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To continue the last episode, we got up and began wandering and food finding. This time we wandered rather intentionally up to the Alhambra and found a croissanteria on the way. The Alhambra was pretty spectacular, my favorite part was the bathouse, where the entrance was marked by a waiting room with vines for a roof and a bench to rest. Each little room had stars in the ceiling except the biggest which had this:
Throughout the place were those most exquisite tiles. I think the fact that there were typically just fragments of them left made them seem even more special. At the top of the fortress the wind picked up and when we noticed it was only noon, we decided we had time to hightail it to Gibraltar before the sun set. I wanted to get a glimpse of Africa.
We stepped into the car, and the traffic, the moment rain started falling again. It took an hour to get out of the city, but we still had an ETA of 4pm, so there was a chance. It was a bit of a gamble, since it was a couple of hours of extra driving, and we weren't sure what was actually there, but since we were so close…we figured why not. If it was cool, we thought we’d stay the night, otherwise head up to Seville after seeing the Straight.
As we drove south through rolling hills of olive trees, the rain left and the sun came out with just enough overlap to produce the most perfect rainbow I believe there has ever been. And finally, the temperature picked up. 16. 17. 18. 19! It also began to feel more and more familiar, like Mexico almost. It is actually a very similar climate to southern California and it is the same chaparral landscape. The sun came out and I rolled down my window, pretending it was summer. The last bit of Spain before Gibralter (which is its own country, but owned by the British so the official language is English) looked practically third world, which was a bit of a shock, as everything else had been utterly European. After a few circles around the Gibraltan round-abouts I finally found the border and I eagerly handed the guards my passport, crossing my fingers for a stamp. Nope. I still have gotten only a single shred of official proof of my existence in Europe, the stamp I got upon arrival to the Dusseldorf airport in July. 
The next hour and a half we spent sitting in Gibraltarian rush hour. I will note for the Americans in the crowd most streets in Granada and all of them in Gibraltar were one lane. Plus parked cars on one side. It was really quite impressive that anyone, including myself in the big ol’ Partner, could maneuver through them at all. However, I'm not sure if you can consider 1.5 hours to go about 2 miles ‘maneuvering’… as you can imagine this threw off my food finding schedule and put us in less than sparkling moods. Let’s just leave the traffic of Gibraltar out and skip to Seville, perhaps simply adding that a pitstop for beer (for Rey only, of course, Mom) and a nice ham and asparagus omelet helped immensely.
