de Espana!
Hasta Luego!

Betsy