How can I falter, when I'm the rock of Gibraltar?

Hola!

As I was sitting in Cadiz, eating my potaje and croquetas, I realized I had a sudden hankering for fish and chips. Ok, not really, but Gibraltar is 2 hours away, it'd be a crime not to go. So my friend Kevin and I grabbed our passports, and hopped on an EARLY bus (trust me, it was a struggle) to Algeciras.

Curious fact about getting to Gibraltar. There's no clear way, and no Spaniards are gonna help you out there. I say "Gibraltar?" They say "eh? eh? eh? Ohhh G-EE-BRAL-TAHR" in over spanified version. Ok, really? That's the same thing, I know you can understand me. But all the travel schedules and bus lines never refer to Gibraltar. I had so much trouble finding it until I found out they refer to it as La Linea de Concepcion. And there's only two ways to La Linea, either from Malaga or Algeciras. So off to Algeciras we went. What a hideous town. Apparently it has some cool Moorish influence or something (*yawn, I lived in Granada for 4 months, no big deal), but really all we saw were shipping yards and factories.

After dropping us off at La Linea (really just a weird bus station next to a street lined with fast food joints) we walked to the border. When we walked inside, they took a cursory glance at our passport and waved us on. So much for national security.

I kept expecting to cross a specific line, but no, instead it's just an airport runway. I think they stop people from crossing when there's airplanes actually landing. I hope. It's striking how dramatic the change is crossing into Gibraltar. The moment you get there, you're standing on Winston Churchill Ave. There's a red phone booth, and people speaking in British accents around you driving the famous London cab. And the most comical of all. When we were in Spain, waiting to cross the border, it was sunny and beautiful as always. Then almost as soon as we crossed into Gibraltar, it got cloudy. And stayed cloudy. There was a gigantic, grey cloud parked right on the rock. And it wasn't budging. It's as if the British came to Spain, looked around and said "Hey! This place is cloudy like home! Let's take this part!" Sure enough all day long, it was cloudy, and actually started raining in the afternoon.

After walking around the downtown area of Gibraltar for a bit (yes, it has a Marks & Spencer, woo-hoo) we were trying to figure out how to get UP on the rock, an interesting predicament since it's almost vertical. As we were contemplating if we could climb up it, a British chap with bad teeth (I'm sorry, it's just what I notice first!) came up and told us there was a bus that went to the top, with all admissions prices and everything included in the price, and they'd even get you a picture with a monkey. How much? 30 pounds. POUNDS. Are you crazy!? Do you know what I could buy for that? He told us that was the only way up. And so he left us still figuring out the physics of trying to scale the rock without climbing equipment.

Then we heard from someone else there was actually a funicular that went to the top for much cheaper. HAH. Forgot to mention that one, eh mate? So I went to go get some money out, expecting to get British pounds. Oh no, that would be way to easy. No, instead it gave me Gibraltar pounds. Really? Of all the useless crap in this world.. what am I gonna do with that? I have yet to find a place that converts Gibraltar money, and thus it is currently sitting on my desk, with a demonic monkey smiling at me from the bill.

After the 5 min trip up (nice views, but don't look down), we were finally on the rock. I get out, and say "Where are the monkeys?" And then I turn around. Oh, THERE they are. A bunch. Some cute. Some not. My feelings towards monkeys were ambivalent at this point. Yeah, they're kinda cute. I don't know how I feel about touching them, but they're pretty cool. So we walk a little bit farther to the Monkey petting thingy or whatever. There was a huge food pit, and about 20 monkeys scattered around it, sitting on walls and eating each other's ticks, or whatever they do. Then one of the stupid tour guides of those buses that were trying to take us up for 30 quid comes over. He starts offering the monkeys food, trying to coax them to get on one of the tourists so she can take a picture.

I don't know if it's something he did, or just for no reason, but all of the sudden all hell broke loose. The monkeys straight up went Jumanji! One monkey apparently did something wrong, and they all started screaming and launching themselves through the air. OK, my idea of monkeys have definitely changed. Get them away from me, they're not THAT cute. The idiot tour guide is still sitting there with a monkey, saying "come here, monkey, come and take a photo with this nice man". I walk past the monkey, and make the mistake of making eye contact with it. BAD IDEA. I just manage to turn towards the front when I see Kevin's face, and he says "uh oh, uh oh, it's coming." Before I had time to react, I feel a good 10 pounds sitting on my head. Oh lovely. You don't go on the stupid tourist who wants a photo, you jump on me. He grabs my hair and starts pulling it. The entire time I'm just thinking 'please, please, please, NOT the ear'. I don't know why I have visions of him biting off my ear. He sees the scarf around my neck, grabs one end of it, and then jumps off my shoulder. Lovely. I almost get my head ripped off, but I managed to wrestle my scarf back from that scoundrel. But that's the story behind the photo. No, I did not ask for it, I wasn't enjoying it, I just wanted to walk away with my ear still attached.

After that fiasco, I walked around the rest of the day extremely wary of all the monkeys. I wish I could say more memorable things we saw on the rock, but we spent most of the time after that just looking for a supposed Moorish castle, or a bunker or something. We never found it, of course, but it was still cool to see both Spain and Morocco at the same time as standing on British soil. Kevin's cell phone even got a text message saying 'Welcome to TelMaroc', that's how close we were.

I guess the most interesting part was just seeing the complicated relationship between Spain and England focused on this tiny rock. All the Gibraltar residents (weird, I know, but there were a lot) spoke perfect British and perfect Spanish with a Spanish accent. We actually met a young teenager on the bus from Gibraltar, and he spoke both so well. He said they taught them in school starting at 5. But besides this, the Spanish attitude towards Gibraltar was dismissive to say the least. They tried to ignore its existance as long as possible unless they were forced to. I didn't see any British aggression towards the Spanish, but that's because look who's holding the land right now. When we went to Burger King (I know, I know, I never would have usually, but we had hiked for 6 hours without eating a single thing, and all I wanted was a burger), the cashier would say "Next, Siguente" all in one breathe. The dual language used was quite hilarious. Example of an overheard: " 'Oh 'ello there! Howya doin'? 'Ow are the children?' 'Oh, they're doin' right well, I suppose. Dame la caja de bombillas al lado de las tijeras. Tia, que va, el otro lado. Right, well, I'd better go, I suppose. Cheerio!'" No joke. What a glorious conversation to overhear.

Cádiz

I've finally arrived at my home for the next five months! CÁDIZ. It is argued to be the oldest settled city in all of Europe, with proof of habitation dating back 3,100 years! And walking around here, you can see how truly is the Pearl of Andalucia.

Because I didn't go to orientation in Madrid (I went to the Canary Islands instead, see previous post), I met the rest of the group at the Cádiz bus station straight from Granada, and it was here that I met my host family! Here name is Pepa, and she owns her own shop in the middle of Plaza San Antonio filled with quirky little doodads and trinkets. Where else could I get my awesome ladybug earphones? She has a 19-year-old daughter named Alba, who's also a student, and is obsessed, obsessed, OBSESSED with Michael Jackson. The first things she showed me was her Michael Jackson tattoo on her wrist. And then the front page article outlining her obsession in Cadiz' main paper. Apparently when she found out he died, she didn't get out of bed for a week, and when she did, she booked tickets to LA and went to his funeral. Now that's what we call dedicated. They're super nice, welcoming, relaxed. And they're also the owner of Pepa's Grand Menagerie. Ok, that's a joke, but they do have a lot of animals. Which I love of course. I'll put up pictures soon, when they're all looking their very best. There's Turca, who met me at the train station in her little bomber jacket. She's a fox terrier, think of Tin-Tin's sidekick, and she's got the sweetest face you've ever seen. Then there's Coco. How to describe Coco? He's a long-haired Chihuahua, and I'm not gonna lie, when I first met him I didn't know what to do with him. I mean, I didn't want to break him while petting him, or accidentally step on him, but I have to admit, he's growing on me. He has an unhealthy attachment to me, and likes to velcro himself to my leg when I walk in. And he has the funniest habit of wrinkling his nose and barring his fangs when he wants love/affection. Pepa is now very proud of herself because she taught him to go to the bathroom in a litter box. I swear, this dog is weird. Then there's Joselita, who's 1/2 of a lovebird pair. Apparently if they never get a mate the moment they're born, they never die of a broken heart, or whatever they do. At first she hated me (she drew blood from me on several occasions), but now she's also warming up to me. Once Pepa let her out of her cage to fly around a bit, and she climbed onto my laptop, typed around a bit (I like to think she was typing a letter to me in her own language, in which 'szha;e' means 'I love you'). And she then proceeded to climb up me, and park herself on my chest. Then she started pecking me on my lips, and Pepa said to smile, and when I started to smile, Joselita stuck her beak in my mouth, and started to, apparently, eat the food from between my teeth. Ummm, I thought my teeth were pretty clean, but she apparently found enough in there to keep her going for a good 5 minutes, until I had to forcibly pry her off my gums. Finally, there's Elvis. He's a guinea pig with ADHD and a mohawk (those usually go hand in hand anyway, don't they). He sometimes gets a little hyper, and decides to run full speed at the side of the cage and bounce off. He just does this for 20 minutes, its incredible! And that finishes off the menagerie, and I'm so glad I have them all. The house is never boring, I can say that at least.

I should describe our piso as well. Their real house, where I spent my first two weeks in Cadiz, suffered some water damage from a broken pipe or something, so the Ayuntamieno made them move out so they could repair it, and they said it would be a 'long-term' repair job. So Pepa found another piso to rent. And to be honest, I don't know how they're ever going back. It's double the size, and this place actually has windows!!! Before we moved, she kept trying to warn me, like 'Kiki, es muy antigua... MUY antigua'. I didn't understand what the big deal was, 'vale... no pasa nada?' I was expecting the crappiest house ever. But I have moved into a history buff's dream. The whole building has to be about at least 150 years old. Typical Andalucian style. It's on one of the main streets in Cadiz, Sacramento (which I keep confusing with Sacromonte, a neighborhood in Granada), and has a huge, HUGE wooden door. Like 12 feet tall. Once you get in, it's an open courtyard in the middle, with all the apartments all around it. We're apartment 2I, or 2 Izquierda. It's the top floor facing the street. Amazing. I've never seen a house like this. When you open the door to the piso, you're actually opening the door to the outside. All the rooms in the apt open up to the outside courtyard. I don't have any windows in my room, instead I have 1o foot tall glass doors that let in light from the outside. Although apparently it won't always be 'outside'. The glass roof over the courtyard has panes of glass missing, so they just decided to drape a tarp over it for when it's raining. But I love it, it has 4 balconies looking out over the street, which is super fun because we're 2 blocks away from Teatro de Falla. During Carnaval, and leading up to it, all the Chirrigotas (performing groups who sing songs that are like social commentaries, making fun of everybody) do a big victory lap on their way to the teatro/on their way back from the teatro all through the city. And they're always dressed up. We've had Roman gladiators, lost tourists, the pope with his papparazzi, and Marilyn Monroes marching through the streets at 11 o'clock at night with drums and cymbals, screaming 'CAMPEONES, CAMPEONES!' Or sometimes they sing my personal favorite, the Cadiz F.C. (our soccer team) team song: "Alcohol, Alcohol, Alcohol, Alcohol, Alcohol/ Hemos venido/Emborrachamos/El resultado/Nos da igual!".

My house is also located about a 6 minute walk from La Caleta, which is the only beach in Old Cadiz (there is a very, VERY long beach in New Cadiz, actually I think of all new Cadiz is just one long beach). La Caleta is also probably the oldest part of all of Cadiz. It's so cool, I'm usually sitting there, lying in the sun, thinking about how hundreds and hundreds of years ago, ships we're coming in here from all over the world, full of Romans and Phoenicians and Moors. Super guay. Ok geek moment over.

But anyway, that's a small introduction to Cadiz. I'll definitely post more once Carnaval happens!

Adios!

Madrid y Gran Canaria

I'm finally back in Spain, and boy, was it worth the wait. But I guess I should start in the beginning, since I did a bit of traveling before I got here.

After a nice, long relaxing break at home with the family, I hopped back across the pond to Madrid on January 13. First of all, my flight over here was heaven. I thought Aer Lingus (or as my dad likes to call them, Aer Fungus) was just an Irish airline, but apparently they fly to Spain too! The flight was completely empty so I could stretch out, and we had our own tv with on demand movies, shows, and music videos. Needless to say I didn't sleep much on that flight.

When we finally landed in Madrid, I went to the Consigna, or the luggage locker, and checked my huge I-could-fit-a-human-in-this bag. I had some free time to kill before my flight to the Canary Islands the next morning, so I had booked a hotel in Barajas, a town a little outside Madrid, but that you could still get into the city on the metro. I slept a little, then got changed and got ready to go meet my friend, Kaitlyn, who is studying abroad in Madrid. We spent the day seeing the sites, and thank god it was actually pretty nice weather.

Then I met up with my... ex-host sister?... I'll just call her my Spanish sister, Marian, and her boyfriend Mario. The month before she asked me if I could get her an MacBook Air in America, since it was cheaper, and then she wired the money over. I really felt like Santa Clause when I gave her the laptop ("Soy la reina maga" is what I kept saying over and over again), she was giggling like a little schoolgirl. Moments after they left at 6:30, I conked out.

I had to wake up super early the next morning for my flight, and met my friends Sam and Joey at the Madrid airport at 5 AM for our flight. We were officially going to Gran Canaria! The flight was surprisingly long, close to 3 hours, but I guess when you look at a map, it is closer to Africa than Spain. And oh man, when you stepped out of that plane, you know instantly you were in a different climate. So nice and warm! I can't believe I found a flight with Ryan Air for 8 euros to a different climate and time zone! Our hotel was called Apartamentos BlueBay, and it was really more like a resort. Our room wasn't ready until 4, so we just changed and went down to the huge pool. Me being a moron, I decided that because it was January, and I was only gonna be down for a couple hours, I didn't need sunscreen. Great life choice.

We met the activities coordinator, and we asked him to repeat his name several times, but all I really heard was "Nono". So I guess I'll call him Nono. He asked, no, begged, no threatened us with suicide, to play a game of water polo with "anather naaiiice yung couple". The couple was nice. They were from Norway, and we also asked them to repeat their names several times, and all we heard was the man was named Kitten and the girl Lilo. Kitten & Lilo. Cute. Sam and I were hesitant, because the water was pretty bloody cold. But somehow, without us remembering saying yes, we found ourselves putting on this ridiculous-looking swim cap. I forced myself to get in the pool slowly, because I guess I like torturing myself. Joey was already in and swimming around. Sam decided to just jump in. HAH. When her head emerged from the water, she let out such a bloodcurling scream, literally every single person lying around the pool almost fell off their chaises. After an hour of water polo, we decided to call it a day, and went back to lying like vegetables in the sun.

The nice part about our room was that it was an apartment with a kitchen. So we decided to go grocery shopping, and every night made dinner. Saves money, and it was fun. The first night we made spaghetti, the second was taco night, and then the third night was turkey burgers with leftover spaghetti. So yummy. Although our first night we just stayed in because everyone was so tired, our second night we decided to go out, because Joey absolutely HAD to see the Patriots play (sorry Joey, better luck next time). We actually managed to find a bar that played the game, and of course it was a British bar. What we didn't know prior to coming to the Canary Islands was that it is absolutely crawling with Scandinavians and Brits. Not a single American to be seen for miles. So when they found out there were Americans in the corner watching football, we were the butt of every joke from the DJ booth for the rest of the night (They played "Wanker with white socks" and dedicated it to Joey). That was a fun night.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and because Sam and Joey were taking a class in Granada, and they couldn't miss more than 2 days of class, we had to come back. But it wasn't that bad because I followed them back to Granada and got to stay with Manuela and Marian, my host family from last semester, again. It was so nice. She made my favorite salad, and then my favorite rice with her special curry sauce, and made sure to give me lots of avocados. I also had to pick up some things I had left behind at her house that I didn't want to America and then back again. The morning before I left, I was talking to her about what lies underneath her house (trust me, you don't even want to know) and she said that everytime they constructed a house, they found more and more things. So she took me to this construction site two blocks from the house, and showed me people who had torn down the house to rebuild it, and found ruins underneath (she says they were idiots to call the archaeologists, because now they can't build their house for 5 years, she just put the counter back down and stayed mum). You can see the windy road, the ruins of the house, and one of those big Amphora-looking things where they held food or drink. Super cool.

Well, after doing some last minute errands and trying to cram everything I had left behind in my already bursting suitcase, it was time to leave for the next leg of my adventure. Anda, Cádiz!