Gibraltar

I arrived shortly after twn in the morning on Sunday in La Linea and took a short five minute walk to the border. The Spanish guard opened my passport and waved me through. An extremely bored looking Gibraltarian guard didn´t even bother opening my passport. I was dissapointed they did not stamp my passport. I began a short walk across the exclave´s runway into the city. Nothing much was open, as it was Sunday morning. I wandered around, desperately searching for a tourist office to get a map, but when I located it, it was shut. The town is quite nice, and is like any other town in Britain, but is fringed with palm trees. Many of the locals speak a creole of English and Spanish. Thank goodness that Gibraltar does not follow Spanish time. I was able to have lunch in a pub shortly after noon. I ordered fish and chips and a half pint of cider. It was warm enough to sit outside and enjoy the sun. While I had wanted to walk up the rock, I could not find the way up, and had no map, so decided to go up the cable car. I saw a couple of monkeys from the car. At the top, I got off and immediately saw several of monkeys near cable car exit. They are very tame, and you can walk right up to them. The female monkeys all have swollen butts. I wandered around the top of the rock for a while, enjoying the views. The baby monkeys were particularly cute, especially when being carried by their mothers. The top of the rock has excellent views of Morocco and Ceuta. I took the cable car back down to the half station, and walked down to the town from there. Wanting to get some food for the train the next day, I went to the supermarket which is stocked with British food. Despite is having about a thousand calories, I bought a Melton Mobraypork pie for my lunch. Although it was five, I had an early dinner, and headed back across the border. There was an enormous queue of Spaniards crossing the border in cars, apparently because gas is much cheaper in Gibraltar. I also saw a number of people with shopping bags from the supermarker. They muct like the British food you can´t get in Spain. I had the displeasure of receiving some Gibraltarian money in change, and after bad experiences with the money of Jersey, am concerned that it will be difficult to get rid of.