A bit of Limestone and some time at sea

What a couple of days it has been.  Yesterday was our day in Gibraltar, the home of the rock.  Situated at the end of the Mediterranean, it has served as an important and strategic base for whoever held it.  Which, of course, is why the British wanted it and got it in the Treaty of Utrecht in some century past & have held onto it assiduously ever since.  It's a very small bit of the United Kingdom on the very edge of Spain, which has not always made Spain all that happy, as you can imagine.

It's famous, of course, for the Rock of Gibraltar which looms over the tiny town below at 412 metres (which is, um, quite a lot of feet--it's pretty high up there).  We did not have a berth in Gibraltar, which means to get to shore, we had to take tenders (for you land-lubbers, that's the little boats we use to get from ship to shore).  So Allen & I set out and got on a tender and walked about 25 minutes down Main Street with the cable car base as our goal.  We were accosted at a couple of points along the way by those offering us tours who were tenacious and lied maliciously we found out.  But we found our way and waited in line for about an hour to cram into a cable car (not like the San Francisco cable cars--this was the kind that lifted through the air on a cable) which lifted us up to the top of the Rock.

Up there we had views into Spain and over the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco in Africa.  We saw several of the famous apes that inhabit the Rock, legend of which says that when the last ape leaves Gibraltar, the British will no longer rule there.  The apes are kept in very good health.  (Also, on top of the Rock was the funniest restroom sign I've ever seen, which I've posted here.)

While we were on top, the wind picked up making our cable car ride downwards to be very interesting.  We were swinging and swaying as we made the six-minute descent.  Not only that, but our tender ride back to the QM2 was quite choppy.  It made me glad that the ship I'm on most of the time is very, very big.

Back on that very big ship, we had dinner and then went to the evening performance which was a magician, Philip Hitchcock.  He was very entertaining and kept us both laughing and amazed.

Today was an at sea day, which meant sleeping in, and relaxing through the day.  I attended another workshop by RADA about using our bodies to express ourselves as actors which again was very fun and informative.

The highlight of the day was sort of funny though.  Before we left on this trip, at least a month ago, we had the option of celebrating a special day that occurred within 60 days of the cruise.  Since Allen's and my anniversary of our wedding was just in August, we decided to celebrate that event on this trip.  So I called and selected a date and then sort of forgot about it.  Well, this afternoon, there was a card from Cunard wishing us a happy anniversary addressed to "Mr. Foster & Mrs. Brague."  Okay.  Then at dinner, our waiter and some of the other wait staff approached our table with a small cake with a candle in it that also said "Happy Anniversary."  They approached the table and put the cake in front of the only and very surprised heterosexual couple at our table and broke into a heavily accented rendition of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."  The cake was intended for Mr Foster & Mrs Brague of course, but naturally the staff assumed that it was for Karen and Richard (whose 42nd anniversary was only three days after ours).  It was all very funny and we brought to the cake back to our room and the three of us (Marilyn, Allen, & I) enjoyed it with some of the leftover Prosecco from our wedding reception.

All in all though a good two days.  Tomorrow we dock early and head into Rome.  Stay tuned!

Ahoy!