Freys in the UK: Nicole goes to Gibraltar

Hi Everyone. Special Bonus blog post this week. Prior to our London adventures, Nicole's school Netball team took a trip to Gibraltar and she's done a guest post below.

Netball is a form a basketball that is popular for girls in the UK and the rest of the Crown.

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. From what I gather, it's a lot more British than Spanish but just happens to be located in a sunny climate near Spain.

And now on to Nicole . . .

(Photo taken by Mr. Connell)

As a part of the netball team, 8 people from my year, 8 from the year above, and 3 sixth formers (11th and 12^th grade in the U.S.) got to go to Gibraltar. It’s a British Colony in the most southern part of Spain. We went to play netball but also got to do a lot of fun things too.

Gibraltar is known for the Gibraltar Rock, and is also home to many Barbary Apes. We got to take a tour around Gibraltar and up to the top of the Rock.

Another thing Gibraltar is known for is its airport. Its runway crosses one of the main streets, so everytime a plane lands, they have to close the road until the runway is clear. It is also known as the most dangerous airport in Europe, but not because of the runway. It’s dangerous because of strong crosswinds affecting Gibraltar because of the Rock. We, fortunately, flew into Malaga and bussed over.

Another view from on the top of the Rock. This is Victoria Stadium where we played our two netball matches.

When we came back from the tour we were very excited to find some monkeys very close up on the balcony of our hotel room. We were told not to leave anything on the balcony because the monkeys would take anything they could get their hands on.

Another monkey picture

(Taken by Mr. Connell)

We played our first match outside against a team called Blue Fusion. We had been told that they were very aggressive and took their sport very seriously. But most of us were pleasantly surprised that most of the girls were really nice. Our first match we lost 5-11 but it was still a lot of fun. I'm not in this particular photo but I did play in this match.

The next day we got to go on a dolphin trip. We saw a ton of common dolphins (also called hourglass dolphins). They got really close to the boat and from the front, we could see them swimming under the boat too.