The Apes of Gibraltar: Nat. Geo. Style

When you have something photograph worthy in front of you, it's easy to pretend you work for National Geographic. At least, that's how I feel sometimes. For example, it's hard to take a bad picture of the Eiffel Tower, or an ugly picture of a sunset. Or, in this case, an ugly picture of a baby monkey.

However, I am still extremely pleased with how my day of photographing the Gibraltar apes turned out.
Just look at these cute faces! (And no, I won't be hurt if you stop looking after the first 5 pictures or so. I have a problem of taking a couple hundred too many pictures of animals.)

1. This sequence makes me crack up every time.

2. Sunning themselves

3. Mom does work, baby looks around curiously.

(No, this picture isn't sideways, his head was sticking out sideways from under his mom's arm.)

4. Hangin' out.

5. Lunch time! Aka the many faces of the baby apes.

6. He's nursing!

And if those pictures didn't inspire you to make the trip to Gibraltar, how about these?

The view as we took the cable car up the mountain.

On top of the Rock, with the bay of Gibraltar in the background.

There is a short cut of stairs that cuts straight down the top half of the mountain. It's kind of trippy, and very rickety feeling, although they are stone stairs.

This reminded me of the Great Wall of China. No idea why.

Sometimes I take Gibraltar for granted, since it's only a 45 minute bus ride away and go there weekly. But this day trip really reminded me how lucky I am to only be 45 minutes away from such a gorgeous and unique place. If you are ever in the area, you should definitely take a day (or even half a day) and check it out!

My First & Last Day in Tangier, Morocco

The entire day that I was in Tangier I kept thinking 'I can't wait to write a blog about this.' I know, I'm obsessed right? But so many friends and family members have told me that they are living vicariously through my blog, so I try to make it as real and exciting as possible. But with that being said, for as excited as I was to write this post, now that I'm thinking about it I have absolutely no idea how to go about it.

My experience in Tangier was utterly unique. I've heard lots of different reactions from people who have been to Morocco, and Tangier seems to be by far the most controversial. Some people have loved it, the whole hustle-and-bustle craziness of it, and others have hated it. All of the Spaniards who found out that I was going said "...but why?" Tangier is known for being a dirty port city, where people go not because they want to, but because they have to stop through on the way to bigger and better places. (Kind of like Algeciras.)

It's much prettier than Algeciras though, that's for sure.

So with all that being said, here are some of the highlights and lowlights of my day there.

• I got seriously sea-sick on the ferry ride over. It was hell.

• To get to the actual city of Tangier from the port of Tangier takes about an hour by bus. The second we stopped off the bus in the middle of the city, we were accosted by people trying to convince us that we needed a local tour guide. One guy followed us for a solid 15 minutes before we were able to shrug him off. During these 10 minutes he said 'Fuck you!' to Eli and then when we continued to tell him to go away he said "did I offend you? I didn't mean it, I'm sorry. But you need a tour guide. I'm your tour guide." No dude, you're not. Seriously, go away.

• Since we were there during the off-season at the end of January, we felt like we were the only tourists in the city. And Eli's blonde hair attracted the stares of every Moroccan within a mile radius.

• I was honestly scared to take pictures for most of the time we were there. Whipping out my large black 20x-zoom Sony camera just seemed so...wrong. However I managed to come to terms with my guilt and got a couple good pictures in anyway.

The medina, or main square.

• We tried to shake off a wanna-be guide in the medina but unfortunately ran into him twice more when we were exploring the souk on our own. We really did try to be nice about it at first, but finally had to resort to speed-walking and cutting corners to get rid of him. 

• Then we got a whirlwind tour of the souk from a 10 year old kid. Shaking off kid guides is soooo much harder than it is when they are older and creepier. So instead we followed him through the twisty-windy streets until we rounded a corner into a group of 7 Moroccan teens, leering and laughing at us. This is when we insisted to the kid that we didn't want to go who knows where he was taking us, and we needed to go back to the Medina. I wanted to trust that this cute little kid wouldn't lead us into any dangerous situations, but honestly, I couldn't. 

• We somehow picked up a second kid tour guide, who seamlessly fit himself in with our group. The two of them took us to the most gorgeous look out point, which made up for the fact that we were going to have to pay them for their time.

• After tiring of the craziness of the Souk, we high-tailed it out to sit in a restaurant for the next 2 1/2 hours before the bus left to go back to the port. 

• We lucked out and found the most delicious Moroccan restaurant, where we got chicken tangin, couscous, spaghetti (haha oops not Moroccan) and amazing fruit salad. It was the best meal I've had in a while.

• Then we spent 4 hours waiting in the port, since we didn't feel like waiting around the city after dark.

I have no idea how to sum how wild of the day we had. I'd been to Marrakech before, with 3 other girls, and so I'd experienced the craziness of the Souk, of being an American in a country where you're not respected in the least, and of feeling completely out of place in a country primarily dominated by men. However Tangier...was completely unique. The two friends that I traveled with completely hated the city, and so I'm not sure how much of my memory of the day and of my opinions of the city were changed by listening to how they felt.

I guess I'm just indifferent. I don't think I would ever willingly go back. I don't feel the need to see that particular city again, but I would love to go back to other parts of Morocco.

Sorry if this post is a little lacking, I just honestly don't really know what to say about it.

So I'll end it with a funny story that happened while we were waiting around for the bus to take us from the port building down to where we had to board the ship:

We had been waiting in the building since 9pm, and where told that a bus would come to take us down to the ferry at 11, and that the ferry would leave at midnight. At 11:30 we were still waiting, although we had seen at least 3 empty buses pull up outside the building, wait a few minutes, and then drive off, still empty. (Ummm waste of gas anyone??) 


It had been a very long day, we were tired, and we just wanted to go home. //And we might have been slightly delirious from lack of sleep.// Finally we decided to go outside and wait in the cold, because "I'll be damned if another bus drives off without us on it". Or, as Eli so eloquently put it, "we'll be like those sticky-fingered geckos, plastered to the side of the bus."

In between fits of laughter, with tears running down my face, trying to resist the urge to sit down and bury my face in my hands while I shook with laughter, I managed to choke out "Cling-ons!" which sent Eli into the same state I was in. The rest of the Spanish/Moroccan crowd probably looked on in disgust, as the three Americans laughed loud and hard. I'm okay with that.

And after we finally got on the bus, I had to look anywhere except out the windows because all I could picture were the 3 of us, leaping from the sidewalk to cling-on the windows with our sticky fingers.

Goodbye Tangier, I'm glad we ended the day on a good note, but I hope I never see you again.

New Years Resolutions Revised

In the spirit of today being a Thursday, aka the start to my weekend, I decided to do absolutely nothing but still attempt to be productive while curled up in bed with my computer. Sounds difficult, right?
So far I've refreshed facebook a bazillion times (not productive), read a short story aloud in Spanish (yay for Spanish practice), stalked everyone's pinboards on pinterest (again, not productive) and started seriously creeping on people's blogs. As in, who-are-you-where-are-you-from-tell-me-all-your-interesting-stories. Creepy. But in the process, I discovered my productive goal for the day!

I found Liz's blog! Liz is an expat in Amsterdam enjoying life with her husband and puppy, and she had a unique post about New Years resolutions. Rather than making a couple year long resolutions and promptly forgetting about them by the end of the month, she decided to stick with 1 resolution for each month of the year. Genius!

[Source]

Therefore, my productiveness for the day will be to nail down my productiveness schedule for the rest of the year. A little long-term planning, if you will.

January. This year is all about me being a better version of myself. I tend to be lazy whenever the option is there, and this results in me looking back a month later wondering "why didn't I just put in a little more effort?" So this year, I will put a little more effort into the things that matter. With that mind, although there are only 5 days left of this month, I resolve to stretch and do some sort of exercise everyday.

February. Work out at least 3 times a week. I don't have a gym membership and I don't really feel like paying for one, but since I do live in a very hilly city, I might as well take advantage of it! I also want to keep stretching every day.

March. Practice photography. I bought a nice, fancy(ish) camera right before I came to Spain, in the hopes that it would suddenly make me a better photographer. It didn't. And now I have a couple-hundred-dollar camera sitting on my desk taking up space. So this month I resolve to actually put time into learning how to use it, and into learning how to frame shots.

April. Learn how to cook. I want to successfully make all sorts of dishes, from homemade soups to chicken dishes to fancy pasta. (Fancy pasta, yes, that is my idea of cooking.) I also want to use lots of vegetables, and whole grains instead of white grains.

May. Practice Spanish. This might sound stupid, after all I'm living in Spain. But especially because I work as an English Language Assistant, I don't speak as much Spanish on a day to day basis as I'd like. Since this will be my last full month in Spain, I want to take full advantage of it and practice speaking and listening to Spanish as much as I can.

June. Pack all of my belongings into 3 suitcases and 1 purse. Oh, and go on a killer end-of-the-year trip to anywhere and everywhere I want to go in Europe, because once I leave, it will be quite a while until I come back! And also, spend as much time as possible at the beach. (This is kind of my slacker month, in case you couldn't tell.)

July. Drink more water. I hate water. Tea, yeah sure. Water with lemon and honey? Okay. But plain water? Ew. So this month I will make an effort to drink a little water first before getting something else, and especially to always substitute water for soda. And since it's summer now, drinking water is more important than ever.

August. Don't complain. (I stole this from Liz.) I tend to whine a lot. Recently I've started making an effort to bite my tongue when I realize I'm about to say something negative, but for this month I want to make an all out effort to comply with the phrase, "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all." It'll be tough. I am a very sarcastic complainer by nature.

September. Make new friends. By this time, I will most likely be living in a new city, while my boyfriend goes to school and I try to survive by working back in the 'real world', aka the U.S. I have the tendency to stick with the few friends I know and not make an effort to meet new people, but for this month, that's my goal. Do whatever it takes.

October. Read at least 3 good books. I'm a bookworm, I admit it. I love reading. There's just something about that feeling that you get from being completely wrapped up in another world. For this month I resolve to read 3 really good books, either from the best seller list or that people have recommended. And preferably books that will make me feel more world-aware, versus quick beach-read books. Any suggestions?

November. Start writing Christmas cards. This year I vow to send out Christmas cards to all my family and friends, because it will most likely be my first and last year doing it. I figure I should do it at least once. And I know that if I start writing them in December, they'll get done somewhere around the end of February. I need to start them early and give myself a deadline!

December. Spend the month filling my kitchen with delicious Christmas smells. I want to learn how to make everything from sugar cookies, to pumpkin spice lattes, to peppermint stick ice cream. Yummmm can't wait!

What are some resolutions you've made? How have you been at keeping them so far?

A [[hopefully not normal]] week in the life of an auxiliar.

Here's how my week went:

Monday morning my first 2 classes were cancelled (ahead of time, thank god), and I left at the end of my 4th class feeling slightly sick.

Then I proceeded to call in sick Tuesday and Wednesday.

And by Thursday morning I felt so guilty about this that I dragged myself out of bed, insistent on making it to my last day of work, evening though I felt light headed and ready to throw up as I raced to the bus stop, because I had left my house late. (That's true dedication people, take note.)

So, I show up at 9:10. Wait around until 9:30 when I finally catch my bilingual coordinator to ask if the teacher I was waiting for was here today. And she says,"Oh! No, you didn't know?" Well, no. Cause no one had thought to mention it to me. Nice.

Sooooooo...I played sudoku on the couch in the teachers lounge for 2 1/2 hours waiting for my next class.

The teacher for that class, who had been with me the entire 2 1/2 hours before class, waited until 2 minutes before class started to tell me that she actually didn't need me today because she was doing the class in Spanish instead. (I have lots of issues with that statement but I'll save it for another post.)

Splendid.

I told her I would go anyway, since the kids hadn't seen me since Monday.

Then, 5 minutes later, the teacher with whom I had been waiting around for all day to give a private class to, stuck her head in the door and said she had a montón of stuff to do and couldn't make it to class.

And that's when I said "screw it" and finally left.

So yes. I dragged my sick self out of bed for nothing, ran to the bus stop for nothing, and sat at school for 3 hours for nothing.

I love my job.

Okay, I really do love my job. I just have a lot of day-to-day issues with my job.

But the kids are fantastic, and (when I actually make it to a class) I always leave with a smile on my face.

But wow. Their communication system could realllllllly use some work.

A 14 mile hike, a stranger's dog, & a year's fill of Semana Santa

What do all those have in common? They were all part of the most content, yet strangest, day I've had in a long time.

My day started off at 6:50am, as I grudgingly got out of bed. At 6:50am. On a SATURDAY. Yeah. Big news. After deciding the night before at 11pm that I wanted to go for a 6 hour hike the next day, I was now facing the reality of my decision. The sun doesn't even come up until 8 o'clock here!
My motto since coming to Spain has been "just say yes". Kinda like the Nike 'just do it' logo. Which means that if someone asks me if I want to say...go for a 6 hour hike the next morning at 8am, I don't question it, I just say yes. Which luckily, turned out to be a great decision!

After coming to terms with the fact that I couldn't just burrow back under the covers and call it a day, I scrambled out of the house bleary-eyed, but excited.
I met Eli, Larken and Larken's co-worker's sister (yeah, strange connection) and we headed out for a Spanish "breakfast", aka coffee, to start our day off right. (Luckily I'd had a real breakfast before this. Because coffee and toast with olive oil just doesn't quite cut it for me...)

We met 3 other of the woman's friends, and then we headed off to the drop off point for the hike. Which leads me to the second part of my title, 'a stranger's dog'. At the start of the hiking trail was a little coffee shop, and the owner was running in and out, trailed by 2 dogs. Just before we left for our hike, the owner drove off in a van, leaving the dogs behind. Who then decided to follow us along on our hike.One of the dogs turned back after a couple miles, but the other one followed us for the entire 14 miles!

When we sat down for lunch after 3 hours of hiking, I was sure he would get bored and turn around, but instead he sat down in the middle of the group and kept on eye on things. He drank from puddles along the trail and amused himself by looking out over the Mediterannean.

The trail followed the coast line from just outside Algeciras, straight into Tarifa. It was 13 miles one way, (we went on a little detour first which made it 14 miles) and followed a twisy-turny-rocky-hilly path. It wasn't difficult though, you just had to make sure to watch your step. We took a couple lunch breaks along the way, and of course, plenty of photo stops. The trail was mostly deserted, we only passed 1 or 2 people the entire time. It wound through country side, woods, eucalyptus groves, down through the beach, and through some more country side. It was b.e.a.utiful!

Between the dogs and all the cows/horses/donkeys in the field that I stopped to take pictures of, everyone had definitely noticed my affinity for animals. They started making fun of me: "Emma, hay un burro allí, si quieres sacar una foto", o "de que estás sacando una foto?? Esta vaca??" Yes, I am taking another picture of a cow. Leave me alone.

We chose the perfect day to hike. The sky was a sunny cloudless blue and we could see individual buildings across the straight in Ceuta and port of Tangier. Along the sides of the trail were old ruins of houses, nothing as cool as Roman ruins, but ruins are cool regardless. There was also a section that was used in World War II by the military to defend Gibraltar and Spain. 

The entire hike took 6 hours, and so 6 HOURS LATER, when we walked into Tarifa, our dog was still trotting along behind us! Instead of turning and heading for home, he ambled along behind us through town, lay down in the middle of the sidewalk to wait while we went to a pastelería, and then took a nap in the middle of the outdoor seating section when we got coffee. Finally when we went back to the car to leave, he walked out into the road to follow us as we drove away! I felt terrible leaving him behind knowing that he would have to walk back the 14 miles he had just followed us for! (Everyone else assured me that he would be fine and that he doesn't it all the time....but still. I felt terrible.) 

All in all, between the sun, animals, and new found pet dog, I was in a very good mood when we reached Tarifa. And then I topped that off by buying a chocolate-covered waffle dish filled with whipped cream and topped with a strawberry.

Heaven. 

Oh. My. God. 

Delicious. 

Here's our hike in pictures:

One of the many vacas I saw.

The dog up in the front was our 'guide' for the day. The second one was a giant of a dog with a lame back foot that still insisted on walking with us about a mile up hill.

Lunch break on the beach, with a faithful dog by our side :)

You can't get pictures like this back in Wisconsin!

That's Africa in the background.

Windy windmill ridge.

Ruins.

Me :)

Lunch break #2

Rickety fence line

There's Africa again!

The most loyal dog ever.

Goooooorgeous :)

Stopping to smell the roses.

Then, a couple hours later when I was back at home, I heard what sounded like a marching band procession in the streets, just a couple blocks from my apartment. For a second, I forgot that I was in Spain, where it is completely normal (apparently) to have Semana Santa processions at any time of the year, not just during Semana Santa (Holy Week).  

I ran out of the house, determined to see this parade. Not that I had needed to run though, Semana Santa processions aren't known for their speediness...but this is what I came across! You know you are in a unique place when people voluntarily spend their Saturday nights doing this!

My own personal procession complete with a float and full marching band. The only thing missing where the crazy KKK outfits. (Which I was a-okay with. Those still creep me out.)

Top of the float.

Slow durge music. Near the end of the video watch as the float turns the corner. It's like turning corners in marching band only abazillionmillion times worse.

So cool.

I'm not religious at all, but there is something about these processions that gets me. Everyone is so serious and the music is so loud and intense, that you can't help but get in the spirit. It is definitely a unique experience. 

However, as intriguing as they are, seeing one a year just about meets my quota. I missed Semana Santa when I was studying in Granada and only saw the end of one on the last Sunday. But from hearing other people talk about watching them all week, they are all basically the same. 

So now I can be happy, since I will be missing Semana Santa in Spain again this year, but now I've seen my procession to last me through the year.