Gibraltar & Málaga

The view from the cable car ride

On April 24th and 25th I went on a trip with my students of 1st and 2nd levels to Gibraltar and Málaga and it was just as crazy as I had imagined it would be.  We left Baza at 6 in the morning and I don't think that anyone slept the entire bus ride!

Once we got to Gibraltar, the craziness began.  We spent the entire day walking around the city and exploring.  After crossing the border of Gibraltar, which happens to be an airport runway, we began our adventure.

The first thing we did was take the cable car up to the top of the rock of Gibraltar.  The cable car is like a really scary ski lift and all you see below you are trees.  When we got to the top, we saw the wild apes that inhabit the rock of Gibraltar.  It was totally wild to see them all just hanging out around the visitor building.  Nobody in my group had an ape jump on them, but there was a fight between a student and an ape...

One of the baby apes

Proudly eating the prized sandwich

Some of the kids were getting together for a photo, and one of them put is backpack down.  This was a huge mistake.  The next thing he knew, there was an ape grabbing for his bag and ripping it open.  It had smelled the sandwich that was in the bag and was going to do anything to get it.  After a brief game of tug-o-war, the ape was successful, climbed up the wall and slowly unwrapped the sandwich and began to eat.  This was the big story from the trip, everyone had to hear about it as soon as we got back!

Walking around the streets was very interesting.  Gibraltar is on the Iberian Peninsula, and it seems like it should be a city in Spain, but it is actually a territory of England (We had to show our ID's/passports to get in and out of the city).  It was very obvious that we were not in Spain anymore.  The architecture was different, the stores were different and the restaurants were different.  I was even able to find decent chocolate chip cookie in one of the stores!

Fish & Chips!

All of us teachers and three of the students all tried fish and chips for the first time.  It was delicious!

We did some other tourist things, like walk on Main Street, go to the Trafalgar Cemetery and watch the changing of the guard at the mayor's house.

One of the most interesting things that we did was go to Europa Point.  Europa Point is the southern point of Gibraltar where you can see England, Spain and Morocco.  You see three countries, two continents and two bodies of water meeting: the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.  It was super, super windy though, and it felt like we were all going to blow away!  Another fun thing for me was to see was all of the students point out and take pictures of signs and other things that were in English, because it was so strange to them!  For most of them, it was their first time ever outside of Spain!

Europa Point - note our hair blowing in the wind

Then the next day, everyone was completely exhausted, but we kept on going with the visit.  We saw some of the main things in the city of Málaga:

• The Gibralfaro Castle
• The Alcazaba
• The port
• The main center/shopping area 
• Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens

By the time we made it home the next night, everyone was completely wiped out and more than half of them didn't show up the next day!

The reflecting pool of the Alcazaba in Málaga

All in all it was a good time and it was nice to break the normal routine of being in the classroom and working out of the text book everyday.  I was glad and thankful that I was able to go on this trip with them!