Gibraltar

After crossing the Strait of Gibraltar on a ferry from Tangier, Morocco to Algeciras, Spain we crossed the boarder on foot into the UK! Gibraltar is the original Spanglish. It's only 7 square kilometers of land, but it's people speak Spanglish since it's part of the UK but right next to Spain. They also have about 10,000 words that are neither Spanish nor English but purely Gibraltarian. There are about 30,000 people that live in Gibraltar, and most of their families have been there for 200 years or so. They came from Italy, Scotland, Wales, etc. but not Spain. They have random votes to see if the population wants to remain British or become part of Spain, and the last vote was in 2005 or 2006 and 99.8 percent wanted to stay British. It's truly amazing how different Gibraltar is from Spain! They have the traditional British phone booths, double decker buses, fish n' chips, Irish pubs, and since we went in December they also had lots of Christmas decorations!

Gibraltar itself is really gorgeous! From the top of the rock you can see the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, Morocco, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. (The Strait of Gibraltar is only 21 kilometers wide and it's amazing how different the two sides are!)

We got to see the botanical gardens, the Pillar of Hercules (aka the end of the ancient world), St. Michael's Cave (where they have some concerts inside the cave), the World War II tunnels, the mosque, the lighthouse at Point Europa, main street, and of course lots and lots of monkeys!