Gibraltar

John, Jo-Anne, Katie Jo, Luke and I took a day trip down to Gibraltar. It's about a 2.5 hour ride on a tour bus. Laura stayed home to go to spanish class, do laundry, and make us dinner (she and I had been to Gibraltar before). We traipsed down to the pick up point just across the (best) bridge and met the bus and tour guide at 8am. We were the first of several pick-ups, so we didn't actually start driving south with the 23 member group until about 9:15am. Along the way, Roman our guide, told us a lot about southern Spain. He seemed particularly enthused about the fact that we were driving through the part of Spain where bulls are bred and raised for the bull fighting rings. I did learn a lot about the entire "sport". For example, the bulls are not trained to be aggressive, they're raised normally. They go into the ring when they are 4 years old. The bull must be weakened by small spears (blood loss) from riders on horseback before the toreador enters the ring. A toreador has no chance of facing a bull at full strength.

I also learned that there are cork trees in southern Spain (not just Portugal). Also, the bark (cork) is harvested from the trees about every 10 years and even though the bark is stripped completely from a significant portion of the trunk, the tree survives and continues to produce bark for cork harvesting. We stopped at this rest area on the way down to Gibraltar:

After showing our passports at the border (leaving Spain, entering the UK), we visited the lighthouse. Though there was a bit of a marine layer, you could just make out the coast of Africa (Morocco):

For lunch, we followed the advice of the guide and had traditional British fish and chips at Roy's:

After lunch, we watched a couple of glass blowers ply their trade in a nearby shop:

Obligatory picture of the rock of Gibraltar:

We made it back to Sevilla around 6:30pm. Laura made us a Moroccan style cous cous with chicken for dinner (it was most excellent). We had helado for dessert and went our separate ways.