Mama, Málaga, and Monkeys

Very behind in posting. This post is about week 8 (Feb 24-March 2), which was filled with two fabulous events. 

First, my mother and her friend Michelle came to visit me in Valencia! It was so great to see such familiar faces after two months of being on the go and meeting new people. The first night we went out with some of my friends to a tapas bar. This was actually my first real tapas experience because I never feel the need to spend the extra money on tapas when I am fed three meals a day at the dorms. That is the beauty of parents coming to visit, though. No matter where you are in the world, they always take the check. My mother and Michelle were only in Valencia for two days because I was only a part of their northeastern Spain adventure. While I was in class they went off on their own exploring the city, and then I took them out at night. The second night we went to a wonderful Moroccan restaurant. It took us about an hour to find it but it ended up being worth the hunt. Afterwards I took Vicki out with my friends to our favorite local disco bar called Bolseria. Although my mom has always been quite the partier, she still couldn't hang with the Spaniards and their habit of not even the party until 1am. I don't blame her, I am still adjusting to the concept of late-night fiestas. After two days in Valencia, Michelle and Vicki ventured back up the coast to Barcelona. It was definitely a treat seeing them and I am excited to see both my parents in two weeks!

Grand event number two of week 8, my trip down to Málaga to see the wonderful Dani Bonet. It was my first international trip by myself. My tasks were simple. Take the train to Madrid and then switch trains to Málaga to where my best friend, Dani, would be waiting for me at the train station. The week before I had bought a Spain Pass, which is basically a package of six train trips. I had all my tickets lined up and seats reserved with the pass, but still, I managed to mess everything up. Let us go through a play by play of my nauseating adventure...

1. Do to the previous night’s procrastination, I failed to pack until the day of the trip, making me late to the train station that Thursday. 
2. When checking in to board the train, I handed over my passport, ticket, and Spain Pass, or what I thought was my Spain Pass. When I unfolded the folded white piece of paper and looked down at the typed black writing, I felt my eyes grow 10 times their size and my heart sink to the bottom of my chest. It was not my Spain Pass. It was literature homework from the week before. With my heart racing, I pulled up the Spain Pass on my iTouch as fast as I could; however, for the Renfe nazi behind the check-in counter, this would not suffice. In this new world of technology and eco-friendly gadgets, I had landed on the one place that required a paper Spain Pass. With only 10 minutes until the train left, I rushed to the Renfe office and explained in the best spanish I could that I needed my pass printed. Although he rolled his eyes through the whole process, the man behind the counter finally printed me a new Spain Pass. I rushed back to the counter and hopped on the train with three minutes to spare. 
3. Once seated on the train, I caught my breath and got myself back together. Looking through all my travel documents, however, I realized that through the commotion of forgetting my Spain pass, I had lost my other two train tickets from Madrid to Málaga and then back to Valencia on Sunday. The panic set in again.
4. When I arrived in Madrid I had exactly 30 minutes until my next train left. I sprinted through the station to the Renfe office and tried to explain my situation to a rather large and grumpy woman behind the counter. On the train I had practiced what I was to say so that my spanish would be clearly understood, but do to my flustered emotions, it just came out as barely comprehendible babble. The woman seemed to understand my situation but simply shook her head and said there was nothing she could do. I would have to buy another ticket. Overwhelmed with sadness as to what this would do to my bank account, I trudged myself to the ticket office. There I found an hour long line just to buy another ticket. I had no idea what to do. I returned to the Renfe office desperate to find another solution but when I went up to the grouchy woman again, my emotions got the best of me and I just started crying before I could say anything else. She got up and went to talk to another man, who said he was going to go talk to the “jefe”, aka the big boss man of Renfe. I guess they felt bad for the young American girl who was alone and lost in Madrid and could barely speak spanish. The man came back with a printed out receipt of my reservation— exactly what I asked for in the first place. He then escorted me to the gate, and after a big “muchas gracias”, I boarded the train with a huge weight off my shoulders.  
5. I arrived in Málaga two and a half hours later to see Dani holding a hand-made “Katy Roberts” sign. We were both so excited to see each other that we both started tearing up. I felt like I was in a movie. I told her my whole ticket story and she busted out laughing because she didn’t expect anything less from ridiculous scatter brain. We once again went to the Málaga Renfe office and got my ticket squared away for the way trip back to Valencia. 

Out with Dani's German friend, Alex.  

We then made our way to the apartment that she lives in. Unlike me living in a dorm, Dani lives with a Spanish family in a comfortable apartment in downtown Málaga. The family consists of a 70 year old woman named, Treni, her 30 year old son and 20 year old grandson. Treni was kind enough to let me stay for dinner, which was my first homemade meal in Spain. It was nice to sit around a family table again after my many meals in the dorm. That night we went out with all of Dani’s friends. Many are from different parts of America but others are from all over Europe. I met people from Germany, Belgium, France, and other places. Málaga is actually a very international city compared to the rest of Spain, other than Barcelona of course. One great thing about the night life is all of the drinks and entrance fees are so much cheaper than Valencia—once aspect I warmed up to fast. 

After our night on the town we slept in the next day. I stayed at a hostel down the street so Dani met me around 12:30 and we spent the afternoon walking around Málaga. After lunch at a quant tapas restaurant we went to the beach and relaxed in her hammock. I had so much fun catching up on all our adventures of the past couple months and exchanging crazy travel stories. It made me excited to backpack with Dani though Europe for two weeks at the end of our programs. After being best friends since we little tikes in elementary school, we have pretty much have each other memorized. I know every habit, pet peeve, and secret pleasure that Dani has and I know she could say the same about me. This makes us the perfect partners in crime and I wouldn’t want to travel around the world with anyone else. 

The weekend that I visited Dani happened to be the same weekend as Carnaval de Málaga, a city-wide festival celebrating the days leading up to lent. The streets were filled with people dressed up in all sorts of crazy costumes. I felt like I was back in Athens on Halloween. Friday evening we walked around eating ice-cream and watching street performers. 

For dinner we went to her friend Maggie’s apartment for a night of home-made paella and sangria. Dani was back in her element cooking so I just stuck to the sangria pouring and chatted with the eight other girls who had come. 

We turned in early due to our early morning Saturday plans. At 6:30 am we walked to the bus station to catch a 7am bus to the Straight of Gibraltar! I was beyond excited. Being a nature and history freak, this was a prime spot I had to visit. Gibraltar is a British territory located on the southern most tip of the Spanish peninsula and serves as the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Spain has been trying to gain back control of it for centuries because of its valuable location. 

British phone booth at the entrance
of Gibraltar. Definitely not in
Spain anymore. 

When we arrived, we had to pass through customs to get into the territory, but this ended up being a joke. I pretty much just flashed my passport and walked across the border. Immediately, however, I was hit with another cultural shock because two steps out of Spain I was surrounded by British accents. It was a very strange experience.

We decided to take a taxi tour up to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. Our tour guide, John, was a friendly British man who had lived in Gibraltar almost his entire life. This amazed me and I spent most of the tour asking him questions about growing up on in a 2.3 square mile community. He said that until he was about 15 years old, Spain was still a dictatorship and Franco had completely isolated Gibraltar, making it impossible for anyone to get in or out though Spain. One could fly out but that was very expensive so until his late teen years, John did not know life outside the territory. He said he would look at pictures of cows and horses in books and wonder what they looked like in real life. This blew my mind. By the time I was 15 I had already been all over the United States. I couldn’t even imagine being detained to a place smaller than the neighborhood I grew up in. 

Our first stop was a lookout where you are supposed to be able to see both Spain and Africa. Unfortunately for us, it was a bit too foggy to see Africa. We still had fun taking pictures though. 

Along the way John told us all about the history and geology of Gibraltar. The rock is literally an upside down mountain with the oldest part of the stone on top and the younger parts at the bottom. Since it used to be underwater, the rock is made up of Early Jurassic ammonites (aka sea fossils) and there is no soil on the entire surface. 

There is a theory that the US dollar sign was derived from the Rock of Gibraltar, which is part of the Pillars of Hercules. The rock is considered the northern Pillar. The southern Pillar has been argued over throughout history, mostly between Monte Hacho in Ceuta and Jebel Musa in Morocco. The Pillars of Hercules are the peninsulas that mark the entrance to the Straight of Gibraltar. Since it had been a while since I had heard any American history, it was nice to learn something I could personally relate to. $$$

Gibraltar is known for its monkeys, which ended up being mine and Dani's favorite part. There are six families of monkeys on the territory, composed of over 200 monkeys. They were brought over by the Moors back in the 10th century and have remained on the rock ever since. There is a saying that if there are ever less than 35 monkeys in Gibraltar, the territory will no longer be British. That would never happen though because they are such a huge tourist attraction. Dani and I couldn’t get enough of them. They are literally everywhere. Since the taxi drivers are the only people allowed to drive up to the top of the rock, all of the monkeys know them. John would look at a monkey, point to me, and the monkey would jump on my back and climb on my head. It was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced and really made me want a pet monkey. It was not all for fun and games, though. John always rewarded the monkeys with whatever type of food he had on him. In our case it was M&M’s. Unfortunately one of the monkeys liked me a little too much and ended up peeing on the back of my jacket...

John helping me out with the monkey pee. 

The view from the top was absolutely breathtaking. There was a fog that barely sat atop the rock and gave it an eerie and mysterious look. I could have stayed up there for hours. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before that not even pictures could capture. 

We toured through a cave that was built by the Romans. It has now been converted into an amphitheater. I can’t even imagine how unbelievable it would be to see a concert there. 

Although Gibraltar is only 2.6 square miles, there is 34 miles of tunnels that weave all throughout the inside of the rock. We walked through parts of the tunnel and learned about their military usage throughout history. At one point there were barracks, hospitals, and living spaces for the people of Gibraltar who needed refuge. For example, during WWII it was the town’s air-raid shelter for protection from potential German bombings. 

When we returned back down to the bottom of the rock, Dani and I walked around the town for a little. Other than pubs and tourist shops, there was not much to the place. We had our fill and walked back across the border to Spain where we took an afternoon bus back to Málaga. 

That night we hit up the Málaga night life again, hopping from bar to bar. It was a great end to a fabulous weekend. I got my first taste of Andalusia, crossed the border into British territory, played with monkeys, and spent time with best friend. I couldn’t ask for a better trip.