Weekend of Cultures and Continents- Part I

This weekend was one of the most spontaneous, random, and incredible weekends of my life. It all began at 10:00 Thursday night with a phone call from one of the other girls. Since we have Fridays off school and this weekend was looking to be rather quiet, we had wanted to do something fun, especially since I was disappointed that my plans to go see my friend in Lisbon had fallen through (it’s next to impossible to get there from here). It turned out that a couple of the others were planning to go to Gibraltar this weekend, and they invited me to go with them. There were no definite plans, just ideas; all they only had was a one-way ticket for Friday morning and thoughts of traveling around Southern Spain or anywhere else we could get to. So I agreed, and before 7:30 the next morning, I was walking to the bus station to get my ticket.

It took 4 hours by bus to get to La Línea, a small town on the Spanish side of the border. There were four of us girls: Amanda and Laura from Cedarville, and Malory from Wisconsin that I work with at our internship. Sean, the only guy in the program, and from another school, would meet us Saturday morning. It was a great group: our personalities worked well together, there weren’t too many people, all 5 of us are older, and we all have a fair amount of experience traveling. After walking and crossing the border into Gibraltar, we happened upon a van tour we decided to take. It turned out to be amazing; a guide drove the four of us around town and up the rock, explaining the history of everything. Gibraltar is the point at the very bottom of Spain that faces Africa (you can see both continents from the rock), and is owned by the British. It has always been a military point, but during WWII they built it up even more and tunneled out rooms for hospitals in the rock in case Spain was attacked through Africa. We saw a cave that had been turned into a theater for concerts, the old military tunnels, and tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to avoid being attacked by the monkeys that live there. After the tour, we walked through the town that exists in a strange limbo between the red phone booths of England and the coffee shops of Spain, and uses pounds for money. We found a great British fish and chips restaurant recommended to us by our guide, and all the people we met were really friendly. We headed back to La Línea to spend a relaxing evening in our hostel playing cards and strategizing for the next day.

Pause for a moment. Looking back on the whole trip, I realize that we could not have planned out everything in advance even if we had wanted to. Things change all the time. Busses go on strike. Boats cancel all day long. Prices change depending on the weather. I think the best way to travel around here is both to be very flexible and to talk to people: ask the tourism offices in the cities what is good to see, and ask people for recommendations of restaurants. In the beginning we had no plans, but everything kept falling into place and we had an absolutely amazing time. God worked so many things out for us.

This is getting to be the length of a novel, but I know there are people out there who want a lot of details. Therefore, I will post the next part very soon. Part II of our adventure took place on Saturday and Sunday, and was intense, beautiful, culturally rich, nerve-wracking, intriguing, and heartbreaking all at the same time, involving Africa or the Middle East, however you would like to refer to Morocco.