No toca los monos!

This day (Thursday at the time, 24) could have been one of my favorite days. We started out with another early morning, leaving at 8:45 (after yet another fabulous breakfast). We had about two hours in the bus before we made it to Gibraltar. I really had not read my itinerary in detail so I was not quite ready for what was to come, but I heard the words large rock and apes? WHAT? Oh yes. As we arrive into Gibraltar (under British control for the past 300 years; the people would like to keep it that way and the official language is English). It is absolutely beautiful and we are able to see an incredibly large mountain of a rock! It turns out we have arrived very early for our adventure, so after a long walk into the heart of the town we have about 2 1/2 hours to eat, relax, shop, whatever. We have some lovely sandwiches at "Munchie's." I also tried a kiwi-apple smoothie. It was pretty good but the texture was interesting. We were all so ready to just get on with the day, as most of us were done shopping. Still we enjoyed relaxing and actually stumbled upon a glass-blowing exhibition which was really neat. I had never seen this before so I was mesmerized. However, I have put crystal from Gibraltar on my bridal registry radar so be ready to make a trip (again... it will be a while, haha). Finally, we were called over to our meeting place and these very funny men were saying "Eight with me! I want the pretty ones with me! All right!" One in particular was very spunky and so I hoped in his taxi bus with seven other chicas and we began to make our way up the rock of Gibraltar. First, we stopped at a gorgeous view where we could see the cost of Spain, where the Atlantic and Mediterranean meet, as well as the other pilar of Hercules. It was ancient myth that if you sailed through the straight of Gibraltar you would fall off the Earth or into nothingness. However, once sailors passed, they said that Hercules must have pulled the land apart. What is the other pilar of Hercules I could see then, you might ask? AFRICA!

(made darker to see Africa!)

That's right! We were close enough for me to get a text message from our Spanish phone company welcoming me to Morocco. 14 miles of water between me and Africa. I really wish I could've gone over and just touched my to to the land.
I will go there on my next trip :). It was an absolutely gorgeous view, but we actually got a head of our group and had to go back down a level to look at a similar view with them, then back to the same view again. As we climbed higher, we were able to go into a man made cave! It was huge inside and absolutely beautiful. I felt the need to sing Phantom of the Opera or something as we went farther and farther into "the strange new world."

The best part of the day, however, for me was that while we were exploring the beautiful rock of Gibraltar... there were MONKEYS running around! MONKEYS! EVERYWHERE! Our taxi driver (Maximillian, or Maxi for short) told us that they were said to have been brought over from Morocco and there is a myth that as long as the monkeys are still alive on the Rock, Gibraltar will thrive (they have Veterinarians take care of the monkeys). Needless to say, they are very used to humans, although it is not wise to touch them or eat around them. They did in fact steal ice cream from two of our girls. Still, our tax drivers were able to help us let them sit on our shoulders for pictures! They would just jump from person to person! And I saw baby monkeys! SO cute!

The island was absolutely gorgeous. As we were heading back down, we were chatting it up with Maxi about his four kids (Matthew, Stephanie, Faith and... I cannot remember the 4th). Apparently in Gibraltar, all of the children are sent for FREE to "University" in England! The government pays for it! Seriously? Move to Gibraltar! He was so sweet and encouraging us all just to go for our education now, don't wait. Go for it! He said. We were also talking about our professora who was from Cadiz (in the South of Spain). He was giving us some fun localisms to take back to her. Our favorite was definitely "Kiu" meaning something along the lines of "friend." Que pasa kiu? Venga kiu (Which totally sounds like "Come here, I'll kill you!"). Needless to say, the eight of us in the car loved this word and we all proceeded to scream it out the windows at people with Maxi who could not stop laughing at us, haha. Gibraltar was so strange as it is very much English, however, people do speak Spanish well. Spanglish would totally fly there. We had a blast on our tour and I absolutely loved it. After our tour, we went to go take a potty break. However, some of us did not get to go as we were told to go back to the buss immediately and we would stop later. However, some people stayed and went anyways, so those of us who did not go (me) were waiting on the bus, still having not used the restroom. I'm not kidding when I say I kind of wanted to cry thinking about going 2 hours without it, while being frustrated that others were able to stay. Still, we stopped about 10 minutes later and all was good again. After about 2 hours in the bus, we arrived in Torremolenos! This is our real vacation part of the trip. We had arrived at the PLAYA! We really just came in, changed into our appropriate clothes (as there is a dinner dress code in our hotel), and went to dinner. The dinner is a buffet (or BOOfet as Mrs. Crider would say). It was wonderful! I don't even remember all that I had it was so good. After dinner, some of us came up and changed back into our comfy clothes and spent a few hours on the beach relaxing. We went for a stroll, and got our feet a little wet in the water. We didn't stay out too late though, as we were ready to hit the beach bright and early the next morning!