Rock of Gibraltar, UK

I woke up bright and early, about 6am, and went downstairs for a quick breakfast before waiting outside for the bus. Today I was going to the rock of Gibraltar! I packed my camera, my batteries, some water, some crackers, my passport… what I *should* have packed was a coat. The bus driver had the A/C cranked higher than a Florida movie theater.

When we crossed the bridge into Gibraltar, both the Spanish and the British customs agents checked my passport (if you can call briefly glancing to see if I was indeed holding something vaguely passport-shaped actually “checking”) and I had the disappointment of once again not getting my passport stamped. It hasn’t been stamped since Costa Rica, and here I’ve been in and out of France, in and out of Spain, in and out of Gibraltar, and back into Spain, and – nothing.

OK, enough venting. So, we get to Gibraltar and I board a smaller tour bus because I booked a guided tour. The rock of Gibraltar is not just a rock – it’s huge, like a mountain. There’s the British naval base and a runway for a small airport, and military tunnels within the rock as well as natural caves, which I got to explore. There are also monkeys.

Lots and lots of monkeys – hundreds of them. As we were leaving the bus, I was in the back, so I was one of the last to leave, and a monkey must have snuck in by the feet of the departing passengers, because he suddenly leapt from the floor to the seat of a woman who had left her bag on the seat. He rummaged inside, filched a banana and a sandwich, then dashed out of the bus and up the side of the rock to eat his prize. Hilarious!

As we were leaving the caves, another woman bought an ice cream bar. She was walking away from the stand when a monkey reached down from a tree, snatched the bar from her hand, quickly unwrapped the plastic, and started eating the ice cream bar. I started creacking up when she yelled at the monkey, “Hey! It cost me a pound fifty, that!” (Which is about $3 US. Crafty monkey.)

I also saw some sort of US satellites, old mosques, lots of shops and cafes, and a baby monkey. I caught sight of him crouched on the side of the road. He was so cute! I knelt down and inched closer in order to take his photograph. I was just thinking how funny it was that he would let me get so close when he suddenly sprang up and latched himself around my head, his legs wrapped around my neck and his little hands gripped the rim of my visor. Oh. My. God. This has to be the single most funniest thing that has ever happened to me! (In case you are wondering, monkeys are feather-light, very soft, very smart, and very playful. Oh – and very tricksy.)

So, I get back from Gibraltar and decide to charge up my batteries. Naturally my converter doesn’t fit in the wall – I need an extender plug. I try two supermakets and the Kodak store – nothing. Discouraged, I walk back to the hotel. Something possesses me to ask at a roadside souvenir stand – whaddya know, they have tons of them for 1 euro each. I rush back to the room with my prize, plug in my expensive 15-minute charger, and promptly zap it, the stink of fried electronics thick in the air. Oops. Luckily I brought my crappy 12-hour charger along as backup, but why couldn’t I have zapped that one instead? I flip the switch on the converter to low power and plug in the 12-hour charger. Oh well, better than nothing.

I later found out that today, the professor’s wife and her mother were hit by a car. They are bruised and sore, but otherwise fine. They were crossing the street and a car was pulling out from behind another car and didn’t see them. (It’s an epidemic of car accidents!) The good thing is that Spain as social medicine, so they were treated quickly, and for free.

Tags: animals, cathedrals, healthcare, road trip

Torremolinos, Spain & Playamar, Spain

I woke up to a stinging pain in my hands. That’s right, plural. In my sleep, I was stung in not one but *both* hands by some unknown creature/insect. Naturally, by the time I got out of the shower, the bites had seemingly disappeared because both my hands swelled up like cantaloupes with bratwurst-shaed fingers poking out. (déjà vu, times two.)

As usual, everyone who caught sight of me was quite horrified (and it’s safe to say I was a twee dismayed myself) and despite the bags of ice, by the time class ended at 1:30pm, the swelling was moving up my wrists and the fingers on my left hand were turning an alarming reddish-purple.

It seemed the Benadryl-Claritin cocktail I took before breakfast wasn’t going to do the trick.

I ended up going to the emergency center, wich is not quite a hospital and not quite a walk-in clinic, but a bit of both, because Spain has free healthcare for its citizens.

I was about 5th in line, but I saw the doctor within half an hour. (Faster than any US emergency room I’ve ever been in! Amazing!) She gave me a shot of (I think) cortisone in my rear end and a prescription for (I think) some sort of antihistamine. Getting the prescription filled was easy – I didn’t even have to show ID or fill out any paperwork. Even at the hospital, all I had to do was flash my photo ID, not that they Xeroxed it or anything.

So, if I had to have such a thing happen, at least it was really easy to get medical care. If someone from Spain comes to America and gets an allergic reaction and expects immediate, free medical attention… well, good luck with that one.

So far I’m still Frankensteinian and very sore, but hopefully the swelling will start to decrease very quickly.

Next, I went to the local travel agency and tried to reserve my remaining train tickets. They said I couldn’t purchase international train tickets in Playamar (where we were) but that I could in downtown Torremolinos and that the bus would come to this corner any second. I waited outside for the bus for over half an hour and the bus never showed. So, when a local pulled over to offer me a ride, I gratefully accepted, and it took less than 10 minutes to get there.

Downtown Torremolinos was a disappointment. I realized I’d been there before (yesterday, on The Long Walk) so I don’t mean in that sense, but because *their* travel agency said no, I could only purchase such tickets in Málaga. Well, I just tried Málaga yesterday, so I know better than that. Guess I’ll just have to wait until Madrid.

One thing that’s been surprising me requires a bit of back story. The fact is, I only packed the ugliest, most ill-fitting dregs of my closet (items I planned on giving to Goodwill anyway) just in case my luggage was lost and also because I planned on throwing/giving junk clothes away rather than dealing with a bunch of laundry. Also, I left my curling iron, makeup, etc, all at home, because why bother lugging it all around? So, I’m sporting a look that’s very early midwestern hobo (or worse).

Nonetheless, guys are honking and slowing down, blowing kisses at me and yelling “¡Guapa!” every five minutes. Weird.

Then again, as I mentioned, Spain is very clothing-optional and we *are* on the beach… maybe here it really doesn’t matter what you wear, because they figure if you go to the beach you’ll take it all off anyway. Not me, but you should see the people here – anybody who *is* wearing a swimsuit is either sporting a Speedo or a bikini, no matter how young/fat/old they are. Same with the regular outfits – these really old women have their canes and their halter tops, it’s wild.

Tags: healthcare, lost in translation