Daytrips!

These past couple months have consisted of a few little trips too. So I’ll mush those together into one convenient post. 

The first was a daytrip with Andy and Pam to a town called Carmona. Well, little city. “Town” has a whole new meaning after being in Aznalcóllar.

Carmona was a Roman city and then, when it was taken over by the Moors, got a ton of cool new buildings, a wall around the city, etc. What we'd heard was “ruins,” “ruta de tapas,” and that it was a 45 minute bus ride away, giving us a perfect activity to fill a Sunday.

Soo we met at the bus stop (after some issues riding around blocks and blocks to find a place to park my stupid rental bike), were early, had coffee, left, saw some sights, had some food, and headed back in the afternoon.

Here's the town from atop one of the super cool Moorish buildings that I don't really remember what it was:

After this gate...there's nothing. Except part of the Via Augusta, which leads to Rome. Cool, no?

 

This is the view of the plaza while we ate lunch:

Ohhhh, lunch. It was here that I had my first menú del día: when you pay a flat fee and get three courses: a tapa-esque starter, a plate of meat or fish or something, and a dessert. Oh! Plus a breadbasket and a drink. In this case I think it was 9 euros, but there's some places by my house that do it for like 7. Not bad...

I got croquetas (fried mozzarella stick-shaped masses of goodness filled with bechamel and something like ham or cheese), then some kind of meat, then flan. And tinto de verano, red wine with lemon soda (especially popular in Andalucía, though here we do it sometimes with orange soda instead.) The whole affair took a couple hours, partly due to our voluntary lounging around and partly due to the server being in no rush to serve.

So, in summary, great day trip.

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Anyways, that was in February I think, but last weekend I went on another day trip-- this time to Gibraltar. I'd been wanting to go, even though I knew there's not that much to do, but I thought it would be really neat to see a little piece of England inside Spain...and to hear the funny language they speak.

There's this group of people that meet up for a weekly "intercambio"-- a gathering at a bar for guiris (extranjeros) who want to practice Spanish and Spanish people who want to practice English. These gatherings also include "speed intercambio," which looks just like speed dating but (hopefully) with different intentions. I've only been once, but it was a neat something to do. 

Why am I telling you this? Cause they rented a great big bus and made this trip happen. For wayy cheaper than it would have cost to get there on my own. Plus the planning was already done for me.

So Andy, Pam, her friend Julia who I don't know if I've mentioned but who I've hung out with a lot this month or so, Julia's friend Jan, and I went down and back with this group and just kind of wandered around on our own the rest of the day. It wasn't much of an intercambio after all, but whatever.

In summary: it was neat! No, there wasn't much to do, but it was fun. Here are some pictures!

Main street. Chock full o' tourists, Spanish and British, mostly. See if you can spot the Americans!

The first thing we did was get a tour up to the top of the rock. We thought we were gonna take the cable car up but ended up going in a little van tour.

The view from the top. That's Spain (Tarifa) to your right and Africa to your left.

Then we went in some caves which were thought to be the entrance to Hades. There was also an amphitheater inside, used for concerts and weddings and stuff. I doubt that would be too pleasant though, cause it was really drippy inside.

And, of course, we saw the monkeys. They really were everywhere! Well, on the top of the rock anyways. Not in the city, thank goodness.

Andy and our guide:

Another rock/monkey shot for your viewing pleasure:

  

Yet another. No monkey picture for me, sorry (not):

The plaza where we ate absolutely glorious fish and chips (a first for me!) smothered in mayo and ketchup and tartar sauce:

And we watched a plane take off from above. And all just stood there, fascinated, waiting for it to finish doings laps around the runway till it finally took off. Also, you have to cross this runway to get into Gibraltar (we parked in La Linea, the border city on Spain's side).

So, walk fast:

Ok that's pretty much it. 

I know I've promised it about four times, but my next post really will be about Sevilla. (Hey, last time I said "in and around Sevilla"...)

Stay tuned!